Sunday, November 5, 2017

What’s in a Name?

Before I was born, or perhaps even dreamed about, my mother promised her dear old Aunt Lura that she would name her second (that’s right SECOND) daughter after her.  Hence the name Lura.  Apparently my father was ok with that because he had a cousin named Lura. The first daughter would be Judy.  A nice easy name to say and even spell.

So you may have noticed that the name is Lura.  Not Laura.  Not Lora. Not Lara.  Not Vera.  (You would be surprised at how many times people think they heard Vera, instead of Lura).  Now in these times with invented names, and I mean just that–names that were created for who knows what reason–how could anyone not be able to grasp something as simple as Lura.  Four letters, two syllables, for crying out loud. 

Anyway, growing up, one of my friend’s mothers always called me Laura.  When my friend attempted to correct her, she informed anyone within earshot that she would call me whatever she pleased.  Obviously she “pleased” to call me Laura.  Oh, well.  What are you gonna do?  She never called me late for dinner.  Along those same lines, next door growing up lived my aunt and uncle.  My aunt, (bless her heart) always called me Laura, much to my mother’s chagrin.  Try as she might Mom couldn’t convince her that my name was Lura. 

In this day and age with such names as, well, pick up your local paper and read the names listed in the birth records.  It sort of amazed me that a simple 2 syllable name like Lura can’t be pronounced or spelled.  In my earlier days I never corrected people, but answered the call, so to speak.  Well, heck, I still do.  What if I’m the prize winner.  Call me anything close and I’ll come running or at least walking fast.

Some folks have established clever ways of remembering what they deem to be a hard name to recall.  Are you familiar with the tune Tura-Lura, an Irish lullaby?  It is quite often sung to me.  It happened not long ago.  A sweet lab tech was preparing to draw my gin-infused blood for some testing and sang a few bars of it.  Some think of a fish lure-a.  Whatever works.  

It has not become a family tradition to be continued for future generations. In my family, anyway.  I have, at the last count, five (that’s right), five nieces and not a Lura in the bunch.  They might regret that when the will is read. 

Sunday, April 23, 2017

If It Works Don’t Fix It

This catchy little phrase is a pearl of wisdom I sometimes forget.  Here’s why.  I have a slider cell phone.  You all know what that is.  You pick it up and slide it to open and talk or whatever.  I guess you can play games with it or calculate how much of tip you want to leave....and lots of other stuff, too.  I rarely need to know how many feet or inches are involved in a meter, but I can determine that on my phone also.  I mostly use it to make and receive phone calls. 

Anyway one day I happened to be looking at tracfone.com to renew the service on my slider phone.  The words “shop for phones” just popped right up.  Shop being the key word here I clicked on to, well,  “shop for phones”.  It was all innocent enough.  Right?  Not so much.  The next thing I knew I was ordering a brand new smartphone which would work in the Idaho back country where I live. (We do have hot and cold running water and electricity and an occasional cell tower). 

The phone arrived in super quick time.  Fed Ex Express.  Oh, my.  It’s got all the bells and whistles.  GPS, 3.4" touchscreen, 2 MP camera/Video recorder.  I charged the battery and set about setting it up.  The first step is to activate the phone and transfer service from the old phone to the new phone.  Well 9 hours later, 3 of those hours on the phone with two different tracfone techs it is determined that my phone is not compatible with my service area (Idaho back country).  Interestingly enough I checked this out when I ordered the phone.  Tracfone even has a handy little map so you can even view your service area.  Don’t believe everything you read.  

In the great phone shuffle I discovered that my old phone still has the service and minutes but the phone number was different.  Yet another call to the nice folks at tracfone to discover that my old number is no longer available.  Dang it.  I had just memorized it.  Oh, well. At least my old slider phone works.

The bad news is I have a new phone number and have to alert all my family and friends about it in the event they might want to call me.  The good news is that I have a new phone number and someone else will get all those robo calls. 

If it works, don't fix it.

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

It’s a Hair Thing

This is just a guess, but I think there are probably less than a dozen women who don’t fret about their hair.  Color, style, length, curly, not curly...the list goes on.

My own hair concerns started when I was about 7 or 8.  That’s when my mom pulled out the probably dull scissors to “trim” my bangs.  Well...after the first snip or two they weren’t even.  Grandma joined in the fun.  No improvement.  Mom took another whack at them. Turns out I was sporting bangs about 1/4 inch long.  I was the only girl in third grade wearing a nun’s habit.  By the way it takes several weeks for bangs to grow out.

That, however, was not my last really bad hair experience.  Back in the 70s I wanted to get my hair all wonderful for a trip to Mexico.  Puerto Vallarta.  Big event for me and my hairdo.  So I scheduled a beauty shop permanent.  A home permanent would just not do for this occasion.  The end result was the biggest mess of frizzed hair you could imagine.  Short of shaving my head the only fix was a wig.  Needless to say, I didn’t spend a lot of time in the pool on this vacation.  

So, who remembers the torture of brush rollers?  Back in the day they replaced pin curls which were created by your mom wrapping your locks around her finger and then jabbing a bobby pin into your scalp repeatedly.  My mom always said, “It’s ok.  They’ll loosen.”  Yeah, right.  My friend, Janet, had to endure ringlets (the Shirley Temple look).  Her mom wet her hair down with sugar water to create the ringlets.  The ringlets lasted about 27 minutes after the bobby pins were removed.  In the meantime she attracted bees and other flying insects.

Then we advanced to another form of torture.  Curling irons.  They were a multi-purpose tool.  You could burn yourself or someone else. And if you needed to start a fire you could just plug one in.  

There is the hunt for the perfect shampoo, conditioner to make your hair soft, gel to make your hair stiff, oil treatment, color, and devices to make your hair either straight or curly.  It seems if you have straight hair you want it curly.  If you happen to have curly hair you want it straight.  I don’t know.  Could that be a law of physics?  For every action there is a reaction kind of thing?

Speaking of color.....hair color, that is.  Only 1-2% of the world population is a natural redhead.  If you happen to be of English descent make that 4%, Scottish - 6 %, Irish, you can go to the head of the class with 10%.  That being the case 0% of the population has royal blue, purple or green hair, but you can buy hair color for these and a lot of other hair colors.  Remember in the 60's the lavender hair ladies?  Did they use food coloring?  Many of them had the aroma of Evening in Paris cologne about them as well.

While I’m ranting about hair color I should point out that men can get a product called “Just for Men” to color their greying beards.  Here’s a crazy thought! Shave it off, if you don’t like to reveal that you’re aging.

So I’m off to fix my hair for an evening of fun and hopefully no wind to mess it up.