What's in a name?

I recognized the smell immediately.

I had just pulled into my garage and had one foot out of the car and one foot in. Then I smelled it.

My first thought was “something died”
Second thought – “Where is a vulture when you need one?”

I heard the ping of an IM on my phone at the same time and looked down to see my attorney was calling. Ah…ironically, the vulture did show up.

Maybe if I just sit here long enough – alone in the garage with one foot out and one foot in my car, it will magically go away. Not likely. I resigned myself to the deed ahead and slowly dragged myself out of the car.

I knew it was a rat – or I thought it was most likely a rat. And here’s what led me to my brilliant (and correct) conclusion.

A few months ago (yes months) I started hearing the late night pitter patter of feet in my attic. I live in a very quaint bungalow (another word for small) that is approximately 90 years old. Everything constructed in this house is wood ….right down to the wooden floors that, by the way, if there’s a hole you can see straight to the dirt underneath. But I love it. It’s home. And it’s mine. Well mine and my banks.

I chose to ignore the pitter patter (which after a few months had actually become a thumping)…and carried on with life. They could have the attic, I figured, as long as they stayed out of my space. Critters don’t freak me out – after all, don’t mice belong to the squirrel family? And I have squirrel feeders in my yard, so they have to be okay.

A late night visit from the gas man revealed what I hoped to never know. He was working on a gas line out back when I heard “holy crap!!!....Did you see the SIZE of that thing?!”

No..actually I hadn’t.

“That was the biggest rat I’ve ever seen. Lady, you’ve got a problem.”

The “rat” had come down the side of the house and practically jumped on the man before he could jump out of the way.

My neighbor was less concerned than I. When I told him the story he said “oh yeah, you have fruit rats”…like that’s a nice thing. Like putting an adjective in front of the word “rat” makes it less than a rat.

“WHAT is a fruit rat?” I asked….

“Well you’ve got fruit trees (true, I have an orange and grapefruit tree)….so you have fruit rats. They are drawn by the fruit”

Well I also have roses.

That got me to thinking about names.
(Stay with me here – this is supposed to be a blog about my Celtic Journey so I’m connecting the dots.)

Names are important. Soon to be parents spend months fussing over the name of a baby. The Bible is full of names of people who begat each other. We assign nick names when our name is too much of a mouthful. We have our jewelry inscribed with our name. Our name is the ONLY thing you have when you are born and when you die. When we marry we take on the name of our spouse. Or if you are really progressive you hyphenate your name. Your name tells you much about your history, heritage and attitude.

Names are really the few things we have no choice in. We are given it like a unsolicited gift and we spend the rest of our lives flaunting it or hiding it.

In looking at my Irish heritage I’ve learned that there indeed were some very strange names in our Murphy clan. In some cases children were obviously named after historical figures. But in some cases one has to wonder if after 10 or 12 kids they just ran out of ideas and let the drink decide.

Here are some interesting names we’ve uncovered in our family:
Washington Murphy (not very original)
Sacarissa Davis (now.... she just sounds mean)
Wellington Clinton Murphy (wonder if he dated a Monica? Just sayin....)
Icela Melinda Murphy (Icela? Seriously?)
Lincoln Grant Murphy and his brother George Washington Murphy (no comment needed)
Nellie Belle Shilling (bet she heard “Nellie bellie” more than once)
Ida Urith Kempton (looks too much like"Ima urethra"….eww)
Flotella Murphy (as in a fleet of ships??? Poor girl....)
Benjamin Franklin Pierce (nothing like parental expectations from an early age)
Lydia Murphy Murdock's sons -- Jackson Clinton, Martin Vanburen and William Tell (oh my)
And finally, and more recently....not a family name per se but stilll
Fruit Rat (nice, but not so nice)


Yep, names can be very revealing.
I'm thinking if we could just randomly assign a discriptive to our names - which would be a lot of fun - I would assign myself "just Joyce."
My friends might label me differently, however. But hey, it's my blog.