Recent Adoptions

I seem to have an animal for every Sunday in Advent as well as other feast days. :-)

NeilMany years ago a fellow named Thorne Smith wrote a book named Topper describing an ordinary man's encounter with a married couple who lived hard and fast and died the same way, in a car accident, and who return to haunt him. It was made into a film starring Cary Grant, and then into a television series, with Leo G. Carroll (yes, "Mr. Waverly" himself) as Topper and Robert Sterling and Anne Jeffreys as the ghosts, George and Marion Kerby. In the TV series they died in an avelanche while skiing, along with a St. Bernard rescue dog. The dog, Neil, accompanied them on their hauntings; he was also a bit of a dipsomaniac. So it was natural that I'd name a Webkinz of the same breed after Neil.

(The joke continues: this was an adoption that included a Superbed; I picked the Movie Bed because some friends of ours have a teenage son with the same name, and he wants to become a filmmaker.)

BonfireNeil was my St. Nicholas Day adoption. For the second Sunday of Advent, the pet du jour was Bonfire, who is my "Hallowe'en cat"; she's living in the Hallowe'en "bed and breakfast."




TreveAnd then my long-awaited birthday gift, the cutest of them all, my collie, named after Albert Payson Terhune's "Treve." Terhune claimed Treve got this call name from his kennelman Robert Friend, who, when Terhune asked him about it, replied, "Well, a dog has got to know how to 'treve' before he can 'retrieve,' doesn't he?" I'm afraid I'm going to be playing favorites with this one, because not only is the stuffed animal adorable, but the avatar is equally cute!