.canoe americana?

when i was in college i had some great roommates. in the end i think i had 7 roommates and they were all wonderful girls. the last two years in manhattan i lived in a house that we called the blue bungalow. it was not a bungalow, it was a two story blue house with a big front porch. maeret could give you details on what a bungalow consists of; our house was not one. it was a catchy name. and it stuck.

my junior year we decided to get a dog. our neighbors bred boxers and all the puppies sold except the runt. she was a cutie and our sweet neighbors (bonnie and what were her husband and son's name...bri would remember) decided to give us this unwanted puppy. being music people we thought of several options but settled on rhoadie. i added the 'rh' because it reminded me of rhoda from the mary tyler moore show.

the story is funny only because it wasn't just the girls in the house who took care of the dog (although one roommate was not thrilled about the dog, she did tolerate rhoadie. as a puppy she was adorable so it wasn't too hard of a sell). there were three boys that also became co-owners. they were great boys, coming to take her for walks, teaching her tricks, taking her out in the snow when we didn't want to. we decided it was only fair to name her after all of her owners: rhodie mcwiebingtonfranzirwinschrag.

i think of this name only because as i type maas sits to my right and cassie sits across from me. we all have our computers out. we're talking and not talking and that's okay. tom and sam are sitting on the couch talking. it's this fun college-life feeling. the only difference is we're all really tired and it's only 10:30. it's a given that the tblakes and maasen hang out a lot, we are roommates. sam and cassie make their way over to mastin street quite frequently. the five of us watch ku games together, we eat supper, play games, hang out. yuma tries to tell the v.b.s she would love to move to their duplex. sometimes cassie uses us for our free wireless internet. and we're ok with that.

maas calls sam and cass the friday night roommates because we frequently have sabbath supper together. the reality is we hang out more than just fridays. it would be funny to have a name, especially since the v.b.s have two last names and some people think maasen's first name is maasen and don't know what her last name is. her real name is angela jean maasen but maasen jean rolls off the tongue quite nicely.

i am suggesting the van maasblakes. and if we wanted to add the folks over at 6857 that would be easy: p.t. van weltonmaasblakes. that has a good ring to it.

this creates a bigger question: what would be the collective name for all the people in our community? sometimes invitations or thank yous come for the community and they are addressed to kingdom living. this is the easy way out and i'm curious, what is the collective name for k.l.?