Monday in the Park With Essie

We met Essie today. Since she's Puerto Rican, Essie is short for Esperanza. Thankfully, she has no idea what her name is because there's no way in hell I am comfortable with something that wussy. I may as well have a dog named "I cut my penis off." I'm fine with whatever dog we adopt becoming daddy's little girl, as long as I stay daddy.

Since it's Memorial Day, Sara had the day off. And since I'm a comedian and it's the daytime, so did I. Essie's fosters lived in Greenpoint, a neighborhood in Brooklyn with two trillion Polish bakeries. When we got their early, I stopped in one of the bakeries to get myself a treat. That's when I realized just how different my life would be with a dog. I bought an eclair, and Sara reminded me that I'd need to clean my hands off very well since dogs could die if they ingest chocolate. The little things will make caring for a dog hardest. Especially since the only knowledge I have of dogs is gleaned from watching Animal Planet.

Now chocolate-free, it took two minutes of walking Essie before I wanted to sign up. She was incredibly sweet. Just a lump of a dog who walked and wagged, and nothing else. She was fine with other dogs, fine with other people, fine sitting down and staring at a blade of grass. She was me and Sara in dog form, although Essie was more people friendly than we were.

One thing I particularly liked about Essie was that when she saw a dog she wasn't interested in, she'd just move on and ignore them. That's what Sara and I do with most people we meet. Don't get me wrong - we love making friends with good people. But we don't love pretending to make friends with dull people. And that's how Essie was with other dogs.

"Really? You love chasing tennis balls? That's great. Hey, I'm going to go over here now and do something a little more adult."

Essie was exactly what I was looking for. And on the way home, Sara told me she felt the same way.

Of course, Essie is not going to be her name. I'm going to see if my Twitterverse can help us come up with one. We don't want a run of the mill name - we want something funny but not ridiculous, and fitting for our new lady. No simple regular person names, and no traditional dog names either. A dog is a reflection of the owner's personality.

"Hi, I'm boring. And this is my dog, Boring."

We put in our request to adopt Essie, and the next step will be getting a home visit from the rescue org. If that goes well, Essie becomes part of our family. Once we change her name, of course.