What’s in a name?

1.YOUR REAL NAME:
Linda Mae Spencer  (and ever since someone said  ”oh, you mean like as in Elli-May and Daisy-May’?” I have been less than thrilled with it)

2.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother and fathers middle names)
Elaine William  (I would revise it to maybe Ella Williams so as to be utterly ordinary.)  (Sorry all you Ella Williamses out there.  Even sorrier if you’re an Ella Mae.)

3.NASCAR NAME: (first name of your mother’s dad, father’s dad

William John  (Good grief, how boring.  Billy Jack?  Willie Johnjacobjingleheimerschmidt?) (Would require a bigger trophy to get all that engraved, so maybe not.) 

4.STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name)
Speli  (Sounds like some boring nerd role, a strange alien who knows the correct spelling of all the planets in the galaxy)

5.DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal)
Red Elephant (Personally I would be very wary of putting my trust in such a shady sounding character) (Awesome name for a pub though.)

6.SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, town where you were born)
Mae Southampton  (Ahh, yes.  The rich eccentric old widow who lives alone in a mansion on the hill and wills her entire estate to her cat.) (And probably dyes her hair purple.)

7.SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd fav color, fav drink, add “THE” to the beginnig)
The Yellow Mocha  (Ewww.  The Pink Pepsi;  The Purple Marguerita;  The Blue Pomegranate;  and the super power is the ability to mix a concoction that will make you seriously gaggy)

8.FLY NAME:  (first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name)
Lier   (What the heck is a fly name?  If it has anything to do with fly fishing, than this name, which sounds like ‘liar’ would be astonishingly appropriate.)  (And if it has to do with the little winged insect, it’s just so much more nasty sounding than ‘fruit’.)

9.STREET NAME: (fav ice cream flavor, fav cookie)
Chocolate Ritz  (Meet me on the corner of Chocolate Ritz and Main.) (Yeah.)

10.YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (first 3 letters of last name plus izzle)
Speizzle  (I love it!  Rhymes with Weasle!)

11.YOUR IRAQI.. NAME: (2nd letter of your first name, 3rd letter of your last name, first two letters of your middle name, last two letters of your first name then last three letters of your last name):
Iemadacer  (Pronounced ‘ I am a day sir’.  Does not strike terror into my heart.)  (Probably the name of an Iraqi poet.)

12.YOUR GOTH NAME: (black, and the name of one of your pets)
Black Ash  (Ooohhhhhhh…..makes me want to cut myself.  hahahaha) (Now I need to appologize to all serious Goths.) 

13. STRIPPER NAME: (name of your fav perfume/cologne, fav candy)
Reddoor Rollo  (LMAO!  I would not pay to see her.)  (On second thought, maybe I would.) 

School Picture

Someone submitted this old school picture to the local newspaper for publication and mom cut it out and kept it;   because Dad is in it, second row, second from the left.  Class of 1920 something.  Most of the names don’t mean much to me except for the fact of remembering hearing them mentioned by my parents in reference to various of their many acquaintences and friends.  As in “oh, look!  isn’t that so and so?  She married such and such and they lived for years out on the something or other road.”  It’s a small town thing, for sure.  Impossible for me to even begin to make the connections, especially since I never tried very hard.  I just liked to hear them talk about what it was like to be them.  The funny little things they remembered.  The events and the people that shaped their lives.  Their various fates if they knew or could recall them.  

Mom and dad out-lived many, many of their peers and relatives and far too many in the generations that followed them.  There were phone calls where my mom would recite her list of people who had recently died, some that were expected, many that were not, and so were doubly sad.  Didn’t matter to her that I had no clue who she was talking about ninety percent of the time.  I guess that interest is an old person thing.  It’s only in the last couple of years that I’ve started to catch myself reading obituaries.  Yikes.  Afraid that mine will read ’she went off on tangents to such an extent that very little of significance was actually ever accomplished in her life.’ 

So yeah – where was I?  Wondering what happened to all these little kids.  Who they became and what they did.  How they were defined by the people who loved them.  Realizing that everyone has a story to tell.  Hoping I’ve gotten smarter about why it’s important to listen.

Sing Them Home

It’s been a long time since I’ve picked up a book and been reluctant to put it down.  This is one of those great finds. 

I’m almost finished, and I don’t want it to end –  no matter how satisfyingly the various stumbling and eccentric characters resolve their struggles.  It’s about family ties, loss, grief, tradition and love, with some delightful craziness added to the mix.  Beautiful.  I’ll be looking for the author’s first novel, Broken For You, with high expectations after this.

Yesterday

On my day off yesterday I was able to finally beat the Giant Kamek wizard and get Princess Peach up to the next and what I sincerely hope is the final level of the game.  I don’t understand how kids can stand the STRESS involved in this process!  There are so many parts that I’ve had to play over and over and over again to the point of wanting to fire the DS at the nearest wall.  But nothing yet has deterred me from always going back for more.  The fun things outnumber the big battles.  Although the big battles must appeal to kids, because they put in a whole whack of them.  Admittedly, there’s a grim satisfaction involved in finally winning the damn things.

To regain my sense of inner calm I watched “P.S. I Love You” (again).   The story line is a lot of sentimental mush, but the movie is just SO well done and brilliantly acted that it doesn’t matter.  I played my moves in Wordscraper and Lexulous and checked Facebook for any other interesting developments.  I am forever hopeful in that regard.

Then I decided I absolutely can’t stand the color of our coffee table in the living room and moved it into the bedroom next to the lap top table, took apart one of the two piece bedside units and set them side by side on top of it, and filled them up with books and papers and other important miscelaneous stuff.  (All this in lieu of a regular normal computer desk).  The result is eclectic functional.  Which sort of sums up my general interior decorating style in one all inclusive term.  Now I can search with a clear conscience for something big and wooden and chest-like or table-ish to put in front of the couch.  Or something big and round and low to the ground.  I’ll recognize it when I see it as the perfect thing. 

I also did a lot of laundry.  I read several chapters of my current book.  And I hauled the compostables garbage bin and paper recylclables bag back from the curb, an activity which should count as ‘going outside’.   So, all in all, it was a very rounded day.

Leeder Homestead

This is where my mother was born, in February of 1917.  Her mother went home to HER mother I guess.  That’s usually the person from whom you can get the most sympathy in these situations.  My Uncle Iden (grandma’s brother) and Aunt Amy (his second wife) lived there with their daughter Betty (an after thought child) when I was growing up, so we were the same age, and encouraged to spend time together.  Thus I went for visits, and even a few sleepovers.  The house design is American Foursquare, popular in the late 1800’s , early 1900’s.  I read somewhere that the total simplicity was a direct reaction to the Victorian love of the ornate, so from one extreme to the other.  It was so square and boxy I could never decide if that made it excrutiatingly boring, or infinitely interesting.  The first and second floors were divided into four.  Four bedrooms  in the four corners upstairs, with a small bathroom at the top of the staircase.  On one side of the main floor was the kitchen/dining area, and on the other side the living room and I think a sort of foyer, or entryway, all divided by arched doorways.  There was also a half storey high square attic area under the hipped roof, which you got to by taking some old creaky stairs, and where it was hard to breathe because of the heat and the dust.  There might also have been a basement, but I don’t remember ever going down there.

This picture was taken before they added a huge cement porch on the front and side.  For some reason or other that was the absolute best place to play.  There was no railing and only one set of steps.  You could send a doll carriage flying off into the bushes in several directions.   I remember that row of trees, and how the gravel driveway made a circle in front of the house. 

 

The place was sold years ago to a developer who made it all into a golf course and then an airport for small planes.  This is it from a different angle and a lot higher up.  So you can still make out the original boxy house with it’s modernizing additions, everything still there but quite transformed.  Sort of like the rest of us who remember it the way it used to be.

The Shadow Thing

Me and my shadow,
Strolling down the avenue,
Me and my shadow,
Not a soul to tell our troubles to . . .

And when it’s twelve o’clock,
We climb the stair,
We never knock,
For nobody’s there . . .

Just me and my shadow,
All alone and feelin’ blue . . .

So far today, no shadow sightings to report.  It’s only minus six, but the wind is bitter and the skies are grey.  Here in this part of the country we are assured of at least 3 more months of winter, so what the groundhog does or doesn’t see is moot.  Spring lasts for a couple of weeks in May.  Summer is over  in mid August.  Winter starts in October and lasts for six months.  Well, that’s how it looks to me in February anyway.  Bleak.  A step in the right direction from bleary January, but the long winter season still makes me feel completely weather beaten.  I will try to recall this exact moment when we’re halfway through July and I’m perishing from the heat.

Zippeddydoodah

Well there’s a word out of the blue for you.   I’m just happy that January is behind us for another year!  February is exactly four Sunday to Saturday weeks, no more, no less;  very concise and symmetrical and compactly balanced.  The start of every month I decide to make THIS the month that I blog faithfully every day.  By day two, if not sooner, I’ve generally run out of things to say.  But hey – doesn’t hurt to think hard on it and try, especially for the shortest month of the year.  I rarely disappoint myself for long anyway, so why not take a stab at it.  Unfortunately for the consistent blog idea, I’m a big believer in doing things only if they’re fun.  That  peculiarity probably makes me a poor candidate for being a martyr of any kind.  Oh well.

Our weather is 90% delightful!  Warm temps, melting snow.  The 10% downside is the ice in places like driveways and parking lots.  I’ve just spent a lazy weekend with Kenzie.  We’ve been taking turns on the computer and the DS, turning ourselves into game playing maniacs;  then when we’re tired of that we watch a movie.  We did brave the ice to do some shopping, and a couple of times we stopped to eat.  But for the most part it was a whole lot of nothing much.  Very therapeutic. 

I’ve finished reading “His Dark Materials”, the Golden Compass trilogy (Philip Pullman) and have started on “Sing Them Home” (Stephanie Kallos).  I have books all over the place actually.  But unfortunately for them, I’m also getting quite a collection of DS games which I tackle in the same haphazard manner.  I don’t think I’ve always been this muddled and unsystematic about stuff.  Although why don’t we just call random-ness a system, since I’ve become so good at purposeful aimlessness.  This blather being a perfect example.

So tomorrow is another day!  Back to work where I have to act like an adult for seven and a half hours.  One of these days the effort will be just too much for me!  HA!!  This is why ‘old’ people retire.  The eccentricities get the better of them and they give in.  Life is too short to spend it being dead serious, so God knows I take that to heart.  Zippeddydoodah.  I’d love to stay here and chat, but I have a wizard to conquer.