Dog Stays in the Picture by Susan; Morse Page A

about things like what to do with the hair. Orthodox nuns and priests are not supposed to ever, ever cut their hair, and it’s a challenge figuring out how to safely stow Ma’s long white mane now that it’s grown past her waist. I’m a bit worried the mane will come loose someday and get caught in the motor of the electric scooter she uses to jet around campus on her various social assignations.
    Mother Brigid says her prayers daily; the priests check in whenever they can. The issue of e-mails keeps cropping up. The nearest Orthodox Christian clergy in our state are all in Carlisle. The rest are scattered throughout the United States and Canada, and they constantly send each other vital communications by e-mail—e-mails­ Mother Brigid misses out on because she doesn’t have a computer. If I print and hand-deliver all the stuff they send me for her I’ll wipe out half the forests on the planet, for Lord’s sake.
    A computer is out of the question. Ma has been techno-impaired for as long as I can remember; it’s not an age thing—she can barely operate her cordless phone. I tried giving her a castoff iMac and an e-mail address some years ago, just as an experiment, back in the pre–Mother Brigid era when logging into e-mail was a long and complicated process better left to younger generations. Ma was extremely motivated to learn, but all our emergency problem-solving phone sessions were totally unproductive, like an endless bumper-car ride to nowhere:
    â€” This computer is definitely broken.
    â€” Nothing is broken, Ma. You turned it on, right?
    â€” Oh. How do I do that?
    â€” See the button on the bottom of the screen?
    â€” Wait a minute. I’m in the bedroom.
    (Clump clump clump.)
    â€” All right, what am I looking for?
    â€” There’s a round button down on the right. Push it.
    (A loud blaring noise erupts in the background.)
    â€” Susie, what on earth is that racket?
    â€” I don’t know. Did the screen turn on? What do you see?
    â€” What? It’s too noisy in here.
    â€” MA. WHAT DO YOU SEE ON THE SCREEN?
    â€” I see Fox. Oh, I can’t bear it.
    â€” You see a fox? What’s wrong with it? Never mind. Are there any words on the screen?
    â€” There’s a new pope. He’s waving from the balcony of the Vatican.
    â€” Ma.
    â€” Honestly, the Catholics. Look at them all adoring him and rejoicing.
    â€” MA. That’s Fox News on the television.
    â€” What?
    â€” TURN THE TELEVISION OFF, MA. GO OVER TO YOUR DESK AND TURN ON THE THING THAT SAYS IMAC.
    I can’t rush over to Ma’s with these e-mailed Recluse homilies. I don’t even have time to read my own e-mails right now. We’re in the final stretch of the boys’ college application process, and it’s hell on so many levels.
    Someone suggested to me once that the reason parents and teenagers clash has something to do with biological programming. Tempers are designed to flare because adolescents are supposed to go out into the world eventually, be fruitful, and multiply. If home is a totally happy, welcoming place for them, what’s to leave?
    It’s not that bad; I do love our boys. Eliza’s college application process three years ago was equally fraught, and after all that intensity her departure was a real shock to me—like being dumped by a first love. At Eliza’s new campus they really knew how to milk the fall drop-off for parents of freshmen. We had two full days of family orientation events, climaxing with a huge rally in the sports arena. Parents sat in bleachers with their kids and listened to administrators crowing about all the exciting opportunities for this year’s brilliant crop of scholars. Just when they had us convinced we were the luckiest families in the United States, they called the freshmen down to meet their perky orientation advisors, who would keep them busy for the rest of the evening, later