Friday, August 18, 2006
Overheard at the Office
I absolutely love working here. I wouldn’t miss this for anything in the world.
“I feel like a nap.”
“You look like one, too.”
“Neil, you stood me up!”
“Well, someone had to – you keep falling down.”
“I feel like a nap.”
“You look like one, too.”
“Neil, you stood me up!”
“Well, someone had to – you keep falling down.”
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Girls Named After Their Fathers
Now I think namesaking is a fine thing. It perpetuates a family history of sorts, and it honors the old farts of the family. (If you’re lucky, it might even get you in the will. I have known people who were given some really god-awful names for just that reason.) I even think naming a girl after her father is very sweet, especially since little girls have such a tendency to be “Daddy’s Girl”s. We all know them – Stephanie, daughter of Stephen; Roberta, daughter of Robert; Donna, daughter of Donald; Michaela, daughter of Michael (although illiterate bandwagon jumpers would have you to believe it’s spelled “Mikayla”, the name actually pronounced that way is just plain old Michael with an “a”), etc.
Some of the more unusual feminized men’s names can sound pretty, and even kind of exotic. I knew a Nedra and a Kendra when I was in high school, and there is an author named Phillipa (although I think I would be inclined just to stick with the tried and true Phyllis if it were me). Patty Duke’s “Valley of the Dolls” character Neely O’Hara may have been a feminine derivative of Neil or Neal; whatever it is, I’ve always thought it was pretty. I’ve run across a Davida or two along the way, and in my opinion, Norma is a much nicer name than her masculine equivalent Norman (but that’s just me). I also like Erica better than her male counterpart, Eric. I’ll take Olivia over Oliver any day of the week.
But you really have to be careful in this naming the daughter after her father, grandfather, uncle, etc. Let’s face it – some masculine names were just never meant to be feminized, no way, no how. I have been collecting these for years, and they range from the unusual to the obscenely dreadful. In the last year, my collection of non-feminizable (you ought to try getting that one past the spell checker) masculine names has virtually exploded. In the past two months alone, I have come up with some seriously bad ones: Arthralyne (daughter of Arthur) and Chesterine (presumably daughter of Chester). The earliest contenders (from my Way Back machine) include Cliffogene (friend of a friend from college, who swears she actually knew two people by that name) and Billyetta (friend of a friend from West Virginia, whose own daughter was named Harrietta – no, not Harriett, but Harrietta). More recent live entries are Bensonetta (a judge in Atlanta), Overtis (daughter of Otis), Herma (Herman’s daughter), Hughina (Hugh’s little girl), Jamesia (“jahMEE-SEEa”) (hard to say if she’s the apple of James’ eye or named for a hydrangea bush) and Doneva (a former coworker of my sister’s and undoubtedly daughter or granddaughter of Donald). Friends have contributed some doozies, too – Winshinai and Winbrielle, twin daughters of Winston; Noelani, daughter of Noel (and maybe Annie, I don’t know); Floydeen, daughter of Floyd (“Pink” might have been an option, and she still would have been named after her dad – sort of); and Willisa, daughter of Willis. Some that I have culled from on-line obituaries while reading them to keep up with friends and their families have been Calvalyn (daughter of Calvin and Minerva, of all things!), Archenia and Fredella. [I am sure there is a special front-row spit in hell for people like me who can’t help but laugh at the names of people I find in obituaries – the dead, their forebears or their survivors.] I once knew Marvin's daughter Marvina, and I even have an ancestor Melvina, who was Melvin's daughter (who else could she be?!).
At the bookstore where I work, an expectant couple were purchasing a baby name book that they were apparently only moments away from putting to use, and because I had just learned of Arthralyne, I cautioned them to consider very carefully naming their daughter after a favored male relative. I urged them to use mercy wherever feasible and consider the possible ghastly results. They looked at each other and, in unison, cried, “Bobwina!” We all got a good laugh out of it, but sadly enough, I surfed the net the very next day and found one – a real live (now dead) Bobwina, who I found in an obituary in a faraway place I had never heard of and don’t even remember. Let me hasten to say that these can’t be written off as just “ethnic” names from some other “ethnic” than any of us might be – I’ve seen them in all flavors, all ages.
When one of my coworkers was debating what to name her unexpected blessed event-to-be (it’s a second marriage for both, and both had kids from their first), she decided she didn’t really want to name it (whatever it might be) after its father, because she wasn’t really crazy about his name (Walter). [With apologies to all you Walter people out there. She said it, I didn’t.] I asked her what his middle name is, and she said it’s DeLande. (Don’t ask me – I just work here.) In about two seconds, I came up with and suggested twisting DeLande into Delaney, and she came back the next day and said that whatever it is, boy or girl, it will be named Delaney. And so she was – named Delaney, that is. I asked my coworker recently (five years after the fact) if she wasn’t sorry that she hadn’t named the little princess Waltrina. I don’t know why she threw that stapler at me. Go figure!
What’s next? Herschellana? Wendella? Joshaletta? Jasonina? Gordonia? Matthewla? Warrenita? Dextrose (daughter of Dexter and Rose)? Reubencia? Bufordessa?
If your spouse or family member gets really insistent about namesaking, just say, “You get to name the dogs, I get to name the kids.” Not everybody has a namesake (not everybody should), and sometimes you might just have to suck it up and get over it. If you are considering what to name your (or someone else’s) little girl and you think you want to name her after her father or yours, be kind – be merciful – and just name her Daddy or Gramps and be done with it.
Some of the more unusual feminized men’s names can sound pretty, and even kind of exotic. I knew a Nedra and a Kendra when I was in high school, and there is an author named Phillipa (although I think I would be inclined just to stick with the tried and true Phyllis if it were me). Patty Duke’s “Valley of the Dolls” character Neely O’Hara may have been a feminine derivative of Neil or Neal; whatever it is, I’ve always thought it was pretty. I’ve run across a Davida or two along the way, and in my opinion, Norma is a much nicer name than her masculine equivalent Norman (but that’s just me). I also like Erica better than her male counterpart, Eric. I’ll take Olivia over Oliver any day of the week.
But you really have to be careful in this naming the daughter after her father, grandfather, uncle, etc. Let’s face it – some masculine names were just never meant to be feminized, no way, no how. I have been collecting these for years, and they range from the unusual to the obscenely dreadful. In the last year, my collection of non-feminizable (you ought to try getting that one past the spell checker) masculine names has virtually exploded. In the past two months alone, I have come up with some seriously bad ones: Arthralyne (daughter of Arthur) and Chesterine (presumably daughter of Chester). The earliest contenders (from my Way Back machine) include Cliffogene (friend of a friend from college, who swears she actually knew two people by that name) and Billyetta (friend of a friend from West Virginia, whose own daughter was named Harrietta – no, not Harriett, but Harrietta). More recent live entries are Bensonetta (a judge in Atlanta), Overtis (daughter of Otis), Herma (Herman’s daughter), Hughina (Hugh’s little girl), Jamesia (“jahMEE-SEEa”) (hard to say if she’s the apple of James’ eye or named for a hydrangea bush) and Doneva (a former coworker of my sister’s and undoubtedly daughter or granddaughter of Donald). Friends have contributed some doozies, too – Winshinai and Winbrielle, twin daughters of Winston; Noelani, daughter of Noel (and maybe Annie, I don’t know); Floydeen, daughter of Floyd (“Pink” might have been an option, and she still would have been named after her dad – sort of); and Willisa, daughter of Willis. Some that I have culled from on-line obituaries while reading them to keep up with friends and their families have been Calvalyn (daughter of Calvin and Minerva, of all things!), Archenia and Fredella. [I am sure there is a special front-row spit in hell for people like me who can’t help but laugh at the names of people I find in obituaries – the dead, their forebears or their survivors.] I once knew Marvin's daughter Marvina, and I even have an ancestor Melvina, who was Melvin's daughter (who else could she be?!).
At the bookstore where I work, an expectant couple were purchasing a baby name book that they were apparently only moments away from putting to use, and because I had just learned of Arthralyne, I cautioned them to consider very carefully naming their daughter after a favored male relative. I urged them to use mercy wherever feasible and consider the possible ghastly results. They looked at each other and, in unison, cried, “Bobwina!” We all got a good laugh out of it, but sadly enough, I surfed the net the very next day and found one – a real live (now dead) Bobwina, who I found in an obituary in a faraway place I had never heard of and don’t even remember. Let me hasten to say that these can’t be written off as just “ethnic” names from some other “ethnic” than any of us might be – I’ve seen them in all flavors, all ages.
When one of my coworkers was debating what to name her unexpected blessed event-to-be (it’s a second marriage for both, and both had kids from their first), she decided she didn’t really want to name it (whatever it might be) after its father, because she wasn’t really crazy about his name (Walter). [With apologies to all you Walter people out there. She said it, I didn’t.] I asked her what his middle name is, and she said it’s DeLande. (Don’t ask me – I just work here.) In about two seconds, I came up with and suggested twisting DeLande into Delaney, and she came back the next day and said that whatever it is, boy or girl, it will be named Delaney. And so she was – named Delaney, that is. I asked my coworker recently (five years after the fact) if she wasn’t sorry that she hadn’t named the little princess Waltrina. I don’t know why she threw that stapler at me. Go figure!
What’s next? Herschellana? Wendella? Joshaletta? Jasonina? Gordonia? Matthewla? Warrenita? Dextrose (daughter of Dexter and Rose)? Reubencia? Bufordessa?
If your spouse or family member gets really insistent about namesaking, just say, “You get to name the dogs, I get to name the kids.” Not everybody has a namesake (not everybody should), and sometimes you might just have to suck it up and get over it. If you are considering what to name your (or someone else’s) little girl and you think you want to name her after her father or yours, be kind – be merciful – and just name her Daddy or Gramps and be done with it.
Labels: Names
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
A Visit From Beyond (or the Back Thereof)
Last weekend (the 5th and 6th), my friend Fran came to visit from L.A. – that is, Lower Alabama. She used to live here in the Atlanta metro area, and a few years ago she sought sanctuary from The Big City and moved away to the back of beyond. I had only seen her once since she left Atlanta and she hadn’t seen my house before, so we had a great time catching up and stuff. For a house warming present, she brought me two new tins – O JOY! No, really – I love ‘em. I collect only advertising tins, although I do have some that are just decorative, because some people don’t realize that I only collect the advertising ones, so they give me whatever, and being the kind, gracious and grateful person that I am (see cat food and greeting cards), I readily accept them without a word. A grimace, maybe, but no words. Fran is well aware of the parameters of my collection, so she knows what to bring. One tin was one I had never even heard of – a Slim Jim tin – and it was awesome. The other one is not, in the strictest sense, an advertising tin, but it’s a cross-collectible, and one I had let go by without me some years ago and had been trying to find since then – a Vincent Van Gogh tin. I had bought one of these for Christmas for another friend who is also a Van Gogh fan, thinking that after Christmas I would go back and get one for myself, but of course Murphy was at work and they were all gone when I went back and I missed out on getting one. Lo and behold, it was the very same one Fran brought me, so after I came down from the deliriosity of finally getting this long-sought-after tin, I have added it to my ever-growing collection – of Van Gogh stuff, not my tins.
Before Fran came, I cleaned the house from top to bottom (with the exception of the on-going GMHT project), and from what I had left of the pecans she sent me awhile back, I tried to make candied pecans. I had a good time trying, and rather than baking them in a big hot oven, I used my little toaster oven, which made a good substitute, but obviously I’m candied-pecan impaired, because I ended up with small bits and pieces of individual pecans, a few individual pecans and large globs of pecans held together by the sticky gluey mess created from the sugar mixture, a/k/a pecan sugar stew. It was a total mess, but delicious, if you didn’t mind going at it with a small ice pick
The first night Fran was at my house (Friday night), we stayed up until sunrise, talking and catching up and snacking on pecan sugar stew, so we slept away a lot of Saturday. However, we did get some mileage out of the rest of the day by going to one of our favorite old haunts for dinner. We used to work on a club newsletter together, and every Thursday, we would go to our favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner and work on the newsletters. We called this our “staff meeting”, although this implied that we were actually official staff of some paying organization. Not so. We only did it for the joy of newslettering and the joy of Mexican food.
We came back to the house Saturday night and watched “My Cousin Vinnie”, which she had never seen. I personally do not think people should be allowed to live in Alabama (or that would be Ala-fuckin’-bama, according to Vincent Gambini) without having seen this movie, and I could not in good conscience allow her to go back there without having seen it. I don’t know if she liked it as much as I do – I don’t think anybody likes it as much as I do – but she seemed to enjoy it, and after that we once again talked late into the night.
On Sunday, we watched our Sunday Morning show and then went out and got pedicures (Fran’s treat). This was fun, as I was overdue for one. I bought us each a toe ring – I just needed a new one, and Fran had never had one -- and we debated as to which toe should be graced with the toe rings we had just bought. Everyone I’ve ever seen wearing one seems to favor wearing it on the second toe, the one next to the big toe. I personally favor wearing mine on the toe next to the little toe, with the idea that if your finger next to your pinkie is your ring finger, then the toe next to your little toe would naturally be your ring toe. I always wear mine on the right foot, ring toe. I suppose if it were a wedding toe ring, or even an engagement toe ring, I should wear it on my left foot, ring toe. I’m told that I have given this way too much thought.
We took our fancy feet to dinner at Olive Garden, which they do not have in her newly-adopted hometown. The waiter offered us samples of wine, one for each of us, for 25¢ apiece, and since I was driving and don’t drink anyway, she got her sample and mine, too. After we got home, we watched “The Banger Sisters” (if you haven’t seen it, don’t bother – it’s not all that, even though I have always been very fond of Goldie Hawn) and I appointed Fran as the bedtime police, so she would make sure we didn’t stay up all night and talk when I had to get up at silly o’clock in the morning and go to work, and she had to leave when I did. So Fran drove off into the sunrise to visit other friends, I went to work and our visit was finished. We had a grand time.
Before Fran came, I cleaned the house from top to bottom (with the exception of the on-going GMHT project), and from what I had left of the pecans she sent me awhile back, I tried to make candied pecans. I had a good time trying, and rather than baking them in a big hot oven, I used my little toaster oven, which made a good substitute, but obviously I’m candied-pecan impaired, because I ended up with small bits and pieces of individual pecans, a few individual pecans and large globs of pecans held together by the sticky gluey mess created from the sugar mixture, a/k/a pecan sugar stew. It was a total mess, but delicious, if you didn’t mind going at it with a small ice pick
The first night Fran was at my house (Friday night), we stayed up until sunrise, talking and catching up and snacking on pecan sugar stew, so we slept away a lot of Saturday. However, we did get some mileage out of the rest of the day by going to one of our favorite old haunts for dinner. We used to work on a club newsletter together, and every Thursday, we would go to our favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner and work on the newsletters. We called this our “staff meeting”, although this implied that we were actually official staff of some paying organization. Not so. We only did it for the joy of newslettering and the joy of Mexican food.
We came back to the house Saturday night and watched “My Cousin Vinnie”, which she had never seen. I personally do not think people should be allowed to live in Alabama (or that would be Ala-fuckin’-bama, according to Vincent Gambini) without having seen this movie, and I could not in good conscience allow her to go back there without having seen it. I don’t know if she liked it as much as I do – I don’t think anybody likes it as much as I do – but she seemed to enjoy it, and after that we once again talked late into the night.
On Sunday, we watched our Sunday Morning show and then went out and got pedicures (Fran’s treat). This was fun, as I was overdue for one. I bought us each a toe ring – I just needed a new one, and Fran had never had one -- and we debated as to which toe should be graced with the toe rings we had just bought. Everyone I’ve ever seen wearing one seems to favor wearing it on the second toe, the one next to the big toe. I personally favor wearing mine on the toe next to the little toe, with the idea that if your finger next to your pinkie is your ring finger, then the toe next to your little toe would naturally be your ring toe. I always wear mine on the right foot, ring toe. I suppose if it were a wedding toe ring, or even an engagement toe ring, I should wear it on my left foot, ring toe. I’m told that I have given this way too much thought.
We took our fancy feet to dinner at Olive Garden, which they do not have in her newly-adopted hometown. The waiter offered us samples of wine, one for each of us, for 25¢ apiece, and since I was driving and don’t drink anyway, she got her sample and mine, too. After we got home, we watched “The Banger Sisters” (if you haven’t seen it, don’t bother – it’s not all that, even though I have always been very fond of Goldie Hawn) and I appointed Fran as the bedtime police, so she would make sure we didn’t stay up all night and talk when I had to get up at silly o’clock in the morning and go to work, and she had to leave when I did. So Fran drove off into the sunrise to visit other friends, I went to work and our visit was finished. We had a grand time.
Monday, August 14, 2006
Weekend Lament
I didn’t really mean to be an absentee blogholder, but that is what’s happened. My apologies to one and all. No real reason for it – I’ve just been uninspired. I’ve also been busy, but that’s really no excuse.
After moving into my then-newly-purchased house in November 2004, I have been trying almost incessantly to “get my house together”, which at one time had some concrete meaning. I am still trying to do that, although I am now finding the phrase to be overused and somewhat meaningless. I am aware that when one buys a house or even moves into an apartment, “setting up housekeeping” is an ongoing process wherein one completed project leads to another newly-started one, or in some cases, one uncompleted project leads to several other uncompleted projects, but I swear I am not going to allow the latter to become my lifestyle. Finishing that part of “getting my house together” is not really what I mean, since I don’t ever expect to be completely satisfied with whatever the status quo might be at any given time. What I have always meant by that phrase is getting unpacked and put away or situated all those things I brought with me from my previous residence (not to mention all the stuff I’ve had in storage at Mother’s for years, some of which is still there).
Time and energy seem to be the main stumbling blocks for my “getting my house together” (herein known as GMHT). I work two jobs – one day job, 40 hours a week Monday through Friday days, and one night job, two nights a week (Thursday and Friday) for about 10 hours a week. The latter is a retail job (a perfectly wonderful job in a bookstore), which means that I am abusing my much-overweight body by standing on sore feet and inflicting myself on my arthritic knees for several hours at a stretch. I don’t work weekends, but Saturdays I just die.
Working two double shifts in a row (both jobs Thursdays and Fridays) incites the metabolic law that means on Friday night (or whatever time I get to bed that is closest to it) my body will collapse upon impact with my bed and not be roused by anything short of a nuclear holocaust until it gets damned good and ready. This even includes neighbors who mow their lawns before noon on weekends, which is some kind of suburban crime that should be punishable by weeds, if not outright death. Of course, this metabolic law doesn’t reckon on O’Malley, my otherwise wonderful and thoroughly adored cat who racks up thousands of frequent flier miles per year, usually three feet at a time and mostly on Saturday mornings.
Having slept away the whole Saturday until I am spent, I usually get up and stumble into the kitchen, pour a glass of iced tea for myself and set up camp on one end of my couch (Command and Control Central, my equivalent of Archie Bunker’s chair – no one gets to sit there but moi) and begin to plan my day. Sometimes this involves actually doing something, but more often than not, it involves reading the television guide to see what channel I want to put the TV on while I ignore it and read whatever book I’m involved in at the moment until I decide it’s time to get up and go back to bed for awhile. This process is repeated throughout the day, usually without anything productive having been accomplished in any way, shape or form. During this time, I am often visited upon by the “Do Something!” police, but I usually choose to ignore them. I do, however, at least make plans for what productive things I will spend the impending Sunday doing.
Sundays. Although I am not a particularly religious person (I was using the term “spiritual” long before it became a yuppie rationale for attending church), I do belong to a church, and I used to be active in attendance and choir and Sunday school teaching and ladies’ circle and all that good stuff. All that was before I took an intense dislike to our then-minister (circa 1997) and then took a second job (circa 1998). [I have always had an intense dislike for mornings in general.] When I was working on Saturday nights, getting out of bed on Sunday mornings to go to church wasn’t even an option. I did, however, show up in church on the first Sunday after our then-minister left, figuring at the very least to make a statement with my presence. I had intended to continue doing so, especially now that I’m not working Saturday nights, but for some reason I just don’t feel moved to go to the trouble, even though I do go to the trouble to set my alarm so I can get up before 9 AM and watch my favorite show on all of television outside of Braves baseball – CBS’ “Sunday Morning”. I have inspired my friend Fran and my mother to watch this show, and usually when it’s over, one or the other of them (or both) will call me and we will spend incredible amounts of time on the telephone talking about not a damn thing and enjoying ourselves thoroughly while we do it. (Unlimited long distance was created with me in mind, thank you very much.)
If I can gather some momentum, I actually manage to accomplish quite a lot on some Sundays, but other Sundays (like yesterday), I can manage to accomplish nothing whatsoever. Most of what I need to do to GMHT is downstairs in the guest bedroom or the garage, and it’s stuff I am really beating myself over the head to get done, but my poor knees are so resistant to stairs that I can sometimes manage to come in from the bookstore (and dinner afterward with a friend) Friday night, climb the stairs and not go downstairs again until Monday morning, when it’s time to go to the office. Other times, I can actually manage to make myself go downstairs, whereupon I manage to get quite a lot done. Yesterday wasn’t one of those times.
If I can finish putting up my tins, I can pretty well manage to get the rest of that room pulled together, and then I can drag my feet and get the garage done at my leisure, in and around other projects I have in mind. The projects are related to fixing up the house, as such, not unpacking anything I brought with me. You would think that putting up a few tins wouldn’t be such a big deal; would that it were “a few” tins. It’s actually more like a few hundred tins, to the tune of over three thousand tins, many of which have already been put up. I have rebuilt the “main” walls of tins three times now, and I’m getting ready to rebuild the secondary walls as soon as I can get my lazy arse down the stairs on a weekend. I have done as much in that room as I can by working around the tins awaiting their eventual fate, but the only possible next step is to finish the tins before I can do anything else.
I have decided that should I have reason to move again in the future (when I bought this house, the very idea was totally unthinkable, and my plan has always been to leave the place no other way but toes up), I will not take the tins with me. I have moved them about four times, the last two times of which they were numbering in the multi-thousands. No more. I will find some poor soul who is willing to come and get them and pack them up and take them with them, or willing to move into the house to live with them. There are way too many to try to sell them on ebay onesie-twosie, so I’m not even going to go there.
And how was your weekend?
(The tins pictured above are about one fourth of my tin collection, when I had them on display at my apartment.)
