I had a crush on a “Jennifer” in middle school.
[/makes Pie jealous]
I had a disturbingly large number of Jenns in my life for a while. There was Jenn, Other Jenn, Pink-Haired Jenn, Jenn You Don’t Know and Oh, That Jenn. Despite the fact that they were all snooty and/or psychotic, I still kind of like the name.
The name Jenny in all its incarnations has been ruined for me for life. It’s weird - I’ve never had a positive experience with anyone named Jennifer/Jenny/etc. The name per se I like, though.
:: plagiarizes from rigs’s essay ::
Good luck on quitting, herbs!
The diminutive of my name is extremely common so when I started my current job 18 years ago I decided to go by my full formal first name which isn’t rare but not often heard these days. It worked well for about 16 years until another woman about my age with the same name joined the firm. It is really annoying to get her calls and e-mails. She makes no effort to distinguish herself when she calls a contact. I swear one day I will just start telling people she quit. :mad:
tarra, hang in there. You’ll be so glad you did. No more monkey on your back. And you’ll save loads of money!
Not much going on around these parts. One more day till Firday!
Tupug
One of my good friends is named Jennifer. She’s totally nifty and is the unofficial godmother to my kittehs… she’s pretty much singlehandedly redeemed the name of Jennifer in my eyes (though I tend to call her Jennypants or Jenn more often than not).
I’ve never met a Sara/Sarah that I got along with, and I generally have issues with any Christina who uses her full name (though I am good friends with one who goes by Chriss and one who goes by Christa). Needless to say, should hell freeze over and I decide to have a child, I won’t be considering either name.
I still have baby names in mind should the impossible happen, though - I figured it would make sense to plan ahead, since I’d need to find names that work in both English AND French to accomodate my family. For boys, I’ve always liked Alexander, Sebastien or Felix, and for girls I like Gabrielle, Olivia (especially when you shorten it to Livvy) or Alice.
Old Boss just came by and told me he’s buying me lunch. YAY! Of course, I know he’s just trying to pump me for information on this new system, but as long as there’s free food involved I’ll happily cooperate. 
I’m late to the group, but I like the name Anyanka. Then again, it’s the sort of female name I like (when I write my female characters have lots of names that end in an ‘a’, I try to not do it but it just flows better IMO… stuff like Shantae, Kalika, Melantha…). When I was considering girl names while pregnant I had such trouble deciding though. I ended up deciding on Amara Siobhan. The boys name came to me right away though (Arthur Duncan) it just couldn’t be any other…
My name is after both of my Grandma’s, and recently I learned that the my first name wasn’t really my Grandma’s first name! It was her middle name. She was born Naomi Ruth, but she changed her whole name when she got married so she became Ruth Amy. I thought of changing my name at times (I went through a phase of wanting to be called Chrysalis… or Chrys for short… but grew out of that. Mostly.) I’ve always gone by my middle name (Claire) and I like it now.
Most names I’m fine with, it’s just the misspellings that drive me batty. I know some people here on the boards have children named that way, so I’ll leave it like that but it just grates on me. Same with other spellings of Siobhan (I’ve seen Chivonne, Shivonne, Shivon… mostly on daytime tv when I’m sick :p).
Not much happening today, just crazy as always.
Evening all. Busy weekend ahead, since my SIL is getting married tonight. Well, technically, she’s signing the marriage contract, but won’t be “married” until later in the year, once they find a house, have a party, go on honeymoon and he finally pops her cherry! Sigh, consummation of the marriage is such an interesting concept. Anyhoo, men’s party (if you can call it that) is tonight and women’s party is tomorrow night. Oh joy, I get to drive down to the groom’s mother’s house and sit around pretending to enjoy myself while drinking sweet black tea and eating baklava! Don’t get me wrong, I love baklava, but the company will likely bore me to tears - sitting around watching MIL and the groom’s mother preening and competing with each other to see who’s wearing the most expensive watch, all the while trying to grasp at least half of the conversation and worrying how long I should wait before I can politely take my leave so as to get home in time to watch the latest episode of Survivor: Fans vs Favorites!
As for baby names, I am relieved in a way that I don’t have to worry about all the new age inventive approaches to naming kids. Being married to an Arab means I only have to choose a name that works in English and in Arabic. Oh, and I also have to NOT choose any name that may have Shi’a connections (we’re Sunni) or be Persian (my first name choice for HRH before she was born was Scheherezade, but unfortunately, that was shot down as being Persian - a mouthful I know, but such a beautiful name). A lot of my name choices were also nixed for being Shi’a or just because my husband didn’t like the way it sounded when used to describe him. In Arab/Muslim culture, once you have a child you are called Umm-Noor (Noor’s Mother) or Abu-Noor (Noor’s Father), so hubby didn’t like Nadia or Aïsha or Enaas or Aalia, because he thought they sounded funny when you put Abu- in front of them. I really liked the name Abeer, but that would have been a disaster in the English-speaking world! Well, if and when we have another I will fight the same battles all over again, unless it’s a boy, in which case he pretty much has to have his paternal grandfather’s name, Ebrahim. Not one I’m fond of, but what can you do? I would really like Adam, but we shall see …
My name (Nicole) is not as common as some others and is rarely shortened to Nicky. I occasionally get called Nic (and I won’t even tell you what my family calls me - it’s so babyish and embarassing, probably because I’m the youngest of 4), but I hate it when people spell my name with an “H” in the middle (I think that was a common perversion in the '80s) or call me Nicola! :mad:
[del]Morning[/del]Afternoon, everybody. I’ve actually been working for several hours; it’s break time.
My sister named her daughter Jennifer, after our great-grandmother – yes, there were Jennifers back around the turn of the 20th Century – and then of course landed right in the middle of the Jennifer Explosion. :smack: Oh well, she tried.
As for snowbunny, when I named her there just weren’t that many kids with her name around. Of course, the year she was in fourth grade there were nine girls in her Girl Scout troop, two of whom shared her first name, and of those two, one also shared her middle name. :smack: Yeah, that was fun, trying to get the right one.
If I’d been a boy, I would have been Christopher. Sometimes I wish my parents had named me that anyway; it just feels right. Especially considering how many women are using men’s names these days.
Lots more thoughts running through my bored brain, but alas, work calls. I’m still feeling pretty blah, but have to be up and about anyway; I’m waiting on a call from the moving company that’s going to drop off a cube by the storage unit where snowbunny’s stuff is currently residing, which we will then fill and they’ll drive to Idaho for us, and then we’ll fly out and drive from Boise up to the mountains and borrow SIL’s truck and drive back to Boise and take the stuff back up to the mountains and…yeah, the whole thing sounds like a lot of driving. But it’s such a pretty part of the world, I don’t care. It’s nice enough in Merrylande, but just not the same as mountains. Anyway, I have to be ready to go let the guy in and show him where to put the cube. Why Papa Tigs decided to have it dropped off today and not tomorrow, when he’s off, is a mystery to me. Also a massive inconvenience. Oh well, c’est la vie, right?
So back to work. Until the guy from the moving company calls. And then back home and back to work again. Is it bedtime yet?
Just got home from the doctor’s office. It was a strange visit, all in all. As I was waiting to be seen the wife of my old boss walked in so I chatted with her for awhile. Her daughter had gastric bypass 3 or 4 years ago and is now a size 4. I suppose it’s logical, but it’s just strange. The last time I saw her she was probably my size and about 5’10" tall. She must be* tiny*. Also, my dad had the surgery and has kept most of the weight off that he lost, but he’s still an XL or XXL depending on the clothes.
While we were sitting there chatting a drug rep walked in. I decided to be brave and give him my card. As luck would have it, the office wanted to schedule a lunch with him next week so he booked me to do it. Yay!!!
Oh, yeah, I was there because I was dizzy. Right, getting to that part. He gave me a prescription for Meclazine. Fortunately, it’s available as a $4 generic at the grocery store. Unfortunately, because I went to see my primary care doctor, I was not allowed to see the podiatrist today because they both work for the same group of doctors. So I had to reschedule that for monday. I think I’ll go take a nap and dream about beebs and changing my name to Jennifer.
Yay!!
Gah, I hate shopping for Father’s Day gifts. (Yeah, I know you ‘Murrikans don’t have to worry about that for a bit - in Korea we have Parents’ Day on May 8. I’m already late!)
I’ve been eating a lot of good food lately, and a lot less processed foods, or fast food. And I gave up pop.
I’m going to not recognize me pretty soon.
I don’t really celebrate Father’s Day (other than the obligatory card) since my dad’s birthday is in the middle of May. I’m thinking about giving him the same thing I gave him for Christmas: the pleasure of my company. I don’t get to see him too often, and since he’s all alone now it’s a good gift. Plus he can see how my new car’s working out for me. Y’know, since he paid for it and all.
hates you
Baklava makes me think of dolmades and there’s a recipe for those over on Robin McKinley’s blog. I MUST FIND GRAPE LEAVES!
pouts and thinks of Greece
Waah! I feel lousy, I have so much work to get done by tomorrow midafternoon that I may have to pull an all-nighter to get it done, the idiot guy from the moving company hasn’t called yet and if he waits much longer I’ll end up stuck in hideous traffic driving home from the storage place, and to add injury to insult, I just got a nasty paper cut on my palm! Waah!
I hate paper cuts.
So our friends a couple towns over, about a 20 minute drive away are always bitching how “we never see you anymore…” since we moved here. Well, first off that’s bull.
The other week, one of that group mentioned that a few of them have kind of a semi-informal regular Thursday night gathering.
“Oh?” we said. Well, no one mentioned it to us because it ‘just kinda started happening’ and because ‘you never come out here anyway’
Alright honestly, it’s one person, my friend’s wife M who says this all the time. Whiny, spoiled little bitch that she is.
So, today at the Wife’s urging, I reached and texted someone. I asked wassup tonight? She just wrote back now FOUR hours later that everyone has something else going tonight so nothing’s happening.
Fine. They thought I ‘never’ went out there before? Just watch now.
It’s hard to come by a group where everyone likes each other. My core group nowadays is That Guy, Minister’s Lad, and Mr Cheerio and his girlfriend (must think of nickname for her). We all love each other and get along awesomely (except when Mr Cheerio and his girlfriend get into one of their infamous fights). If it gets any bigger than that (and it was, back in school) we inevitably run into problems. Mr Cheerio has a sort of benign contempt for New England Gentleman, for example.
:: hugs for MamaTigs ::
I ended up getting a passport holder for my dad. He does travel a lot. Hope he likes it.
MBG, I had to set a couple of my friends straight on that a few years back.
See, for a while I work got really busy for me, so I did indeed turn down a couple of invitations in a row which would have kept me up too late on a weeknight (going to work hungover on 2 hrs sleep lost its appeal for me around the age of 22, for some odd reason). This apparently built up the impression that I “never come out any more”, so that even once things calmed down at work, they weren’t bothered to clue me into the plans.
Needless to say, I got a bit pissy and explained to them the differences between things like weekend brunch (yes please!), dinner/drinks after work (sure, usually) and partying until 3am on a worknight (sorry, no can do). Now they don’t bother inviting me if they’re going clubbing on a Tuesday, but they bring me into the loop for other stuff… and I’ve learned to be more specific when I turn down invites, so that people don’t jump to the conclusion that I’d rather not hang out with them when it’s really just that I’m not interested in the suggested activity.
I don’t suppose there are a couple of other people in the group that you can casually call up to say “hey, it’s been a while since we hung out together” and set the story straight?
Now see, this is exactly I do a good ninety percent of my entertainin’/hangin’ out at home. Yeah, we do go to other friends’ homes for stuff but mostly it’s here. Of course I like doin’ it too, so that makes a big difference. Neither of us is big on goin’ “out” for an evenin’ anymore. Dinner is the extent of goin’ “out” these days. Plus now that pool season is amongst us, there will be hang outs at da cave all the time, but not every weekend. I like some alone time with ol’ y’all know who after all.
Yays, boos, hugs, congrats as needed.
Hi.
11:30 PM. Just got to sit down and relax. Need to sleep soon! Tired…
We miss you Noone! The MMP is just so much cleaner without you. 
All this talk of hanging out reminds me that Movie Night Hostess’ senior show is on Monday and I have to go to work at 8 a.m. on Tuesday. Methinks much caffiene will be consumed.
Also I have to decide whether or not I want to go to the English grad student end of the year cookout tomorrow. I forgot to ask Redhead (who is now an officer in the grad student organization) is going. He’s the only one out of the Movie Group who would go. I plan on having A Drink tomorrow after work, so we’ll see how that shapes up.