Kentucky Derby Time!!

I don't know if my mom started it or not. I do know I started reading Dick Francis novels because of her, and that has something to do with it. I'm talking about figuring out what you'd name your race horse if you had one.

In my opinion, there are a couple of factors that go into choosing the perfect race horse name. Perhaps you want to rub other people's nose in the fact that, heh, heh, you had few exra million dollars to blow and decided to buy a filly. You might choose a name like "Spencer's Folly" or "Mid-Life Crisis."

Maybe you're new money but you want to sound classy, so pick something like "Aristedes" or "Verdigris." Or your horse's name can tell the world how hip you are(n't). So you call him "Horse.com" or "Impeachment."

Personally, I might just aim for the funny. I would get a kick out of making the announcers say my pony's name as he careens around the rails or finishes last. Or I might get political, or just go for the smut factor.

Anyway, this weekend as you watch the derby (and I know you will, with your mint julep in hand, wearing your big hat), try inserting some of the following - my picks in the Run for the Roses.

Spotted Dick
Thay It With a Lithp
Beans Beans the Musical Fruit
Skidmark!
Smell the Glove
Avada Kedavra
Coitus Interruptus
Your Mother's Double Chin
Sanjaya
10,000 Dead Nuns & Orphans
and

Nova Scotia Bound

Boundaries

People who annoy the crap out of me because they share their personal stuff with the whole world despite its inappropriate content or mind-numbing boringness, or said person's obnoxious voice or the fact that the whole world is not interested and is doing other things:

• grocery store bag boy chatting with another bag boy about some chick they hate
• toothless lady on her cell phone at Goodwill
• loud people on the bus
• large girl planning her wedding at Borders Cafe hyped up on bridal magazines and coffee
• bad parents giving out parenting advice in our waiting room
• recently hired co-worker sharing the woes of dating a guy with a micropenis
• anyone who wants to tell me about their love of NASCAR
• Britney Spears

more about names

I am kind of obsessed with names actually. My husband is a crazy list-maker and I am not. But here are some lists I wish I had been making all along, since these topics have been a recurring theme in my life for literally years:
Names for my:

• race horse, should I ever own one
• rock band, should I ever be in one
• family estate, should ever live in one
• soft drink, should I ever invent one
• boat/camper, should I ever get one
• memoirs, should I ever write them

Examples of each will be forthcoming ...

Naming my Blog

During a 6th grade sleepover with one my best friends, we were musing in the dark about our futures. Silly things became hilarious, as they do in the wee hours (or earlier hours if you're under the influence), and we speculated on the reasons people try to come up with unusual, funky, grand or pseudo-ethnic sounding names. Perhaps their parents thought that these names portent success or fame or whatnot (great chapter in Steven Levitt's Freakonomics about this). And how we thought the kids with those names would suffer in school because their names are, in fact, stupid. I won't give any examples 'cuz sure enough, some random person named Dimple or Senator will stumble upon this blog and get irate. Anyway, we decided that we would give our children mundane names that won't build up anyone's expectations or give false hope, and might actually reflect the dull lives our children were likely to actually live. Names like ... Shovel. And Plug. As in Shovel Rathberger and Plug Garcia. We had others, they just aren't coming to me at this time. Seemed hilarious then.

This friend and I got together a year or so ago - decades have gone by - between us we have four children, none of them named after garden utensils or electrical outlets. No Dimples or Senators either. We reminisced about our ideas concerning the naming our kids and ... still hilarious. To us anyway.

P.S. It may have been seventh grade.