name game

My husband and I name all our pets after our favorite characters in movies. 

First was our small, black,  carnival-prize bunny, Ed.  She was named after Holly Hunter’s character in Raising Arizona.  (Short for Edwina – turn to the right!)  We didn’t win her in the carnival, one of my nieces did.  When we found out my niece won her we went to the carnival ourselves and dropped at least twenty bucks at the ping-pong-ball-in-the-glass game trying to win our own.  We justified it as trying to save a poor, most certainly mistreated animal.  Really we just wanted something small and soft to squeeze.  We were ultimately given the bunny because obviously my husband’s sister and brother-in-law are much smarter than we are.  Having  a pet bunny is like having a deaf, incontinent cat that chews on everything.  I swear that rabbits must not conduct electricity, because every electrical cord in our apartment was chewed down to the wires.  We gave Ed away (cage and all) to a mother who wanted a small animal for her home-schooled kids to learn from and take care of.  My husband thinks they ate her. 

Next was our cat, Hi,  named after H.I. McDonough, also from Raising Arizona.  Then, Nikita, from La Femme Nikita.  Shortly after was Ripley, which was Sigorney Weaver’s character in the Alien movies.  Our latest addition is Mathilda, which was Natalie Portman’s role in the film The Professional. 

As carefully chosen as all our pet’s names are, we usually call them by some elaborate nick-name that we’ve concocted. 

Ed was Rocket-Butt, because of her ability to go from completely still to three feet in the air in a fraction of a second. 

We normally call Hi, Boo, or Boo-Kitty.  Sometimes Boocifer or Booelzebub (he is rather evil).  Other times he’s Orange One or Long-Tail (these are his Native American names). 

Nikita was usually referred to as The Husky (not very original, we know).  But, there was also Husky-Mutt, Fluff-Mutt and Howler-Mutt.  Princess Cross-Paws and Nisquita were also popular. 

I think that Ripley wins in the number of nick-names category.  Chub Scout, Roundly-Houndly, Hippobottomus, Thunder-Chicken, Ottoman-Dog, Ripilina and Chub-Mutt are the most often used. 

We’ve only had Mathilda a few days so Silly-Tilly is all that we’ve come up with so far for her.  Well, there’s also Worm-Butt, but we hope that the vet takes care of that on Friday. 

Do I know you? Really?

 While driving home from work the other day I get a call from my husband. 

“Hi, what’s up?”
“I’ve got one for you,” he says.  “Val Kilmer is a supporting actor in a movie that has another supporting actor whose character’s name is his real last name.  What’s the movie?”
“Oh, gosh.  I don’t know!” 
“You’ll never get this one!”  He can’t contain his glee. 
“I’m almost home, let me think about it.”

As soon as I snap shut my cell phone, I’m fairly certain I have the answer.  I don’t know how I have the answer.  It floated up from the briny depths of my brain and burst through the surface to my conscious mind.  A literal thought bubble. 

I arrive home, and after greeting the dogs and taking off my heels, I meet my husband in the computer room.  “Is it Heat?” I ask, already knowing I’m right. 
He stares at me.  “How did . . .what made you . . .Damn!” 
I leave him with his incredulity to go change out of my work clothes. 

This type of conversation is rather typical in my life.  I’ll be at work, home, in the car and receive random phone calls from my mother, sister, husband.  The questions are normally movie or television trivia, but sometimes are grammar or science related.  Usually, the inquiry is because someone really just wants to know the answer and Google isn’t handy so they call me.  Every once in a while, I get the call specifically designed to stump me.  These usually come from my husband.  It’s cute.  It’s only kind of weird when I get cornered at parties.  “Answer these questions, freak!”  They don’t really say that, but it’s how it feels sometimes.  Now, I don’t always get the answers right.  There are plenty of things I don’t know.  But, I get them right often enough to be deemed the “trivia chick”. 

I’m okay with being the “trivia chick” because that doesn’t define who I am.  I don’t go home and study movie trivia or pop culture just to be prepared for a random question.  I just remember that stuff automatically.  It’s what sticks to the flypaper in my brain.  It’s okay to be known for a certain talent, but I don’t think it is okay for that one talent to define you, to be all that you are.  I think this turns people into clichés of them selves. 

Humans have this need to categorize things, put them into groups so we can organize the chaos around us.  Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species.  Then we go even further with race, ethnicity, sex, language spoken, where you live, married/single, kids/no kids, smoker, drinker, hobbies, interests.  Like MySpace; the same 20 questions for everyone so we can all know who you are.  But that’s not really who we are.  It may be a good starting place for people to see if they would have something in common with you, but can you only be friends with people that have the same interests that you do?  I can be friends with someone who doesn’t like to read, or who likes country music, or who loves sports.  The only real characteristics that are needed for me to enjoy your company are an ability to think for yourself, an inherent kindness and a sense of humor.  But, I can’t just ask you if you have these traits.  You couldn’t be objective enough to answer truthfully.  I’ll have to find out for myself by talking to you.  And after really getting to know someone, I usually find that they can’t be easily categorized at all.

This is my brain on movies.

I love movies.  There are things that I love more than movies, so I’m not like, completely wack for them, but I am a big fan.  I own about 140 dvd’s of movies that I especially like or that were just cheap or I got for free.  I’ll watch pretty much anything, unless the main actor’s full time job is rapping (except Friday), or the main theme involves “bringing it on”.  I’ll watch anything that can make me turn off my brain, which is no small feat, because I think about everything, all the time. 

Why does covering the eyes and head of animals calm them, but it freaks people out?

When we drive everyday, we inherently trust that 96% of the other people on the road will follow basic traffic laws.  What if they suddenly didn’t? 

Why is being legally married still so important in the eyes of the government, when the divorce rate is at all time highs?

When The Milky Way collides with the Andromeda galaxy in about 3 million years, will anyone be around to care?

When the opening credits roll, my brain chatter silences.  I melt into the screen and let the story think for me.  If the character is sad, I’m sad.  If they’re happy, I’m happy.  If they’re scared, I’m scared.  If they didn’t know they were dead all along, I didn’t know.  I don’t try to figure out the ending ahead of time, I don’t analyze motive, I don’t even cringe at bad grammar.  I just sit and enjoy the story in front of me and the silence in my brain. 

If the movie was particularly good, that silence with carry over after the screen goes black.  I’ll be on auto-pilot as I gather my purse and walk to the car.  The only response you’ll get from me is a glassy stare and a nod.  After a few minutes I’ll finally snap out of it and say, “Damn!  That was a great movie!”  The gears in my head will start turning again and I’ll be ready to discuss what I’ve seen.  Then the chatter will return. 

“I so totally knew that he was that guy’s father all along.  Didn’t you?”

“No,” I say.  “But, isn’t it wierd that everything we see is reflected on our retinas upside down, but our brain turns it right side up for us automatically?”