“Marica?” Missy slid off the bed, sauntered over to Marica’s desk and sat down on the floor.

“Oh! Hey Missy,” Marica replied. “What’s up?”

“Ruff?” wondered Rocky.

“Well, Marica, we wondered why you are looking so pensive these last few minutes.”

“I’m trying to think of a name for something,” Marica said sighing.

“Ruff?”

“Oh. Well! That should be no trouble whatsoever for you,” Missy said. “You and John name everything here on The Farm! Why, there’s the Bunkhouse, and The Apartment, and the Pond Pasture, and the North Pasture, and the… “

“Ruff?” Rocky interrupted.

“It’s a vase, Rocky,” Marica answered.

“A vase?!?” Missy exclaimed

“Ruff?!?” Rocky exclaimed.

“Why in the world would anyone want to name a vase?” Missy asked incredulously. “What in the world would possess a rational agent to name a vase? To what end? What would be the purpose of such an exercise?”

“R.U.F.F.” Rocky said in no uncertain terms.

“Well, it’s like this,” Marica began, and told the story of the Raku potter’s efforts to name the vase previously known as ’44.’

“What an interesting story, Marica,” Missy was thoroughly taken in. “May we see it?”

“Oh sure,” Marica said. “I’ll pull up his web site and show you.”

Missy stood up, slipped on her reading glasses, rested her head on Marica’s desk and said, “Oh my stars! That is lovely, isn’t it?”

“Ruff,” Rocky mumbled as he walked into his box. He anticipated that the conversation was going to take a turn to the “refined,” as Missy might say, and he wanted none of it.

“Quite,” Marica answered. “But what do you think its name should be?”

“Well, to begin with, Marica, that is no ordinary vase,” Missy said most emphatically. “Indeed it is a work of art in the style of the Masters– beauty incoherent– a … “

“Don’t you mean, ‘incarnate’?” Marica smiled.

“Of course! That’s what I said. Beauty incarnate– a subliminal expression of the artist’s quest for essential essences,” Missy continued, waving her paw through the air. “No, Marica. That is no ordinary vase. That is a vase.”

“I know it’s a vase, but what should we name it?”

“No, no, no, Marica. It’s not a vaaace, as the vulgar would say. It is a vahz,” Missy corrected, jutting her snout ever so slightly upward.

“A vahz, you say? Well, that’s what we shall name it,” Marica said, “Vahz.”