Breathe

Happy "I Hope I Can Finally Exhale and Stop Being So Embarrassed of America" Day!

Presidential

On the eve of Obama's great ascent into the high heavens, I thought it appropriate that my colleague would send me this photo of me dubiously looking at Slovenia's Prime Minister (which is the same thing pretty much as president in America) Borut Pahor at a work event last week. Needless to say, I wasn't impressed.

In The Name Of....

I was raised in a family where we all had numerous names, three at minimum and five or six at most. I have five. The first is, of course, Camille. My mother is from Ghana and my brother and I as well as most of my cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents all have European first names. Not sure why, I guess it has a little do with colonialism and a little to do with "blending in", but I'm not totally sure. My mother almost never calls me Camille, though. She calls me by my second name, which is a name from her Ghanaian "tribe" (someone help me with a better word for this!). The third name is a name from my father's side of the family, it was his grandmother's name and is Spanish or Native American or both or neither, depending on who you ask. A lot of women on my father's side of the family hold it as a middle name. My fourth name is another name from my mother's culture which is given to girls born on Wednesdays, and my fifth and final name is Acey which is my last name, family name, but comes from some slaveholder some time ago...most likely from Ireland.

As a schoolgirl, I read the story of Tikki Tikki Tembo, a Chinese fable championing simple names for the sake of safety, but I still always felt that longer names were better. I was raised to view names as infinitely important and a sign of who a person was and how much they were loved.Cover of Tikki Tikki Tembo I feel a good name can tell so many interesting stories. So you can imagine my shock and horror upon finding out that not only do most/many Slovenian people only have two names (you can imagine how baffled they are when I look for the middle name slot on forms!), but many of them got their names from the calendar, the naming calendar. The Captain's parents didn't spend months agonizing over his or his brother's names it seems; as soon as they popped out their parents just looked up at the calendar and gave him the one name that was written there. In fact, many people I know were just given the name written on their square of the calendar.

I still can't believe it. Ever since I was a little girl I've dreamed of wonderful names I'd give my children when I had them, big and fanciful, short and sweet. I couldn't imagine being so generic as to give it no thought at all. In some cultures, your name is meant to give you hints at what you will do in life. In my mother's culture, sometimes names will tell you what the child signified, for example, I have one relative who was born after her mother had many miscarriages and her name translates as "God Heard My Prayers". I just don't understand what these calendar names (which are related to the Catholic calendar of saints) convey except for an utter lack of imagination. But I am open to being wrong. So someone --anyone -- please justify this to me!

Oh and btw, if you were born today and your parents gazed up and plucked your name from the January 17th square, your name would be Anton...or maybe Antonija for a girl?

Running Up That Hill

The other day I thought I was just gonna go on a short walk, maybe around Lake Bled, with The Captain but he decided we'd do a proper hike. I was wearing unlined rubber boots and a dress, I really don't know what he was thinking...anyway, I ended up hiking up a steep incline in my inappropriate gear. I am never going walking with that dude again.

Holiday Redux

Here are some pictures from the past few weeks of holiday-ing.

Christmas party at Marine house (I felt like I was in Middle America as soon as I walked in, really strange)


Christmas morning mass at Radovljica church (only the second time Ive ever been to a Catholic mass. they put on quite a production!)







I went to a concert in a high school gymnasium here in Wheelville and they had a brief interlude for the jugglers of Čupakabra to perform, it was random and wonderful


The concert


A super snowy walk (video to come!) in Begunčica




A beautiful Dutch meal at a friend's house






New Year's Day






New Year's Duck


The size small pizza at Ema doesn't even fit on the plate


Finally taking the tree down


A walk in the snow....


... another walk in the snow....


more snow...


.... a snow man....


...and of course a wizard dog.