How Lucie became the reigning Princess of Mundenville...

When we bought our house, I immediately wanted to get a dog. We owned a house, it had a fenced yard, it was perfect! We didn't get a dog right away though because we just couldn't agree on how a dog would fit into our family.

I was raised with lots of pets. We had dogs, cats, and horses. My dog and cat slept on my bed at night, and I just assumed that is how it was supposed to be. My husband believed that pets were just that, pets. Dogs didn't belong in the house, or at least not for long periods of time, and cats, well they just don't belong on his planet.

In January of 2008 my sister and brother-in-law had to have their beloved Rottweiler, Benny Girl, put to sleep. They said, "No more dogs!" And then they said, "No more big dogs!" And then they said, "Well, no more dogs right away..." Two weeks after losing Benny Girl, my sister had been perusing the humane society's website because she was ready for another dog. She found Patty. Patty was a 2 year old black lab who had been found living in an abandoned barn with her 4 puppies. Patty looked just like Kimberly's other dog Isabelle. The decision had been made, and Kimberly headed off to the shelter to adopt Patty. She was too late. Patty had already found a new home, as had two of her puppies.

So Kimberly decided to look at the remaining puppies and first she decided to meet "Jessie" as she was called by the shelter. Jessie was brought into the room and immediately ran straight to not-quite 2 year old Mason and jumped up on him and pinned him to the wall licking him, and excitedly nipping at him. They decided that Jessie was too hyper, so they next met "Becca." Becca was far more laid back around the kids, and they decided she was a keeper. They decided to change her name from Becca to Josie, much to the dismay of my not-quite-6 year old nephew Tobin. He wanted to name her "Princess Cutie Adorable."

My sister returned to work and showed me the pictures of Josie, and my mind was made up. I went to work on my husband like I never have before, and I finally convinced him to meet me at the shelter after work the next night. I called the shelter first thing the next morning and told them who I was, and that my sister had adopted the other puppy, and that we'd like to meet her sister. I got down there that night already thinking of great names for my new puppy that I was sure I was going to get. I was trying to decide between Lily and Zoe. I thought once I met her, I would know for sure what her name was supposed to be.

Matt got to the shelter before me and was already playing with her, or trying to. She showed no interest in toys, and just wanted to run from person to person getting attention. When I entered the kennel, she came running towards me, tripped and fell, and skidded to a stop at my feet. In that moment I knew she was neither a Lily or a Zoe. She was nowhere near elegant or refined enough for those names. I knew she was a Lucie. Not a common Lucy, but a special Lucie with an "ie."

Matt was reluctant to take her because of her lack of interest in toys. He told me that she would not be trainable. We (Lucie and I) double teamed him with the puppy-dog eyes, and he relented. We signed the papers and set up a time to pick her up after her surgery.

I went to Costco and bought her a dog bed, and some puppy food. And I counted down the hours until I could bring her home.

Monday after the Giants historic win over those stinking Patriots, I got to pick up my puppy and bring her home. The first few days were rough, she didn't like sleeping in her crate, and she also didn't understand the whole going potty outside thing. And she could hold it longer than any other animal I have ever seen. Matt built her bedroom in the garage and the first few nights she'd bark, but then she got used to her bedroom, and started to like it.

Matt started working on obedience training, and sure enough she proved to be a smart girl who responded well to praise based training. He was pleased that she was in fact trainable.

Its funny to me that she went from being the puppy who was going to be an outdoor dog, and never get people food, to the dog who laid across our laps on the couch last night while we watched a movie, after she got her two bites of porkchop off his fork when he was done with dinner.

What's in a name?

What’s in a name?

Now I’m not a parent yet, but I do know that one of the most difficult things to do when you are expecting a child is to pick out a name for your child. You do this with the utmost care and love, knowing that this is the name your precious baby will carry their whole life through.

When I was still renting a womb from my Mom, my parents decided that I, unlike my sister and my two cousins, would NOT have the middle name Rae. I was to be given my mother’s middle name of Susan if I should turn out to be a girl. They decided on the name Stephanie for me. They did not, however, agree on the spelling of that name. My mother wanted the (what I consider to be) traditional spelling, “Stephanie” and my father wanted to spell it “Stefani” like Stefani Powers. They argued over this issue after I was born. My mother, being the devious type, waited until my father left to get some lunch and then filled out the birth certificate without him. Thus Stephanie Susan Christianson had entered the world.

What my parents didn’t know yet was that they had apparently given me the wrong name.

On a daily basis at work I am called by a variety of names other than the one so lovingly and painstakingly picked out by my parents. I answer the phone, “Pacific Building Center True Value, this is Stephanie. How may I help you?” I am greeted in return with, “Oh hello Bethany.” “Hello Tiffany” “Oh, hi Daphne” “Hi Becky” “Hi Christy” and so on… Now the first 2 I can understand. They do pretty much rhyme with my name, and on the phone I can understand the confusion. Even Daphne I guess I can understand, but really, how do Becky or Christy sound like Stephanie? One day I was on the phone with a vendor and I was placing an order and he said, “Ok, give me your name again.” I said, “Stephanie” he said “Ok, thanks Bethany.” I said, “No, my name is Stephanie.” He says, “Bethany? B-E-T-H…” I interrupted, “NO, Stephanie! S-T-E-P-H-A-N-I-E!!” He apologized, got my name correctly on the invoice and we moved on.

I know that I shouldn’t let it bother me as much as I do. But that is one thing that has the power to really rankle me.

My Facebook friends will already know a little of the back story of the customer who calls me Jennifer. (Actually he calls me “Yennifer” because he is Hispanic.) He has called me this for at least 2 years now. One day, more than a year ago, he called me Jennifer and then looked at my name tag, which clearly says Stephanie, and then asked me what my name was. I told him it was Stephanie. The next time he was in he said, “Hello Jennifer” and I didn’t bother to correct him.

This has been going on again until today. He called the store to find out if the thatcher was available to rent today, and when I told him it was, he said he’d be in to get it in half an hour. Then he said, “Thanks Stephanie.” He was in the store 15 minutes later and when he walked in he said, “Hi Jennifer” This afternoon when he returned the thatcher he walked in and again said, “hi Jennifer” and I helped him with grass seed and fertilizer, I helped him unload the machine from his truck and load the fertilizer and seed into the truck. When we were finished, he said “Thank you Jennifer.” Then he looked at me rather quizzically and said, “Jennifer??” I smiled and said, “It’s Stephanie.” He started apologizing and I told him, “It’s ok, I answer to just about anything.”

This story reminds me a lot of another customer we had, more than 10 years ago now, I had a man come into the store and buy some stuff and pay with a credit card. The name on the credit card was “Tim Bird.” He became a regular customer, in several times a week. He set up a cash account to get a discount on his purchases. The cash account was set up under the name of Tim Bird. Every time he was in, we’d say “Hi Tim,” and “Thanks Tim” and that year when we sent out our company Christmas cards, we included Tim on the list because he was such a nice guy. When Tim had been a customer of ours for over a year and a half, we were talking to a former (and now current) co-worker of my dad’s who worked at another lumberyard in the county, and he said that he was sending Fred Bird up to our store to get some stuff. We had the stuff pulled aside and all ready for Fred, who we figured must be Tim’s often mentioned brother. Imagine our surprise when “Tim” walked in the door. After all this time we finally figured out that Tim’s real name was Fred and that he was doing all this work for his brother Tim, and so that’s why he used his credit card and set the account up under his name. We asked him why he never corrected us, and he said, “Oh, it’s ok. I don’t mind.” My mom said, “But we sent you a Christmas card under that name.” He said, “I know, I told my brother, ‘Isn’t that nice, they sent you a Christmas card.’” To this day, I have never met the real Tim Bird, and sadly Fred, having finished up the work for his brother, moved away before we could get used to calling him by the name that his parents had so lovingly and painstakingly picked out for him.

Big Blue, the Vacuum Slayer

My living room carpet, aka Big Blue the Vacuum Slayer…

We have a Roomba iRobot vacuum. My husband bought it "for me" for our anniversary almost 2 years ago. Now, I must digress a little here and say that this gift was not really for me since when we divided up chores all those years ago, he agreed to do the vacuuming since I hate, hate, HATE it. I'll gladly scrub a bathroom for hours on end, but I don't want to vacuum. Ok, back to the Roomba, I really like it, I mean really, what's not to like, it vacuums for you!!! But it’s not quite heavy duty enough to keep up with the constant shedding of Ms. LucieBelle.

I have an Oreck XL Commercial duty vacuum that works wonderfully well upstairs, on the stairs, on hard surfaces, and even in the somewhat plush shag carpet in the TV room. It is sadly no match for Big Blue. Big Blue burns through belts on that vacuum like you wouldn’t believe. So a few weeks ago we went and bought a new vacuum because the Oreck refuses to even go into my living room now. I got a bagless vacuum because, well because we were looking for a not-very-expensive vacuum and that’s what they had. I thought, “Wow, bagless will be so nice. You just dump the canister when you’re done and you never have to worry about how full the bag is before you start. This will be great.”

I was wrong. I plugged it in and began vacuuming the room and immediately the vacuum starts shocking me. Now, I already hate vacuuming anyway, I really don’t need this kind of aversion therapy that my new vacuum was providing. My husband was in the kitchen and he kept hearing me go, “Ouch, ouch, OUCH!!!” So he came out to see what was going on. I told him that not only was it shocking my hand, but when I’d pull the vacuum back towards me, when it was within 6” of my leg, it would deliver a resounding “ZAPPP!!!!” to my thigh. He thought I was exaggerating. (Me??? Never!) So he began vacuuming the room and immediately reached the same conclusion that I did. This machine was evil and needed to be destroyed. Ok, maybe he just realized that the vacuum was building up a lot of static, and tried to fix it. We rubbed the vacuum down with Bounce dryer sheets, and I sprayed the whole floor with static spray. It helped. I had done less than ¼ of the room at this point. I made the mistake of looking at the canister and was horrified to see that it was already ½ full. I finished that room, the shocks thankfully were greatly diminished. I removed the canister and it was completely full of dirt and dog hair. I felt pretty bad about myself and my housekeeping abilities. I went out and emptied it into the trash, and took a can of air and blew out the filter. Then I started again in other rooms. No shocks. Still tons of dirt though.

I emptied the canister after each room, and every time I removed it from the vacuum, I could feel the judgment just seeping from that cursed machine. When I was thinking that I couldn’t really feel any worse about myself and my apparently filthy house, I looked at the vacuum, and I swear I heard it say, “Wow, you’re a filthy pig, aren’t you?” I wanted to shoot it! But I didn’t, I just hung my head in shame, acknowledged that it was right, and walked away.

All Aboard!!!

Welcome to my train of thought. At times it's much like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride... there's no controlling which way it goes, or why. Sometimes it even amazes me. So, if you're looking for a way to escape for a few minutes and read my ramblings... then by all means, enjoy! You'll probably end up thinking, "Wow, she really is crazy!" but that's ok. I already knew that. :-)

So, that introduction having been made, let's get on board with a few random thoughts that have been buzzing around my brain lately...

Why do movies always have “romantic” scenes with the people sitting on the floor in front of a couch? That’s not realistic at all. I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I sit on the floor for more than a couple of minutes, when I get up, my legs hurt. My knees creak and crack, I hobble around all bent over for a minute while I’m trying to fight through the pain shooting down my legs. And I’m only 33. I was watching a movie last weekend where both actors involved in this scene were in their 50’s. I highly doubt that when she said, “I’ll get us more wine” that she really just got right to her feet and walked into the kitchen. I’m guessing that’s why the camera was on his face while she hobbled off in tears to get more wine.

This came to mind a few days ago when I was watching the movie, but then I was reminded of it a little while ago when I was filing contracts at work, and I crouched down next to the bottom drawer of my file cabinet for about a minute and my legs protested quite loudly when I stood up again.