Mental Health Thread #8 - Fall is here!!

We had flood watches and in some parts of the state warnings but I think the worst is over now. Commute on Tuesday was hell - that was the worst of it.

 

With my youngest brother my parents had a hard time agreeing on a name. Dad wanted to name him after a favorite uncle but Mom hated the typical nickname for that name. They did however ,both like a less common nickname for it which also happens to be the nickname for a different formal name. That one happened to belong to a notorious serial killer executed around the time he was born so that name was out. Uncle shared a name with a very sweet and kindly priest from our church whose birthday was a week before the due date. My mom made a deal that if my brother was born on that day, they would name him after the priest/uncle. Darned if he wasn't born then. Now, Mom admits they should have just named him the nickname as that is what he actually uses.

 

I have a nephew named Joseph and his Dad insisted that he be called Joseph. NOT Joe or Joey.

 

My mom insisted that I be called Cynthia and would threaten mayhem upon anyone who dared to call me Cindy. I thought her head was going to explode when she found out some of my high school friends called me "Cyn".

 

I ended up with my nickname because my parents though they were being original when they named me; just like a million other parents who had daughters born around the same time. When there are 5 of you in the same class with the same name, you are bound to end up with a nickname.

 

I became Catherine because there were already two Kathleens in the family at the time I was born. I changed the spelling of my nickname from Cathy to Cathie when I graduated high school, partly to honor my British grandfather who always used the ie spelling on birthday cards and such, and partly because there were always three Kathys or Cathys per square inch.

The various James's in Brad's family refer to each other by numbers. Brad is James4. Son James is James5. My father in law James3, and so on. James 5 uses James, James4 uses Brad, James3 is Jim and James2 is Jamie, or maybe the reverse; I can't keep it straight. No clue what James1 used - Brad doesn't remember him. Odd numbered James have the middle name Joseph - even numbered Jameses get different middle names.

 

Yikes, that's way too many Jameses in one family!

We don't do "naming after" in my family, except for middle names on occasion. My grandson was given my late son's first name as his middle name and my son has his father's middle name. Had I ever had a daughter, I wanted to give her my middle name as her middle name, because unlike some people I quite like my middle name so wanted to share it!

 

My Mom's family somehow ended up with a glut of Georges. Great grandfather was a George, who had a son George, who had a son George, etc. Then the other kids also decided to name sons after Dad, and their kids did the same, plus a few of the daughters married Georges. I'm not even sure of the final George tally but I'm sure it is upwards of a dozen.

A different branch of Mom's family has as plethora of cousins with my name. Technically, I am the 2nd. Uncle Johnny gave one of his daughters the same name as me, then 2 of his sons married women with the same name as well. All 3 of the others spell it the same way and have the same middle name. All 3 live near one another in small town PA, where it is common to still refer to a woman by her maiden name for identification purposes. Of course, #1's maiden name is the same as the other two's married name, so they get mixed up often.

 

I mentioned that I was Catherine because there were already two Kathleens? In 1995 we had a family reunion - there is a picture of JUST the Kathleens. There are - or were - eleven.

The picture of all the variants - Kathleen, Catherine, Katherine, Kaitlyn, etc. - well, let's not go there.

 

OE. Just. Will. Not. End. Officially closed 11/14 and yet, the problems continue. Lots of them.

 

We just assume that we will be dealing with OE issues until about January 6th or 7th and plan accordingly.

 

Oh, I knew it would linger. Some. These are full on OE might as well still be going on, issues. You know what we were facing this year. Well, it went about as well as could be imagined. That is to say, a month later, I'm hoping we are through the worst of it by February. Not kidding.

 

Ugh. Just got a "I will be on vacation" message from a VENDOR and the person concluded with "Remember the reason for the Season, the birth of Jesus." That has no place in professional communication.

 

Back not even an hour and already it is going to be a long day. It is however, actually good to be back. I managed to sprain my right foot and my left ankle the day after Christmas and spent much of the time since then sedentary. Great for catching up on books, TV and movies, but now I am glad to be out and about.