Sandra Ono

Clarence seems spacey, perhaps a bit smug sitting at the counter in this lower Queen Anne retail shop. His eyes, wide like headlights, hold a 1,000-yard stare. His ear-to-ear grin looks like a smirk, as if he's dreaming of the beach. His fashion statement is preppy kitsch: a wool sweater that displays a big red heart, a blond spike of hair rising from his forehead.

He may strike some as distant, but Sandra Ono thinks the world of Clarence, the stuffed monkey — so much so that she named her business, Monkey Love Rubber Stamps, after him. She almost called it Clarence's Stamps, but that didn't quite have the ring to it. Besides, she really does love that stuffed monkey.

Ono, 38, has operated her one-woman business from Lower Queen Anne for 11 years. She sells decorative rubber stamps, paper and other equipment used to make cards, scrapbooks and assorted art projects. Her shop is lined with stamps of leaves, flowers, figures, words, holiday symbols and more; but there are only two monkeys. Clarence, she says, is the jealous type and barely puts up with her Curious George calendar.

She grew up in Bellevue and graduated with a degree in criminal justice from the University of Washington. Her brother wanted to buy her a gift as she went off to college 19 years ago, and she asked for the monkey, which she saw at Nordstrom. The sales clerk asked him how old his sister was, and he replied, "3."

Clarence kept Ono company as she worked through school. He survived a burn from when she left him too close to a lamp and a near drowning after accidentally tumbling into a washing cycle. He kept her company when she worked as assistant probation officer for juvenile sex offenders in Pierce County. So it was only natural that she made Clarence a de facto business partner when she went into business. He occasionally gets mail because she signs the company newsletter "Sandy, Clarence and Co." He's semi-retired now, coming to the shop only once in a while. She says he's gotten lazy, but truth is that after 19 years, she's afraid of losing him.

Yes, it's all in good fun, and Ono loves a fine running joke. But slight Clarence and she jumps to his defense: "He's got character. Doesn't he look cool?" She shows off his bonus trait of actually being a 2-foot-tall puppet.

Handle him roughly and she will bark, "Don't push his face in!"