How Do I Name Thee? Let Me Count the Ways

I apparently use pop culture to name mine. Let me tell you about our pets' names...

When I was a little girl my mom and dad got me a chocolate lab puppy that I named Cocoa. He was a great dog. Shortly after we moved from the town where we got him to where we live now, he ran away and/or got run over because he was trying to run free. He roamed a lot when we moved here - I think that's just what dogs do.

Around the time of Cocoa I also went through a hoard of kitties. The one I remember naming was Town Clown (I was a big Captain Kangaroo fan). I don't remember Town Clown being around for long. I'm not sure what happened to him though I have a vague memory of one of the many kitties we tried to have become part of our family getting killed by a neighborhood dog.

After we moved to Charleston we got a new, fluffy, gray kitty when I was in the second grade, and my brother named him George. I think it was because of the cartoon where the Abominable Snowman finds Daffy Duck looking like a "Pink Bunny Rabbit". You know, "I will name him George and I will hug him and pet him and squeeze him. And I will pat him and pet him and rub him and caress him". I loved the name and loved the kitty but was always a bit jealous that my brother's name for him was the one that was picked.

George died while I was in college. It was very sad for me, George had always kind of been my cat - sleeping on my bed every night, sitting with me in the family room. I missed him when I went away to college and Bryan, my then boyfriend, now husband, purchased some gerbils for me for Valentine's Day. I named them Rocky and Bullwinkle. (From "The Bullwinkle Show" aka "The Adventures of Bullwinkle and Rocky". Are you seeing a naming trend yet?) Rocky and Bullwinkle were some cool gerbils. They had precious personalities and lived several years with me moving to and from college and even lived on the sorority hall with a hamster and a guinea pig. (all of which I might add were breaking the dorm rules).

After moving off campus, a neighborhood cat started hanging with us. Since he always came to our front porch at the same time every day, I lovingly started calling him "Porch Monkey". I think there is some kind of politically incorrect undertone with that moniker, but Porchy was a great cat and I loved his name. I saw nothing wrong with it.

I then adopted Cahli (sounds like Callie). That name was short for Calhoun, the son-in-law of the founder of the University I attended. I wanted desperately to name her after Clemson somehow, or one of the characters from the movie "Shag", and Calhi was the only thing I ended up liking.

On to the next animal, the first black lab daughter that Bryan and I adopted. I wanted to name this puppy something after Charleston since that was the place I grew up and I longed to get back. We housed her on our sun porch for quite some time, and after a week or two of trying to come up with names like Stono, Cooper, Ashley (all rivers here in town), or Folly, Sullivan or Edisto (all beaches around here). I then started with old Charleston names and never found one that struck me.

This poor puppy started out her life with us being kenneled on our sun porch when we went to work (or law school as was the case with Bryan). That's where she got paper trained and left all by herself until someone got home in the evenings or did a quick trip to come home for lunch to spend time with her. That's when it hit me (or hit a friend of mine - I can't remember who came up with it first)...Poogan. Poogan had to be this dog's name.

Why? Well, there was (and still is) a restaurant in the historic district, inside an old Charleston single house, called Poogan's Porch. It got its name because of the dog that used to frequent the porch. And so our little puppy got her name...Poogan.

Since then, Poogan and Cahli learned to love each other and are now both in that "big pet heaven in the (where ever it may be)". Because of this we now have more pets in our brood.

There's Oscar (who took over after Cahli's 14 year life ended [could have been only 12]). I let the children name him though I should have just done it my own self. I don't really know what my name would have been, but I don't think it would have been Oscar. But it pretty much suits him now. He was named for Will Smith's character in the movie "Shark Tale". For no particular reason other than they liked that movie at the time. We now like to pretend that he is a prim and proper English gentleman.

Then along came Felix (you also know him as my Trouble Cat). He's a black and white cat who is a fluffy version of Felix the Cat from the first 1960's animated show on TV. In the name deliberation process I was hoping for Bovine (Bo for short) or Holstein (as in the cow breed) because of his markings making him look like a fluffy Holstein/Bovine (aka cow). But none of the family would bite on these for some reason. So my mom offered up Felix in an ode to us having a Felix and Oscar of The Odd Couple from 1970's TV fame. Only my Felix and Oscar had swapped personalities from the ones on the TV show.

After Poogan died we adopted two dogs that we found with the help of Lowcountry Lab rescue.
The naming of the black one, Willis, was due in part to all of my old standby Charleston names and places being thrown out - AGAIN - and my jovial reading of signs in a mountain town as we traveled from visiting her. Jaunita (of Juanita's Taco Palace) was rejected as well as Ingle (of Ingle's grocery store), and several others (whew). Then I again, jokingly, threw the name Willis in the mix after seeing the sign for "Willis' Auto Body Repairs". With this dog being a girl I was truly joking (though it had a nice ring to it), and I was thinking, "Whatchoo talkin' 'bout Willis?" in the back of my mind when 3 year old Legare pipes up that he likes that name and that we should definitely call her "Lillis". And so there you go - that's how we got Willis.

That day of visiting Willis, we also decided to love and adopt a Yellow Lab (female) as well. Since we deliberated so long with naming her, and I kept calling her Yella Dog, and because Julia wanted her to have a girly name, unlike Willis', we chose Ella. Sounded like Yella (which she had already been responding too) and I convinced Julia that it was short for Cinderella. She bought it and thus...Ella had her name.

Along the way we had several fish, two of the last ones were named Cosmo and Melman (again from some kind of kid's tv shows or movies. Cosmo from "Fairly Odd Parents" and Melman, from the movie "Madagascar".

So that makes a total of 14 pets. 10 of which have definite ties to TV shows or movies (planned or not).

All of this to bring you to the name of our new furry baby. We planned and made lists just like always and have come up with the name Eloise ("Weesie" if you're in a hurry). Eloise, because we like the name. Not because we see her being a trouble maker like the little girl that lived in The Plaza hotel, but because we like the name AND the nickname it lent.

Since Eloise has had her own book and movies, and since there was Weesie Jefferson from "The Jefferson's", I guess it is now safe to say that, over my lifetime of having pets, the total is now 11 of 15 pets having to do with TV shows or Movies in some way or another.

Our New and Furry Family Member

This is the (sleepy) face we met this morning. We went looking for puppies and were a bit disappointed when we got there and only males were left. The owner promised there was one more female puppy and that her favorite place to sleep was wedged under the ramp that went into their storage shed.

Well she was there. DEEP back against the leading edge of the ramp and DEEP asleep. We finally got her out and it was very difficult to have her break her puppy coma. We decided we loved her and wanted her. The cheer the kids gave to Bryan when we had him on speaker phone making sure this is what we wanted was one like I haven't heard. And I've heard some good ones.



So we got her home and she perked right up. Excited to see her new surroundings and her new Big Sis Willis (our adult black lab). She frolliced and romped with Willis and showed Willis a toy so they could play. And then.....
And there she has been (for about 2 hours). I hope this doesn't mean she'll be up all night.
We haven't named her yet, but we have a list started.

Anyone want to add your 2 cents to the list? We're open for suggestions.

Why You Should Always Look Where You're Going

This is what will happen when you walk backwards and hit the mug of hot water that your mother is carrying to the sink. Doing this will also make your mom cry once she has gotten a cold towel on you and mopped up the water that found its way to the floor. A trip to the drugstore for burn cream makes it feel much better. 5:00 medication will help your mother feel better later on today. (approx. 8:30 am)

3:30 pm burn update: The cream has been working ok. The lines are now more definitive. There are some popped as well as unpopped blisters. The portion right below the open, popped, pink blister looks like it may be the worst (besides the open, popped, pink blister). I think the opened blister is due to him grabbing the area as it happened with his shirt still on him. I think that whole action caused all of the blisters that are popped, to pop.

I'll take busy over this!

Thought me and several of my "blog reads" had been taking time off because of the busy things life sends our way. One of my blog friends has just opened a restaurant - so needless to say she's been pretty busy and hasn't been able to post much. I wasn't really sure what was up with Farm Girl Fare except that it's summer time and the lambs on her farm are growing up and this is usually coyote season. And hay baling season. Well boy was I wrong.
She's just had a run in with a copper head that landed her in the ICU for a week. You should check the story out by clicking here.

Hope everyone is staying busy. And safe!

I've Been Doing Lots of Things

Hey, there! It's been a while.
A long while.
That means time must be Hauling Ass. I feel like I just posted the other day.
I can't believe that it's already the middle of July.

Well, read on if you want some quick snapshots of what we've been up to.

The children are (almost) finished with their summer math books. Julia is finished with almost all of her summer reading. Legare is 1/4 of the way finished with it. I'm getting nervous whether he'll finish or not without a big struggle (he's currently giving very little effort to it)

Aside from summer math and reading, what have we been doing? Well....

We replaced the 2nd of the long time fish. (Both of the new fished died, and we decided to retire the bowl for a while. I still kind of miss seeing the fish as I walk by the book shelves.)

The first week of summer we vacationed at Kiawah with the family. Loads of fun.
We've celebrated mother's day, father's day and my Dad's b-day in one pool or another.
We buried a friend's 10 year old daughter last week (amoebic meningitis).
I've seen Julia off on a week's vacation to the Adirondacks with some good friends (she's coming home Sunday).
We've had weeks and weeks of 3-a-day swim practices and two swim meets a week (sounds like a lot, but it's actually kind of fun - Bryan I'm sure would beg to differ). The City Meet is happening this Sun through Tuesday and we'll be officially done with swimming.
I had lunch with a long lost sorority sister who was in town.
We came home from Kiawah to a green pool and a house full of fleas.
Had to replace the salt-to-chlorine unit (it was under warranty yeah - no expense). Once it was fixed, the pool "blued" right up.
I've Medicated the crap out of the animals for the fleas.
We bombed the house for fleas the day we got back from Kiawah.
Just this week I sprayed down the yard for fleas. This coincided with re-medicating the animals - AGAIN. I think I've been doing this every 3 weeks instead of the recommended 4. Is that animal abuse?
We got new (to us - but they're hand-me-downs) bunk beds put up in one of the bedrooms at "the red tin roof" house.
We finally got most of the stuff out of the upstairs bedrooms at the red tin roof house.
We have full use of the dining room out there again due to another cleaning (thank you Spencer - for relocating your office stuff and being such a great overseer while you were having your temp office there).
We put the boats in the water. I think we've already used them more this summer than last.
A few friends came out to the farm (aka "red tin roof house") for a pre-4th celebration.
Bryan and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary (by celebrating I mean we went out to the farm and I got to crawl under the house to run a pipe.)
This pipe means there is now water at the dock (yea!).

I've placed the order for the school supply kits for about 200 children. (I'm in charge of the particular committee that handles that).
I have also ordered the few misc. things that need to be in the kits that our supplier couldn't find.

I've been to the DNR Office twice. Once right before the 4th to get a registration sticker for the boat. Again today to replace faded registration stickers for the motor.
I've watched my precious child, Legare, learn to hydro-slide. (and since it's on a Hydro-Slide brand knee board, I can call it Hydro-sliding).
I put Julia's finger in a splint for a little over a week due to thinking it was broken because of pinching it in the hinge of the boat ladder (I've never seen such a black finger tip - ouch!)
I attended a Guerilla Cuisine event (underground supper club) at Blu. (very interesting and great food!).
I will be going to the mountains in August.
Legare will be attending Camp St. Christopher in August.
Both children will go with Mom and Dad to Holden Beach in August.
At some point I have to order school uniforms (new this year - 5 days a week, not just on PE days.) I can't decide if I'm excited or not.
I've applied for a job or two (no responses).
And I've been doing lots of laundry. Drinking lots of beers, and been enjoying my children.
What about you?