It’s All in a Name

I’m sorry I haven’t written in a while.  My creativity has been flowing, just not across the page in the form of the written word.  You know how it goes so I will save us all the misery of whining about my busy life and all of my projects and get down to my area of interest for today.

Names- Names are HUGE!  Majorly important.  A name can make or break most anything.  Movies, plays, products, you name it. If the name of something is bad, most people have a hard time getting past it to the actual product.  I am sure there are many items that were fabulous in their own special ways but were ruined by terrible name choices. 

Here are some examples:

   

Anti Monkey Butt?! Seriously?!

What were these marketers thinking?

BH and I have the same name.  We spell it differently but it’s the same.  It’s also a nickname.  We agree that it made life more complicated as children. 

We also agree that it very vanilla and we wish we had other names.  Our mothers had good intentions but, well, neither of us feel as though it really matches either of our personalities.  BH has pushed me to change my name so that we don’t have the name confusion that we inevitably have whenever we meet new people.  People always think we are speaking in the third person.  Which is creepy. 

I always respond that she should change hers.  She then tells me she’s older and had the name longer so I should change mine.  I call her old, stick my tongue out and walk away.  I win. Well, okay, I don’t really win because no one changes their name but still- she’s older! Hah!

Our common obsession with names has led to some interesting pet names and major angst over names for our children.  I tend to be the free spirit and BH tends toward family names.  We pretty quickly agreed to GC1’s name but I have questioned our choice a few times over the last 8 years.  It’s a great name and she likes her name but maybe I should have insisted on something with more pizzazz.  I totally think she could carry Blue as a middle name.  Totally.

We covered the need for family names with both children and honored some women we love very much so generally speaking, I am pleased with their names but I do have had my moments.  Like when my brother and his wife named their son the coolest name in history and I was so jealous I almost cried.  That kid can’t help but be fabulous with a moniker like the one he’s blessed with.  There will NEVER be three more of him in a classroom. NEVER!

To assuage my need for interesting names, I have worked tirelessly to instill in GC1 the creative name picking talent.  BH and I have also picked some interesting names for some of our pets.  Even if the animal has an average spoken name, you can rest assured that his or her full name is its own brand of interesting.

The following is a list of various pet names we have come up with over the years:

·         Alexxander Theopolis - Alexx.  BH added the extra X.  Never was sure why.

·         Samantha Jane- Sam was so fabulous her name had to be low keyed so it wasn’t just too damned much.  Plus, it normalized her.  She was one seriously strange looking mutt.

·         Jackson Lamont- Jack is so white bread he needed some soul in his name.

·         Rajjit Amadeus Amadeus - Raj needs A LOT of name because she is A LOT of personality in a tiny little package.

·         Henry Beauregard Bojangles- He came as Beau and we felt the need to spice it up.

·         Crush- Poor Crush was named by GC1 right after Finding Nemo when she was 4 years old.  We were disappointed in her lack of creativity, but what can you do??  Stupid Disney.

·         John Terry- Beta Fish. Deceased. RIP John Terry.

·         Steve- 5 year old goldfish that the cat ate.  RIP Steve.

·         Tiger Lily Lucille- Cool calico cat we adore.

·         Esme Chrysanthemum- We allowed GC1 to name the hen because she was upset that we would not let her name her soon-to-be sister Chrysanthemum.

·         Lily Sparkles- Hen

·         Sketchy Longneck- Sketchy long-necked hen

·         Netty Buttercup- Giant butter colored hen

·         Mathilda the Mean- Rooster.  Informally known as Mattie until “he went to live on the farm”.

·         And last but not least- Sipsey Jo- The most awesome Black Bear hamster ever!

Here is the kicker for this whole essay- I can’t ever remember names!  EVER!  I have a weird mental block and I just blank on names and BH has to tell me over and over again and even then I sometimes can’t pull it from the ether.  To make up for this disability- I am slowly becoming the breed of Southern Women I call “The Honey Baby Sugar Women”.  Like Flo on Mel’s Diner.

You know- the women who call everyone Honey, Sugar, Darlin’ or Baby?  I have decided to be one of these women.  My current favorite nickname is Punkin.  Sometimes- Punkin Pants.  I also call people things like Flip Flop, Pop Tart, Lollipop, Fred, Bernard and Antsy Pants.  Maybe also- Robert. Even if their name isn’t Robert and they maybe aren’t men.  I am slowly building my eccentricity reputation so that my dementia will be less noticeable as I age.  The only time this is a problem is when children are so enamored with their new nicknames that they expect me to call them that forever.  GC1 got angry the other day because she was a shoe and her cousin was a toaster pastry.  She felt that Pop Tarts trumped Flip Flops any day of the week.

I just made everyone play the quiet game and sat in my chair trying to remember all of their names so that I could yell at them if the need arose.

To all of the Honey Baby Sugar Women currently in my life, I proudly announce that I am one of you!  I may even steal your nicknames sometime if they all I can remember at that moment.

Earth Momma

Memories

It can be said truthfully that I have a faulty memory.  Sometimes I can remember a recipe down to the ¼ tsp. and yet I am terrible at remembering birthdays.  You should have seen the look of shame I got at the pediatrician when I couldn’t remember Girl child 2’s birthday.  In my defense, she is only 7 months old and it took me years to remember Black Hair’s birthday. But that look from the nurse shamed me so bad that I now drill myself on the important details about the births of both of my children so that I will never be caught off guard again.  I also write them on my hand before we go in the doctor’s office.

One of my biggest fears is Alzheimer’s disease so I regularly do crossword puzzles and quiz myself on music trivia.  I Google random things every day so I can learn something new and keep my brain moving forward at a steady pace. I read cookbooks and make up recipes and write them down as soon as I make them up because just the other day someone reminded me of a recipe that I made pretty regularly for a while and I could not remember a single ingredient except spinach! 

Girl Child 1 asks me to tell her stories that I have told her before and I can’t remember a single detail.  She tries reminding me but while I can remember lying with her in the bed and snuggling while I made up fantastical stories, I don’t remember the witch who apparently stole people’s broccoli thus robbing them of essential nutrients and making their world’s dull and nutritionally defunct. But she does.

I sometimes worry about this major character flaw.  I try and try to remember things.  I apologize a lot.  I take copious notes at most meetings.  Did I mention I apologize a lot?

Other times I just remind myself of my good qualities.  Some of which I probably would not have if I could remember more.  I tell good stories.  I make up recipes.  I call my child by made up names because she thinks it’s funny and I don’t have to go through a list of names in my head.  I just call her Norbert and move on.  And I focus a lot on making memories for my daughters that will sustain them when they have moments of feeling insecure or unloved.  These memories will sustain them when I am no longer able to remember the details of their childhoods that they feel are so important.

I have a few memories that I hope are the last memories I have before I die.

 1-My beautiful 3 year old GC1 stands naked in the backyard with honey blond hair down her back (I was gardening and she stripped down and ran around with the water hose).  She holds the running water hose in the air and it pours water down over her hair as the sun sets behind her.  She is laughing that wonderfully innocent laugh of a small child and it was a moment of pure perfectness.

 2- I gave birth to GC2 while surrounded by my mother and my partner.  I did it after 22 hours of labor and a serious fear that I wouldn’t be able to do it, that something would go wrong.  She was born and the doctor laid her on my chest and we stared at each other for eternity.

3- I married the partner of my dreams in a small clearing in the woods.  My father gave us our first communion together and I ugly cried in front of a crowd.  Black Hair had the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen.

There are others.  As long as I have these, I will not beat myself up for forgetting the door knob when I went to Lowe’s, for forgetting red shirt day at GC1’s school thus ensuring that she was the only blue shirted dork in her class.

I will make up new spinach recipes. 

I will celebrate next Thursday to make up for forgetting our first date.  

I will research fair housing laws and ideas for housing department goals since I have forgotten what I did with the ones I wrote down last week. 

I will write every year in our Christmas journal so we all have a written account of all of the Christmases we have shared.

 Even though I totally disregarded the notation on the side of each page that denotes the type of recipe that’s on that page, I will write the recipes down so my girls have them some day. 

And I’ll try to remember to finish the story of the coop full of crazy so you are not left hanging, waiting with bated breath to see what happened next. 

Peace & Memories,

Earth Momma