Celeste's Sky Blue Eye

You may not know about our ordeal of building a house. I won't go into the details except to say that when our house was not ready on time, we rented a small apartment in the town of San Isidro, expecting to live there for three months while the house was being finished. 17 months later, we finally moved into our house, even though it was far from done, and didn't even have electricity or water!

On the day of the big move we were so happy to get out of the dark, damp, moldy apartment in San Isidro. As we pulled up to the driveway with our car and a moving truck, there on the front steps sat a three month old Harlequin Great Dane puppy! I had never even seen a Great Dane before and was very impressed - with her size and with her good behavior. She had no tags on with the owner information, so she ended up spending the day with us. She was a lot of fun!

During the course of the day, Woody turned to me and asked, "What do you suppose her name is?" I looked her in the eye, and replied, "Celeste." Celeste means sky blue in Spanish. Woody thought that was a bit of a wimpy name for a huge dog, but I thought it seemed just right for her.

At the end of the day she disappeared, not to show up again for another week. The next time she showed up, there was a torn bit of rope dragging behind her, attached to a collar with her name and owner's phone number.

You guessed it! Her name was Celeste!

Over the next few months she repeatedly ran away to our house. We told her owners that if they ever wanted to give her away, we'd take her. A few months later they called us to say that they were moving to Canada and could not take Celeste with them. At first they wanted to sell her to us for $200. But, they ended up giving her away, because they were sure it was not just coincidence that I guessed her name "out of the blue."