…Just don’t call me late to dinner

When we got our first dog, and then later our second dog, and then our first horse, they each came with a name.  But not the name we would’ve chosen.  Who names their cute little pinto horse, Norman?  And the adorable lab mix puppy, Joe?  What kind of names are those for sweet pets?  But it was their name so we didn’t change it.  When you meet a new friend you don’t change their name just because they have the same name as your ex-spouse.  No, you go with it.  So we did. Joe and Norman came to stay.

And your own name.  You didn’t choose your name.  It was given to you and you never gave it a second thought.  I didn’t think about my name until I went to Kindergarten.  And there I met a girl who had the most beautiful name I’d ever heard.  It had lots of syllables that rolled off your tongue with such grace and fluidity.  I went home and posed a very serious question to my mother.  Why had she given me such a short name, a name with only two syllables and ordinary sounds.  Why, I asked her, hadn’t she given me the name of my new friend. The name Elizabeth.

I’m sorry to report that my mother laughed at me and then said, “Okay, you’re Elizabeth.”  I’m sure this explains a lot of things that we don’t have time to go into today.

 

I had to wait a goodly number of years, but now, on the eve of being a grandmother, again, I have been given the opportunity to chose my own name. I have decided not to go for Elizabeth.  Can you imagine my grandson calling me Elizabeth?  He’d tell his friends he was going to spend the weekend with Elizabeth and they’d say, Who is Elizabeth, and he’d have to explain that his grandmother  wanted to be called Elizabeth when she was in Kindergarten and it didn’t happen, except for one snarky time, so now his grandmother finally had the chance to use that beautiful name.  No “Nana” or Grandma” for this grandmother.  She is to be called Elizabeth.  He’d need therapy, too.

I had never thought about choosing my “grandmotherly” name so I wasn’t full of ideas.  But I know where to find ideas so I googled “names for grandmothers” and sure enough plenty pop up.

I’m working on it but at this point I’m still at the, “You can call me anything, just don’t call me late to dinner” stage.

Go Granny!

My Dreams Go High Tech

When I was a kid I had a recurring dream involving telephones.  This was back in the olden days when telephones were attached to a building’s wall by a cord and dialing was done with a rotary wheel.  My dream was always the same. I was at a friend’s house or at my music teacher’s house and I was trying to call my mom to come get me.  And I couldn’t dial the number correctly.  I would try and try but I would keep dialing the wrong number.  

Well, phones have changed.  Landlines are disappearing and none of them have rotary dials. So to keep up with the times my dreams have updated.  The other night I dreamt that hubby and I were at a mall.  We got separated, so of course, I reached into my purse to get my cell phone and call him.  But I pulled out a phone that wasn’t mine.  I looked thru’ my purse but my phone wasn’t there. I had someone else’s phone. This was obviously because I’d set my phone down by some stranger’s phone and we’d each picked up the wrong phone. (It all made perfect sense in my dream.)

Oh well, I decided, I can still use this phone to call hubby. When hubby’s phone rings it won’t show my number, but not to worry, hubby answers every call.  I just needed to call him and find out where he was.

But true to form,  I couldn’t dial the right number.  I kept dialing and dialing but no luck.

And then I woke up.  Just like in my dreams when I was a kid.