Ruh-roh!!

When I was in elementary school, I used to rush home every afternoon to watch the spooky soap, Dark Shadows. I remember dreading Thursdays because I had Girl Scouts that day and had to miss it -- for any youngsters reading this, this was way back before there was such a thing as VCRs, not to mention TiVo -- if you weren't home to watch, you were out of luck. There was also no such thing as -- gasp -- the Internet -- if a show got canceled, you pretty much didn't know it until it was suddenly off the air. I can vividly remember the last episode of Dark Shadows -- I had no idea the end was near but suddenly they were tying up loose ends and saying something heartbreaking like "the dark shadows at Collinwood were no more" -- and that was that. I remember running outside, into the woods behind our house, and crying like a baby for a good solid hour.

One of my favorite characters on Dark Shadows was a ghost named Daphne, played by a very young, just-starting-0ut, Kate Jackson. I loved the character and I fell in love with the name. My first-born daughter, I insisted, would be Daphne. Well, I didn't take into account there'd be a husband who'd also get a vote and he nixed the name. It was not an argument worth pursuing -- you pick your battles and this was not one of them. We settled on Shannon, a name that pleased us both. By the way, I did get my wish with my son's name -- Wesley -- another name I'd desired since childhood -- though, for the life of me, I can't remember why.

I continued to love the name Daphne, though you don't hear it that often. There's a Daphne in Scooby-Doo, there was also a Daphne in the sitcom, Frasier -- and, there's author Daphne Du Maurier, one of my all-time favorites. The only real-life Daphne I "know" is Daphne, from Tanzanite's Shelf and Stuff (one of my favorite historical fiction blogs).

I'm really surprised that I never named one of my fictional characters Daphne. I don't know why I haven't -- but, then again, my characters pick their own names and nobody has ever chosen that one.

Yesterday, as many have suspected we would -- including anyone who read my last post -- we added another pup to our household. She's a little mutt who will probably grow up to be a medium-sized dog -- she's nearly all black except for a couple of white toes on her back feet and a white mark on her chest. We'd come up with several names -- chiefly Jorja (as in actress Jorja Fox) and Gretl (another Sound of Music name to go along with Liesl) but Carrie mentioned my old favorite and then I knew I was finally going to have a Daphne in my household -- not human but canine -- but you take what you can get.

So, say hello to Daphne...