Dear Best Friends,
If I ever find myself in the unenviable position of having a human grow in my belly, here is my guarantee to you: I will never name my child after a famous entertainer. I read recently in the newspaper of record in Vermont that a local couple named their child after their favorite singer, a piano-playing Brit (who apparently can do a handstand on his baby grand. What?!) with a taste for outlandish eyewear and extravagant suiting. Then they took the eponymously named child to this singer’s recent concert and used the child as a way to get an autograph from his namesake. While I have nothing against using children for things like hard labor and begging for spare change, I do find it slightly reprehensible to name your child after someone famous just to get an autograph.
If I had a girl, here’s what she wouldn’t be called: Angelina Jolie Ober. Or Meryl Streep Ober. Or even Hilary Duff Ober. Ok, that kind of has a nice ring to it. I might consider that. But my boy would never be called Tom Cruise Ober. Or Al Pacino Ober. But I might consider 50 Cent Ober. Nobody would mess with that kid. Or everybody would mess with him. It’s sort of a craps shoot.
I once worked at a summer program for supremely intelligent tiny humans and one of the little boys had the unfortunate birth name of Nimrod. I can’t for the life of me remember his surname, but it never mattered. It’s not like there was another Nimrod in the class that we needed to worry about. I could never figure out what his parents were thinking, or what drugs they were using for that matter. Nimrod in contemporary culture is synonomous with “dolt” or “idiot.” Granted, the name means “hunter” in Hebrew, but it’s unlikely that the fifth-graders pummeling wee Nimrod after school would be aware of that.
That dovetails not at all with my next issue, which is me almost getting hit by bicycles when I’m riding my bicycle. So that was an awesome sentence wasn’t it? Ok, let’s try that again. Hey kids, you know what I really hate? What Lauren? I really hate it when I’m riding my bike in the bike lane and I nearly get decked by another cyclist. Jinkies Lauren, that stinks! Why, yes it does, kids.
So I was riding my bike to work the other day because I’m going to singlehandedly save the environment with my bicycle commuting. Someone call Al Gore and give him the good news. I was pedaling down the bike lane on N. Winooski Avenue, the one-way bike lane, I might add, when a dude comes flying around the corner and into my bike lane riding in the opposite direction of traffic. He nearly decapitated me with all the swords he was swinging around as he rode. Ok, he wasn’t carrying swords, but I thought it would sound like I was truly in peril if there was antique weaponry involved.
Now, the bike lane, just like the road is ONE WAY. If there is any confusion, the two of you reading this blog post now can clear that up. Get the word out to your friends and let them know that riding in the bike lanes the wrong direction ain’t cool. You know what else ain’t cool? Carpal tunnel syndrome. I think I’m coming down with a case right now. So let’s speed this up.
I’ve told you something that makes me want to punch someone’s lights out and now I’ll tell you about something that fills me with a kind of joy that makes me want to run through City Hall Park with my arms wide open singing tunes from the “Sound of Music”: little kids wearing sunglasses. I can’t think of anything cuter. It’s so cute, it makes me want to puke. Whenever I’m sad, I just think of the last little kid I saw wearing sunglasses and instantly I’m cured of my blues.
Because I’ve worn glasses since I was five years-old, I never experienced the little kid sunglasses phenomenon. As soon as a little anklebiter dons a pair of shades, he/she instantly becomes cuter. I don’t care how many times Johnny was beaten with the ugly stick, once he puts those sunglasses on, he’s ready to be in a Gymboree ad.
I don’t know if the cuteness comes from the fact that the sunglasses are always eight times too big for their small faces, or that kids wearing sunglasses always look like they’re trying to be adults (and we know how cute that can be. Hello, kindergarten beauty queens). Whatever it is, I love it. It makes me laugh. It warms my black heart. It makes me wish I had one of those things. If I did, I would probably call her Queen Latifah Ober.
