What's in a name?

Before heading out to our town’s Jamboree, my daughter talked endlessly about a terrifying ride.

“It’s called Scat,” she said.

My husband laughed and we traded knowing looks. “No way I’d sit on a ride called scat,” I smirked, and told her how that’s also a name for animal poo. “I’m sure you got the name wrong.”

An hour later, we’re at the Jamboree and see this.

Yup. It’s a ride called Scat.

Names are important.

In some of my favorite books, names convey character traits without the author ever having to do more than mention them. Let’s take a few of my favorites:

•          Remus Lupin in the Harry Potter series: Seriously, Hermione? It took Snape’s research report on werewolves to clue you in on that one? The guy didn’t have a chance other than to howl at the moon.
•         Mae Tuck in “Tuck Everlasting”: Mae’s name, in my opinion, has a dual meaning. Just like flowers will bloom each May, she will be there, hopeful and bright but eternal. Secondly, “may” means permissive. She allowed her son’s to drink from the spring. She allows them to enter the town and the wider world.
•         Jem Finch in “To Kill a Mockingbird”: Big brother is rare indeed. He’s everything good and pure and innocent. The reader wants Jem to sparkle as flawlessly after his encounters with the cruelty and pain as before. And, just like a precious gem, he’s stronger than he appears.

As a writer, I often spend way too much time narrowing down the perfect name for my characters. The thing is, some of these names are more clues to myself than they are to the (hopefully one day) wider audience.

For example, in the manuscript currently on submission, my main character’s baby sister is named Molly. Baby Molly is born with Downs Syndrome, something unexpected that throws the family into chaos … until they see that Molly is stronger and more capable than they initially thought.

No obvious reason for the name Molly, other than that it makes me think of my nickname as a child: Little Miss Molly. Picture a mom with her hands on her hips, shoulders stooped to look eye-to-eye with a child who just—out of nowhere*—hauled off and kicked her big sister. Whenever I did something unexpected, Little Miss Molly was my moniker.

And, considering I was a painfully shy child who spent most of her time whispering and/or hiding behind the closest trusted adult, these occasional outbursts of feistiness were more than enough to clue my parents in that I wasn’t always going to be timid and in the background.

*For the record, she deserved it.

Avoidance crafting

Time to rename this blog to Things I Did While Plotting. But if you didn’t know I was a writer, that would sound very, very creepy.

So while I’m still stewing away about a new idea and planning to fix where my current manuscript went a bit off track, I’ve been distressing.

Ha! I bet you thought that was typo. That I should’ve said I was “stressing.” But no, I was distressing.

Here’s a rocking chair that my mother-in-law gave me.

My father-in-law wanted to put it in their tag sale, but it was a bit too sentimental to part with to strangers. After all, he had given it to her when she was pregnant with their first baby (my husband!).

So I took it in and completely wrecked it.

First, I sanded the you-know-what out of it. Bye-bye, harvest gold flowers!

Then I painted it white.

Then I painted it grey.

And finally I distressed it with steel wool. This, in hindsight, would’ve been smarter to do outside.

I also reupholstered the cushion, which was a basic white to start. As mentioned previously, I’m stupendously cheap. So rather than buy actual yards of fabric, I bought a Target curtain panel on clearance for $14.

From that, I covered the cushion and had enough left over to cover a black plastic comfort gel mat that we used in our kitchen. After painting the cabinets, it got a little splattered and I wasn’t able to scrape up all of the paint. So I covered it instead, using this as a guideline.

Viola!

Now I am officially out of old and borrowed furniture.

Of course, I did see an ad for a tag sale at church this weekend…

Off to detention!

My little Rifka is centered here, among the other immigrants. She won't be smiling soon! Moo-hoo-haha-ha!

My daughter’s fourth-grade class went to Ellis Island today by way of the gymnasium.

The class took part in the school’s annual immigration program, in which each student is assigned the name of an actual immigrant who arrived in Ellis Island aboard the S.S. Rose. The students, in character and dress, went through medical and intelligence exams, legal inspection and customs before being naturalized as American citizens.

It was an eye-opening experience for all of them, and me. I got to take part in the event with the role of legal inspector. Think DMV worker, calling forth immigrants, asking them dozens of questions and checking their forms, and then either allowing them to move forth into the naturalization line or SENDING THEM TO DETENTION!

It was so. Much. Fun.

Among those I sent to detention (with the help of my pint-sized son, who escorted detainees to the barred area) was my daughter, aka Rifka Isaachson. She was blatantly outraged that I would send her there (“Your own daughter!), but off she went because I was the legal officer and what I said went. Moo-hoo-haha-ha!

But, like a true writer, she got her revenge.

A part of the project is maintaining a diary of the immigrant’s experience. I took a peek at “Rifka’s” diary. Here’s what she wrote about me.

An inspector was glaring at me and beckoning with a finger. She gave me a reminder of a crooked green witch. She glared at me, ‘What’s your name?’ she growled so fast the words blurred together. I choked back laughter as I imagined her in crow-black painted hat.

‘Rifka Issachson,’ I managed.

The witch-inspector gave me a speedy list of questions. ‘Don’t like your attitude,’ she hissed. ‘DETENTION!’

What? I had thought, ‘No!’ But with my head held high, I marched away from the witch’s evil cackle.

Seriously? Her own mother?

One of those days

Something I just said to my kindergartener, as he lay on the floor whining: "Your behavior is quickly going from mildly annoying to about-to-be-in-big-trouble."

Spaghetti-limbed son: "Aaaarraaagh."

I have a feeling I'm not going to get much writing done today.

She's crafty. (Not really.)

So it’s been a long time since I posted. I’m sorry about that, but I’ve been super busy being unproductive professionally. It happens.

I made this.

From this.

And then I made this.

I forgot to take a before picture, but it was a dark brown changing table.

And finally, I made this, using this as a guide.

The thing is: I’m spectacularly un-crafty. I tried making roman shades, and it worked out wonderfully if you didn’t try to open or close them or expect them to actually reach the bottom of the window. I once tried making my daughter a fairy tutu for Halloween. She looked more like a sparkly zombie. I tried making a birthday cake for my husband once, and let’s just say it involved hidden crunchy layers and a jar of jam.

I shouldn’t craft. It’s just that I have massive writer’s block, complicated by the stress of being on submission with publishers.

You know that stomach-melting, soul-crushing moment in middle school when you tossed a note onto your crush’s desk? The one that had “Do you like me? Circle yes or no.” written on it?

Being on submission means being stuck in that moment for months. And months.

I’m managing to subdue it while doing things around the house or playing with the kids. But sitting down at my computer with Word open? I’m a pathetic fourth-grader with a bad perm all over again.

The stress has led to some serious creative outlets other than writing.

Now that I’ve run out of frames, coffee tables and changing tables to repurpose, I’ve moved onto collecting other people’s basement junk. Mostly this is because I’m also spectacularly thrifty.

OK, I’ll be honest. I’m cheap. That coffee-table-turned-ottoman? Cost me about $20 to create. The changing table? That one was $3. The picture? About $15 and a stapled finger.

But after all of those things were in place, I noticed our living room rug. It’s lovely, but small, and our room is long. The space around the rug to the couch began to make my nerves itchy. So I started rug shopping during what was supposed to be writing time.

The first place I went was a local furniture store that was going out of business. “Sacrificial mark downs” was advertised. Hmm. We have different ideas about what sacrificial prices mean. “Do you have swatches that we may use to compare colors?” the salesman asked as I walked in.

Um. No. “I’m just browsing for now.”

“Well, let me direct you to our rug expert.”

Rug expert: “Are you looking for wool blend? Hand-hooked? Oriental? Contemporary?”

Me: “Um. A big rug?”

And that’s when he gave up on me and pointed to a pile of rugs they were “sacrificing” for more than I made last year. OK, more than I made the past three years combined.

HomeGoods was next. Lots of big rugs. A few more digits on the price tag than I wanted.

I went on Craigslist. And I learned an important lesson: While purchasing second-hand items is great for the environment and bank account, not all things are wise purchases second-hand. Such as, oh, I don’t know. Rugs.

We drove halfway across the state (which actually isn’t far. It’s a small state.) to pick up a 10-by-12-foot rug for a steal of a deal. The Oriental rug looked lovely, if a little faded. “We’ll take it!” I said.

The moment the rolled-up rug was in the car, my husband’s eyes began to water. Soon they were flaming red and he was coughing.

By the time we drove back halfway across the state, he needed his inhaler.

“Cats,” he said. “They must’ve had cats.”

“I’ll vacuum the hell out of it,” I answered.

So we got home, unrolled the rug, the dog peed on the rug, I cleaned the rug, and then proceeded to vacuum up several cats. Husband still couldn’t breathe. I spent nearly the cost of the rug on carpet cleaner, carpet brushes, baking soda and a candy bar, then invested several hours behind a closed door scrubbing the rug.

Husband still couldn’t breathe.

We borrowed a steam cleaner. I steamed cleaned the entire house.

Husband could breathe. Also good news: The rug wasn’t faded after all. It was just once furred.

We spread out the rug. Finally! Proportions were perfect! The rug went under both couches. Awesome! It was so clean!

A few days passed. “The rug is lovely,” I’d say occasionally.

“Beautiful,” husband would respond.

“It’s too dark. I don’t like it,” daughter would pipe in.

I noticed, but pushed away the thought, that the rug clashed horribly with the prints on the wall.

A few more days passed.

“I don’t like rug,” husband said.

“I don’t either.”

“Thank God.”

Now we have a new rug, from IKEA. The old rug is now in my daughter’s room. Where it’s just lovely. Beautiful. But it keeps her bedroom door from closing.

And I still have writer’s block.