Allow Myself to Introduce...Myself

I have now given up hope that the name Cora isn't "coming back." Cora has officially met another Cora. Luckily for us, though, it wasn't another little baby - it was an eight week old Beagle puppy!!!

Look - can you read her tag? It says "Cora Pittman."

Is she not the most adorable puppy ever?? When she howls it'll break your heart.

She belongs to the woman in charge of recruitment here at BTSR (Kristen, if you're reading, you'll be pleased to know that Coleman refers to her as "the Kristen Richardson of BTSR...well, the old Kristen anyway"), though Cora is just a nickname. She and her husband have three dogs, all named for guitars. They have a Gibson, a Taylor (I think), and now a Cordoba - hence the nickname "Cora."

Here is their first introduction:

"First we sniffs her..."

"And then we licks her head!"**

While we were all standing around talking, a really funny thing happened. Two other male staff members walked by and were introduced to the puppy Cora. One said, "What did you name that dog??? That's an old, old lady's name!" At this point, I couldn't stop myself from saying, "And you should meet our daughter, Cora."

He looked stricken. He stammered about how he had an aunt named Cora so that's why he associated it with older women, at which point I helped him out of it by laughing and saying she was named for her Great-great-great grandmother, so she was indeed named after an "old, old lady." He still looked pretty embarrassed, though.

Tiffany (the Kristen Richardson of BTSR) also mentioned that someone else on staff had told her not to tell us their dog's nickname for fear we might be offended. I assured her that we were a little harder to offend than that, and as long as she let me play with her Cora on occasion, we'd be even.

Now don't worry, Max - she'll never take your place in my affections! She's merely a placeholder until we meet again.

**Andy and Jen may recognize this as my Gollum voice, which is terribly applicable here since I want to have a Beagle and name him or her Smeagol. Coleman says only a boy puppy can be na,ed that, but that's another argument for another post...