Here it is the Christmas season, and my credit union was inexplicably closed yesterday. Seriously. No warning. (Well, a little warning, but my husband forgot to mention it to me.)

So we were a little late leaving for Middle Tennessee, but we finally hit the road around noon. Longest trip ever! I thought we'd never get there! But we did get to Lookout Farms (who has just joined MyCorgi.com), and we did pick up our puppy.

OK, I'll be honest. I spent some time talking to and playing with all the available female puppies. Just in case I had chosen badly the first time. I just wanted to be sure -- and our Puppy To Be Named Later confirmed herself as the best puppy in the whole litter. I got the best one!

Money, paperwork, a sample of dog food, and Emily took over driving so I could gaze adoringly at Puppy Who Was Named Later.

Puppy sat in my lap and tried not to fall asleep. Seriously! She whined a little bit for just a couple of minutes, but then she settled down... or she seemed to settle down. She was incredibly sleepy but just refused to fall asleep. Every bump in the road or noisy truck would make her prick her ears up and look around as if alarmed.

I called my sister and squealed. I called my husband and crowed. The kids were just amazed at how perfect Puppy was. Woodrow, in particular, was struck by how fabulous this little dog is. He barely remembers Harry, our last Welsh corgi, and he's never had a puppy, so this is a whole new experience for him. (I told him to read the puppy chapters in "Good Owners, Great Dogs." It pays to be prepared.)

As we drove, I continued contemplating Puppy To Be Named Later's name. I am something of a nut -- history major, theatre freak, graduate school in English lit, and hey, we're Southern, so we already have a thing for crazy names. Some of the things I did in my quest for the perfect dog name was to look up obscure bit parts in Shakespeare's less popular comedies, try to track down all of Eudora Welty's character names (patently impossible, which surprised me), make a list of Southern colloquial terms for food (Biscuit, Pot Liquor, Pone, etc.), and... well, other such pursuits.

When I had exhausted my brain on those ambitious trails, I then reverted to thinking, "I'll just name her after something I like." And that's why Daylily was a frontrunner for this puppy's name for a week. My father hybridized daylilies when I was a girl. We had beds of them in our back yard, in all shades of near white, yellow, orange, pink, peach, and purple. I do love daylilies, and besides, Daddy died years and years ago. Would it be so bad to name a dog in his honor?

But as we were driving down the interstate with my unnamed puppy, I had an epiphany, a Damascus revelation, if you will. It came to me from out of the blue --

-- Doris!

Doris Daylily!

And that is her name. She's a Doris all over the place. Que sera, sera.