Friday, March 2, 2012

Foster Friday: Names

Like any expectant parent, I am thinking about names.  Although my names aren't the typical ones you think of.  I have Turnip, Parsnip, and Rhubarb running through my head.  Yes, vegetables!  Let's start at the very beginning.  A very good place to start.

I married an English major, who comes with an insane vocabulary and particular fondness for otherwise obscure words.  When we were dating, it was revealed that "Rutabaga" was his favorite word.  Really?  In fact, he was serious.  So serious that we made a promise that I never thought we'd keep to name our first pet Rutabaga.  Once I realized this promise wasn't one of those forgotten when the buzz wore off, I quickly bought two fish.  The first was named the obligatory Rutabaga (Rudy for short).  The second was a safety fish in case there were any more favorite words that needed to become a moniker.  There weren't any- thank God.  So he was deemed Rex.
The Amazing Rutabaga

We moved and the fish were given to the family who lived below us.  They were incredibly excited but overly concerned with the care of these fish.  Do you feed them today then skip tomorrow then feed?  Or do you feed, skip, skip, feed?  Anyway, I digress...  Soon a little puppy came into our lives.  I thought the obligatory Rutabaga had already been used.  Boy was I wrong!  Apparently fish aren't real pets- who knew!  So much to the dismay of our breeder, the puppy was officially named Rutabaga with a call name of Rudy.  Actually he was named Cameo Mean Old Man Rutabaga, but that is a whole other story about buying a pure bred.
Our Rutabaga!


Now that we are on the last step of this licensing process (!!!) , I figure we should have some names ready for our foster child(ren).  The good news for us is that our foster child(ren) will come with real names.  The only naming we will be doing is code names for the interwebs to maintain the confidentiality of the case.  Since Rudy is really our first born, he set the trend with the vegetable theme.  We considered encompassing all produce, but the fruit theme is so 2004 with the one and only Apple.

So what vegetables do you think we should consider? We are particularly fond of the more obscure vegetables (hence Turnip, Parsnip and Rhubarb) and the ones with good nicknames (Gus for Asparagus).  Any suggestions from the peanut gallery? 

P.S.  Radicchio is already reserved for our next dog.  Don't worry he'll go by Rocket.  You know, rocket lettuce?

P.P.S  We aren't the only wacko's who come up with code names for our foster child(ren).  You can read about Big Boy, Little Man and Sissy here.  Or Snap, Eaglet, and Jacket here.  Or Blitzen, Dasher and Dancer here.  You get the picture.

5 comments:

  1. How about Carrot? My nephew calls my sister (his mom) Carrot and it's so cute. Plus it can be Carrie or Cary for short :-)

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  2. I know it's not really an obscure vegetable though. But cute :-)

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  3. It isn't so obscure, but I like that it is cute and there are good nicknames! Two big pluses!

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  4. if you're looking for obscure...tomatillo, bok choy, or maybe alfalfa sprouts?! lol ;-)

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  5. I like "Rocki" for broccoli and "Squirrel" for skirrets. Now do I know what a skirret is? No, but I don't think that was a requirement. Right? LOL!

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