Raheem III

This is our beagle Raheem III. Everytime someone learns the name of our dog, there appears a puzzled look on his face. Following is the story of our dear dog's name:

Before we were married, Casey decided to take a "manny" position in England. (Manny= male nanny). It was the perfect opportunity for me to visit jolly ol' England, so I went out for 2 weeks. On our list of sites to see was Paris. But in order to get to Paris we first had to take a train/bus/taxi to London, then from there take the train to Paris.

Casey bought our non-refundable tickets, and we planned our two day trip. As the day of our departure arrived, he assured me we had plenty of time to make it to the train station, so we occupied our time with activities other than packing. Finally, at 10 pm, we wheeled our luggage to an empty, dark train station. As we sat, hopefully awaiting a train, we finally saw one in the distance headed our way. We stood up, gathered our bags, and waited. Zoom, there goes the train. We decided to try a bus. Again we wheeled our luggage to another stop only to find the bus schedule ended at 10. Ok, let's try a taxi. We then proceeded to waste away all our change at a pay phone trying to reach a cab company.

In desperation, we started walking. Our train from London to Paris left at 4am. By this time it was well past midnight and we still had over 20 miles to walk. In the rare occasion that a car past, we waved and held up our thumbs and tried any means to stop them for a ride. Finally, after an hour and half of walking, a young man pulled over. He had seen us walking on his way into town, and took pity when he saw us again on his way out. His name was Raheem.

So why is our dog named Raheem III? We soon encountered another Raheem. In London we stayed in a hostel where we shared a room with a 40 something year old man, named....Raheem. He was from Iran and was looking to start a new life. He was so friendly and so excitable that we immediately took a liking to him. It was then we decided that Raheem was a name to be honored.