Friday Shuffle - It's All In A Name Edition

What's more embarrassing - forgetting a name or calling someone by the wrong name?

For me, it's calling someone by the wrong name. When I forget someone's name I can generally work around it. Find out the person's name on the sly. Just avoid saying their name. But calling someone the wrong name? Just open a crack in the ground and let me sink down to Earth's fiery core.

While chatting with Darling Mollie today she said to me, "I found out today that I have been calling someone the wrong name for two months- okay, I think it could have been pushing three. This guys name is NOT Dewey, which I have been calling him since October. It comes down to this: his parents misnamed him."

I said to Mollie "He should have corrected you by now. Three months is a long time to be called Dewey." and she replied, "Now, Sean the guy who is the building maintenance guy called me Amanda once- but I let it go and he got it right the next time. Never let people continually call you the wrong name. I said hi to him [Dewey - or Not Dewey, as the case may be] EVERY DAY!
And to make it worse, three weeks ago, I called him Dew. I mean, it was getting to the nickname stage. At that point, perhaps the coincidence of him drinking Mountain Dew was a factor.".

I was howling with laughter at the idea of Mollie casually flinging out a "Hey there, Dew!" and all she could add was "Who lets someone get to the nickname stage?".

And you know who would do that? I mean besides Not Dewey, that is? Me. At least I used to be that sort of person.

My name is Kim and I've been called Kathy and Karen and Carol and Kate and even stuff that's not even close like Melissa or Linda. And what did I do about it? Most of the time I did nothing unless I was in a situation where it was crucial for someone to get my name right - and even then I'd let them screw up my name a few times in hopes that they'd eventually land on my correct name and I wouldn't have to bring up the fact that my name isn't Connie or Sarah.

This makes no sense to me. Why would I do that? I acted like it was my fault that someone was calling me by the wrong name. The problem couldn't be their faulty memory or lack of attention to detail or their simply having the wrong name slip out. It must have been something lacking in me that would cause them to call me the wrong name. I must not be memorable or not important enough for someone to get my name right.

What utter crap. Jeez, what did it say about my lack of self worth at that time that I took on the blame for someone not calling me the right name? I will accept the blame if I didn't say it clearly enough for them to understand but I'm not taking on blame for introducing myself as Kim and having them say to me later "Nice to have met you, Mary Frances!".

It's been a long time since someone called me the wrong name. In fact I can't think of the last time it happened but then again I have it a bit easier now. I generally tell people my name is Kimberley and Kimberley is a name that tends to be a bit more memorable for Germans since it's not a particularly common name here.

I said to Mollie "I'm still laughing over you calling him 'Dew'." and she replied "It portrays a casual interaction that we did not even have." and she's right. Calling someone a nickname implies at least some sort of closeness and yet in reality Mollie and Not Dewey weren't close enough for her to be calling him the right name and for him to correct her.

Don't be a Not Dewey! Correct those who call you Paul when you're a Phillip! When they call you Louise and you're a Laura! And if you get called Dewey when you're really a David and you don't correct yourself, be prepared to start being called "Dew". And change your beverage of choice so you at least have an excuse to give when your other friends say "Dude, how come you let that woman keep calling you Dew?".

And now Darling Mollie has to go around and un-brainwash all the people in the office she's contaminated with learning this guy's name as Dewey (Moll works in human resources so everyone asks her what someone's name is) before it sticks to poor Not Dewey like...well...doo.

Know who's got a memorable name? Bixente the iPod. Time for him to shuffle.

1. Jeremy - Pearl Jam
2. Panic Song - Green Day
3. Along Comes Mary - The Association
4. Armageddon It - Def Leppard
5. Dixie Chicken - Little Feat
6. Everybody's Happy Nowadays - Buzzcocks
7. What A Difference A Day Makes - Dinah Washington
8. Shame On The Moon - Bob Seger
9. She's Crazy For Leaving - Rodney Crowell
10. America - Simon & Garfunkel
    

The Formula

Want to know what you get when you cross a step you didn't know what there with a table holding metal flower boxes and a brick sidewalk?

This:



And that was the bruise of which I could actually photograph. There's more. My knees are also a lively shade of purple but I don't photograph my knees for anyone.

Well. I Tried.

The hairnet idea? The hairnet I bought yesterday for me to sleep in in an effort to keep the layers of hair on the top of my head from getting pushed up into devil horns by my pillow? The one that was supposed to keep my hair sort of nailed down and locked into normal position?

Complete shit. Complete and utter shit. It molded my hair into...into...I can't even describe it. The hairnet turned my bangs inside out. It literally twisted my hair so that what's normally against my forehead was facing outwards. I can't even fathom how that happened.

Maybe not the worst idea I've ever had but it's in the top five. Top three maybe.

Might as Well

Spurred on by Mr. Fab virtually throwing down the gauntlet for me to post a picture of my laundry mountain, I shall do that very thing. After my irksome morning I don't think I could even be fazed by anyone teasing me about it.



From the top to the bottom of that photo - that's all dirty clothes. Unfortunately that's not all of it. There's a load in the wash that I need to hang up to dry and there's a few towels that I used today when washing B's hair that aren't shown. Else that's my mountain o' laundry.

Belinda commented that she's not only got her own dirty clothes alp but also can't be bothered to fool with it any more than I can be bothered to fool with mine. I know it needs to be done but honestly I don't wash anything until I'm getting dangerously low on things like jeans and panties and clean towels. I get enough washed to get me through the time being but the things like tablecloths and shirts I don't often wear and the seventy zillion pairs of socks I have get passed by. And Belinda pretty well honed in on what slows down the whole process - it's the time it takes to wash a load of clothes with German washing machines. I know they're supposed to be all water saving and so forth and therefore have to agitate longer to make up for it but do they need to agitate that long? It takes 52 minutes for me to wash a load at 40°C - 46 minutes if I wash it at 30°C - and that with me using the cycle that cuts the wash time in half. If I wash at 60°C and still use the half time cycle it takes something like 1 hour and 4 minutes. It's hard to get a leg up on the laundry when three loads - and I'm talking about loads that are about half of what you could cram into an American washer - takes three hours to wash. Add to it that I don't have a dryer - I hang all of my clothes on racks to dry. I just don't have room for a dryer in my apartment and don't like them anyway. First, they're energy hogs. Second, if you think washing takes forever, you ain't seen how long drying takes. I bought the washer I have now about two years ago...it's just a plain front loading washer. The one I had before wash a washer/dryer combo - you wash the clothes and when the loads done it changes to a dryer and dries them. In with dirty clothes, out with clean, dry clothes. Nice except washing and drying one load of laundry took me like three hours.

Now it's just B and I and it's not like we're going through clothes like a couple of 15 year old girls. Normally he and I should be able to have all our clothes and towels clean with maybe...oh...4 or 5 loads a week. The problem arises when I get too lazy busy to do laundry and it stacks up and up. Or become an avalanche of dirty clothes as evidenced above.

I could get caught up if I would only do a three loads a day, every day except Sunday, for a week. Maybe less. I always have good intentions of doing that very thing and all it takes is for my daily routine to be thrown off and my well intended plans go by the wayside.

For example, my irksome morning:

B's dermatologist, who is very important to us because since B is a quadriplegic he's very prone to skin irritations and of course pressure sores, wanted to prescribe for a current irritation B has a special lotion that has to be mixed by the pharmacist. B's dermatologist is retired - he comes to see B on his own time because what normal dermatologist makes house calls? - so the doctor can't write prescriptions that our health insurance will accept. To remedy that, the dermatologist writes a private prescription, I give it out our family doctor and she writes a regular prescription for it. B really needs this lotion and I normally won't see the family doctor until the end of March so we called her this morning to see if I could pop in to have her write the script. She said to come on in so I walked over in some mighty annoying wind and rain, told the nurse I'd already talked to the doctor and the nurse told me to wait. So I did. The waiting room was full so I got crammed into a corner with an old man who smelled a cross between peppermint and nose drops jammed up against me. I didn't know exactly what time it was when I sat down but I judge it was around 10:45 because I left my apartment around 10:25 and it takes me 20 minutes to walk there.

I wasn't wearing a watch and when I could finally get a glimpse of someone else's I saw it was 11:35. I read a very dull health magazine (an Apoteke Umschau, for you folks in Germany) and then I heard on the radio station being piped in the waiting room the noon news come on. I then picked up a celeb gossip magazine so old that Anna Nicole Smith and her son were still alive and when I finished that I could see on someone's watch that it was 12:30. I'd contemplated saying "Did y'all forget me?" but the waiting room had been really full and I figured they were very busy. I had to stretch my legs so I got up and changed seats and that's when the nurses saw me and the unmistakable look of "Oh holy shit!" popped up on their faces. One scurried away and then a few minutes later the doctor called for me. That was a surprise. The doctor never yells for a patient in the waiting room. The nurses do that.

I came back to one of the exam rooms and found the doctor and one of the nurses both with the "Oh holy shit!" look still on their faces and the doctor had to admit that they'd simply forgotten me. The doctor had been in the staff room drinking a cup of coffee when the nurse came to her with my prescription, she put it by her cup and then walked off from it, completely forgetting that I was out there waiting for it.

You know doctors in Germany carry the sort of reputation that they believe they are without fault. Doctors here can be rather arrogant. They sure as hell don't like looking stupid. I know that I have the right doctor for me because she wasn't above admitting that they'd forgotten about me and all of them apologized to me over and over. The doctor even hugged me when she apologized. That's something I could expect from her if she were in my home because she's been our family's doctor for over 25 years and we know her personally but for her to hug me in the middle of her office is where we could be seen was something that really knocked me out.

Sure, it was annoying that I waited for nearly two hours for something that only took five minutes to do but she's a good doctor and she's done favors for us many time. She'd do anything she could for our family and coupled with a hug and a few dozen sincere apologies, I can forgive her anything.

So go ahead and tease me about Mount Filthy Rags. I can survive anything today.