terms of endearment

We're not big Valentine's Day people around here, but in honor of the day let's talk about pet names.

We all have our little idiosyncrasies, right? Well, I have one (among many, I'm sure) that always stops people in their tracks and probably makes me seem like a total weirdo. I'm clearly not self-conscious about admitting this, so let's get on with the full disclosure.

I name things. Not just, you know, a pet name here or there. I name THINGS. All kinds of things. Most of my most prized/often used possessions have names. With alliteration. There's Mary Mixer, Kitty Kindle, and Gary Garmin. Lucy Laptop,  Sigmund Sigg (and his predecessor Stanley)- you get the idea.

So as if that wasn't disturbing enough to unsuspecting house guests, there's more. I also develop quite unusual pet names for family members. The names start out as perfectly normal sounding ones (one's actual given name, for example) and morph over time. To me, the progressions of names are perfectly logical. When I explain them to curious inquirers, I'm met with expressions that cause me to wonder if I've grown an extra head or two. I've called my brother, whose name is Colin, "Wally" for years now. I call Chris "Blub", a name that morphed over time from the word "husband". Celia's name probably makes the most sense. I call her "Pita". When she was born, she was only five pounds and so tiny. A few nurses called her a peanut, but I thought she was so tiny that she was more like a pepita. So, "Pita" is short for Pepita.

Well, now that this is all out in the open I can use my special names freely when I write! This will make things much easier. It's hard to remember to call my Blub "Chris" when that rarely occurs in reality :)