who's dave?

A reasonable person might ask, why is the URL of this blog "musings from dave", given that a) I'm not named Dave and b) neither is Best Beloved.

Dave is a place, and perhaps a state of mind. It's the name of the property - our little 10 acres of Vermont heaven.

It's from years ago, when Kevin was in college. He worked for a community resource center helping out with a daycare program.

His first year there was the same year that a woman named Grace retired after working there for fifty years. Grace couldn't seem to remember his name. Maybe it was that she wasn't used to working with men - the only other male there was a part-time maintenance guy. Or maybe it was just that she was old.

At any rate, she called him Kevin at first. Fine. Then she started calling him Brian, which he figured was OK because it's similar to his last name. Then after a while she started calling him Steven, which he figured was also OK, since it's like Kevin, with that V in the middle. Then came Dave. He figured, Kev, Steve, Dave, fine.

And then: (cue the drum roll...) she called him Dennis. That was too much. Dave represented the farthest boundary of his identity. So when he bought this property in 2002 (pre-my arrival on the scene) and wanted to name it, he named it Dave.

Now the funny thing about this for me is that years ago, my boyfriend was named Dave. And his college roommate was named Dave. And their friend Allison's ex-husband was named...Dave. So to distinguish between all of these Dave's, they became "Dave", "Dave - My Dave", and "Allison's Ex-Dave". I've always been fond of the name Dave, and I kinda groove on the fact that Best Beloved grooves on it too.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?

So I'm sitting in my big-ass chaise lounge chair, laptop on my lap, cat next to me, minding my own business, when I am startled to the point of involuntarily shrieking by an explosion behind me. I thought the furnace had lost its mind, or that a tree had fallen. The cat vanishes into thin air. I look over my shoulder out one of the living room windows to see that the window is gone - both panes of glass have a foot-and-a-half diameter hole in them. There are shatters of glass EVERYWHERE. Kevin comes out of the study and we're both just, "what the fuck?!?!?". Then I notice a clump of feathers in front of the woodstove. And then finally the mystery is solved: 35 feet away, by the front door, lies a dying ruffed grouse.

Two hours later, we're finally done with the neighbors' shop vac; Kevin's taped a plastic sheet over the window and has knocked out most of the remaining glass, both cats have rematerialized, and I think my pulse is more-or-less back to normal. I hate to think what would have happened to me if I had been sitting at the end of the couch in front of that window. Shudder.