Asking Eric

Dear Eric: I am in my 70s so I should know better. Almost two years ago I had to put my 13-year-old Yorkshire Terrier named Shorty to sleep. This broke my heart.

Dear Eric: I have a friend of several decades and recently learned she is a hoarder. We always met outside our homes for coffee or lunch. I just assumed it was more convenient.

Dear Eric: I’m married with four kids and have a sizable extended family. One son, who is in seventh grade, runs track and finished the season with personal records in his events, which also happen to place second in his school’s all-time best records.

Dear Eric: My husband and I have been estranged from our 17-year-old granddaughter for eight years. We were loving, supportive grandparents but after the mother of our granddaughter broke up with our son, the father, she stopped our granddaughter from seeing us as well.

Dear Eric: Since retiring, some friends have put together a band. I went to one of their gigs a couple years ago, and recently a practice session.

Dear Eric: A friend of mine is a lovely woman, and a real animal lover. The problem is that she lives near some woods and feeds the wild animals that come to her yard. I’m not talking about just putting out a bird feeder, but she feeds opossums, raccoons, deer and other creatures, and gets a lot of pleasure out of doing so. It is not recommended that anyone feed wild animals in this way. It is bad for the animals and for you, for lots of

Dear Eric: An old high school girlfriend of my husband’s (more than 40 years) creates social media posts about him and tags him, including photos of him or of the two of them together. In my husband’s defense, he has always responded or reacted appropriately with only a short neutral comment or reaction.

Dear Eric: Twenty-six years ago, my mother worked with a married woman who was pregnant with her fourth child but couldn’t afford to add another child to her family. My sister and husband had a son and wanted a daughter. My mom arranged for the two women to meet, and my sister adopted the baby.

Dear Eric: I own a nice home with a pool. I have friends that often call me to ask me if I want to go lay out in the backyard or sometimes, they’ll just call and ask if they can come over to use the pool. My issue is when I have people over, I feel obligated to entertain. Even though I know I don’t need to feel obligated, and they don’t expect anything, I’m really getting increasingly uncomfortable with people inviting themselves over to my home.

Dear Eric: I was a latch-key kid in the ’70s, no father, working mom of three kids. No one was ever there to read me a story, watch me make a basket or catch a ball. I now have a seven-year-old girl. I thrive watching her in her weekly two-hour gym class and Girl Scout meetings, where I am a troop leader. I see most parents focused on their cellphones during these activities and it makes me sad for the kids.