Tag: names

Belly…

And sometimes you have three cones of soft serve with dinner… each, of course: two as an appetizer and one as dessert on the way out.

Ah, the blessings of Mexican restaurants with self-serve soft serve… the fact that it is by the door still cracks me up. We actually went one evening just to see if we could have some soft serve. My man went inside to ask if he could buy the soft serve. He didn’t quite manage the question, but he still ended up with permission to take some ice cream for us both, even though we weren’t dining, and so was just waiting in the car! Score, for sure!

So, having three cones tonight was another bonding event for the both of us. I feel best eating paleo, yet, here we were, scarfing down ice cream on cones and chips with salsa and chile con queso… some Friday nights, it seems, just call for Mexican food and ice cream, it seems.

Afterward, as we walked to the car, eating our third cones, we detoured to the stadium across the way, because there was a game happening. We ended up getting a perfect picture of me with the stadium’s scoreboard, which happens to have my family name on it in big letters (though I’ve no idea why). We’d gone by on the bikes one day, but couldn’t get inside the fence without breaking laws. Tonight, however, the freshman or JV football game inside was free of charge to attend, and you got to walk on the track (only way for visitors to get to the other side) on the scoreboard side(!). Thus the awesome photo! Yippee!

Also, my man, naturally, spilled some ice cream on the bottom hem of his shorts while walking to the stadium. Good thing I grabbed napkins on the way out (specifically with him in mind, mind you)! But, when we were waiting for a play to end, so we wouldn’t be so ridiculously obvious taking photos by the field – keep in mind that we already stood out, our being the only white people in a stadium of mostly black and some Hispanic people – I started helping him identify spills and cleans himself up. Fortunately, the only one on his clothes was the shorts hem spill. It was a small drop. So, I figured a little moisture could go a long way to help out the chocolate spill on the khaki shorts.

However, let’s think about this for a second. We’re standing under the edge of the bleachers, down at the far end where no one is sitting anyway. I lean down and suck on the hem of his shorts a few seconds… meaning that I have my head down quite near his groin, though actually well below it… how bad does that look from a distance?!?!?! So it goes, I suppose… w broth cracked up as we both realized it at about the same time, and I said it allowed. 😛

Anyway… it was a great time, and it, surprisingly, wasn’t too hot. I even had on long sleeves still, and a scarf, from the restaurant. Very decent weather tonight.

Thank you, God, for such a lovely and silly evening and night. Help us to sleep well, please, that we have the energy and attitudes to pursue your will and share your love tomorrow. In your name, I pray. Amen.

What’s-his-name

My mom aske me the name of my friend’s most recent child today. I had no idea, but imagined it would be names from the bible, and so I said the first two male Bible names that came to mind, adding that it was something Catholic like that, though I was truly only guessing all of it.

After a brief pause, my mom says, ‘Wait… but isn’t it [first name in Spanish] [second name in Spanish]?’

My eyes merely widened. ‘Seriously???’ I wanted to know. Was my mom really remembering correctly? And had I just pulled two names out of nowhere that were the right names, just in English instead of Spanish? Then my mom adds that it might actually just be the first name in Spanish and the second in English (as the second isn’t spelled any differently in Spanish versus English, but merely pronounced differently).

So, I looked it up on Facebook. I had sent my mom the original post about the baby’s birth, and that was the only time she or I had seen his names, anyway. I kid you not, it was exactly as my mom had guessed, and as I had thrown out randomly. The names were right, just that the first was the Spanish version of itself. My mom nailed it, and I was blown away.

Totally cool yet still bizarre, right? I had completely forgotten everything about that kid’s name in my conscious mind, but my subconscious had held onto it somehow – way cool!

Post-a-day 2022

P.S. N, if you’re reading this, yes, this was about your son. ;P

“Barnard Thompson”

21:01 on 2/21/21, a baby was born. This was also Santa Anna’s birthday. That shall make it quite easy for me to remember in the future. 🙂

Odd how seventh grade Texas History is proving so valuable in such a unique place in my life. 😛

P.S. That’s just what I’ve been calling the baby. I have no idea what its given name actually will be. In my mind, he shall always be Barnard Thompson, because that’s what he’s been for so long. 😂

Post-a-day 2021

“Love”

I really love when younger adult men (e.g. aged 20-40) call women “love”, “sweetheart”, “darlin'”, and the likes in an entirely and obviously non-romantic but loving way.

I mean like how the guy in the student ID photo-taking station wished me well as I left, by saying, “You, too, gorgeous,” or how this particular cashier at Trader Joe’s always calls me “love” – ‘You’re all set, love.’

The first was perhaps around 35, and the cashier possibly around 25… and neither gave off even the slightest hint of desire or sexual connotation to the use of the endearing terms… they were, simply, terms of endearment on a friendly, human-to-human level.

And I love that.

Today, after class, a coach said to me, “Great job today, sweetheart,” and waved me a goodbye… it was clear that he intended encouragement and care on a friendly level, and nothing at all on a romantic level… and it felt so good…

To be cared for by the opposite sex, without there being an alternate agenda of any kind, is really, really nice.

Certainly, when someone uses the same words in a derogatory or demeaning, looking-down-at-me sort of way, it is dreadful and, even, somewhat inappropriate.

In these contexts, however, it is clear that I am respected for who I am, and the word is used as an expression of human love and concern for one another…

(I’m not sure how else to put it right now, but I hope you can see what I mean with all of this.)

I just love that these men have started doing this again – it once was somewhat normal, here in the South, anyway, but has fallen away almost entirely in recent decades, leaving only the really old men to use the terms with women.

But these younger guys are somewhat bringing it back, and I love it.

Perhaps it can be a sort of step toward showing our love and concern for one another more openly in the world, like how I always told my Starbucks coworkers every time I left work, “Okay… love you guys… bye!”

Perhaps we are on the path to show one another and to share with one another our mutual love as human beings, who are together here on this Earth.

You know?

Post-a-day 2019

Call me Ishmael

If another adult – recalling that I am, in fact, an adult myself – insists that I call him/her “Dr.”, because he/she ‘worked so hard for that degree,’ or because he/she is ‘so proud of having earned it,’ is that not quite comparable to my saying that people must converse with me in French, because I worked so hard to learn it and I’m so proud of being able to speak it?

(I’m not saying that it’s the same, but just comparable oddities with the same reasoning.)

It’s just a thought that came to mind today, and it has me a bit flummoxed.

I grew up in a world where we are all people, not classes or ranks, so I’ve never really been able to understand people’s required uses of name ranks (beyond someone’s voluntarily being respectful in addressing another, I mean [though even that gets me sometimes]).

Post-a-day 2018

What’s your nerd field?

Today, my cousin compared my lesson planning talk with that of her brother’s talk about trees.  You see, he, her brother (and my cousin), got really into trees, and studied forestry at Stephen F. Austin State University, in Nacogdoches, Texas.  He used to talk about toy cars and action figures, and even eventually video games, too, like a little nerdy kid who is somewhat obsessed and awed by the specific toys and all that they can do/represent, as well as all of their background information.  You couldn’t really get him to shut up about the toys when he was little, or the video games when he was around high school aged.  In college, this talk turned to being about trees.  He even named his dog after “his favorite tree species”.

So, now, fast forward to today.  My cousin, the forestry cousin’s older sister, said to me that my teacher talk about lesson ideas and planning lessons – and this is about any topic, be it actual foreign language teacher, which I actually did for high schools, or dance lessons, or my art & yoga classes, or whatever teaching opportunity I might have – reminds her exactly of her brother and his tree talk.

Does that not say something distinct and pointed about me and teaching?  😛  Clearly I like it.  (I also happen to be very good at it, it turns out.  Total blessing, and I am incredibly grateful for it.)

‘Okay, but I’m not going to get a dog and name it Lesson Plan,’ I laughingly retort.
After a slight pause for inhale, she replies, ‘Hannah…, I could see you coming up with a more creative and better way to name the dog Lesson Plan.’
‘You say that…’
‘Oh, did you think I was joking?  Because…’
‘No.  You say that, and I know that you aren’t joking.’

I was just worried that I really might be that nerdy about it, because I could totally see myself doing something that silly somewhere down the road.  😛

Post-a-day 2018