Curiosities

I’ve always been fascinated by names and not just because I have a difficult maiden name or a strange spelling for my first name. Names have meaning and character, they fit you like clothing. And, sometimes, they do not fit. They conjure images, thoughts, and feelings. Naming things and people are important. That’s why I have a lot of nicknames for people, places, and things. It’s a long-standing habit. It has helped…

I can see a bird in the clouds–can you? Once upon a time, there was a little girl who had no middle name. Of course her classmates thought she was lying, hiding something horrible. There were days she wished she had a terrible middle name, so she could commiserate. She would have something to share and would not be called a liar, which in her world was right up there as one…

One of the coasters from a set that Chia laser printed for me in Engineering Science class. This is his show of support (he doesn’t follow me on social). I have a bucket full of ideas, as well as “folder” filled with newsletter and blog drafts, yet I haven’t been making any of them public. I’d been doing a lot of prevaricating (I always think of Wallace and Grommet when I hear…

When we first moved to Arizona, I had a series of terrible temp jobs. No one wanted to hire a recent graduate who had BA in German Area Studies and another BA in Comparative Literature.  No one.  There were very few interviews I went to that didn’t ask this as a final question: “So, do you speak any Spanish?”  I could tell that the question was a comin’ when the interviewer’s eyes lit up…

My plans were to post something on Groundhog Day that was funny and informative. Instead, I ran into an odd childhood memory and Venn diagram of sorts. Six degrees of separation, animal style, and a week late. Memories and synchronicity kicked in causing a lot of writer’s block. Giving up all my original ideas, I finally allowed this post to take a wild turn. You see, I was thinking about how I…