Little names.

Ame calls Ian E. E for the first sound in the already short name, Ian.

When she stares at herself in my iPhone and asks "who dat," I say Amelia. "Amee-yah," she says.
But really we all call her Ame, pronounced Ahh-mee.

That is, when we're not calling her 'Cessa (with the C as an S sound) - short for PrinCESSA.

'Cessa.

Ian says "Shesha," unable to say the 'S'.

Of course this is just the last bit of short names added to a long list of short names,  a tradition that seems to extend indefinitely on both sides of our family. I can tell you this: my sister is this generations name shortening extraordinaire!

We had a beautiful yellow lab that we called Noid. Short for Mitz-noid, a derivative of her real name, Mitzi.
That one somehow got longer. So we went from Mitzi, to Mitz-noid, to 'Noid.

Often the end result has no similarity to the original name; it's not like Mike for Michael... it's more like Dick for Richard!

Perhaps my favorite is my sisters short name: "Tos," like toast without the 't'.

It *is* actual short for "Toast," which is a shortened form of the name "Toast 'em," which is a shortened version of "Toast 'em Up." My father gave my sister this nick-name based on her daily routine; as she would get ready for school she would drop bread in the toaster and run to fix her hair and make-up... my father would listen for it intently and shout down the hall towards the bathroom "Toast em up!" when it popped. Since it happened daily, we used it as a sort of warning bell to be ready for school and never really used it as a name until one when my dad yelled in a crowd 'Toast 'em up!" while looking for my sister. Within a short time he used it whenever he wanted to get her attention and shortened it to "Toast!" then somehow, like the 't' was too much, dropped to "Tos!"

My father is dead now but I can still hear him yell and it still makes me smile, "Tos!" The funny thing is that it sounds exactly like "toes," which is ironic because my sister thinks feet and toes are the grossest part of the body and will deny owning any of her own. I wonder if she has thought about it. I won't tell her, just in case.

Speaking of 'sounds like'... did I mention her real name is Julia? Very pretty. But I've always - since childhood - opted for a shorter, simpler "Ju." Which, sounds exactly like.... "Jew."

Ju. Jew. Sounds same.

Apparently, whenever I've been trying to get my sister's attention among throngs of people I've been yelling "Jew! Jew!/Ju! Ju!".

And my short name is G...  short for Michael.

Hair?! SCHMARE!

[repost from a locked post a few weeks ago]

I really just wanted to show off some - o - my body. per usual.

Folsom is approaching, so I hope to get only more rockin over the next few weeks.

My hair is gettin a long long LAWNGGGGUH. But it doesn't make me any less beautiful, does it? I quite like it. Gives ya'll somethin to hold on to during that wild ride, I say!

Google owns Blogger... FINALLY!

After much trial and error, I realized that the reason I could not log in to this blog to FINALLY (after 5 years) update my blog is not that I couldn't remember my Yahoo! email associated password, but because Blogger, now a part of Google, is closing the gap and requiring ALL users (including pre-Google association) to have a Google associated account. In other words, if you don't have a _____@gmail.com login, you need to make the "migration" or forever lose your content the day before Halloween. That is, October 30th, 2011.

Luckily, I just happened to secure my account with my pre-existing Gmail account.

Long live duckylick.blogspot.com!