Special language all my own

I like words, the kind that are in the dictionary and the kind I make up. There have been several over the years, which I will add to this list as I remember them. For now, here are two:

Bloop bloop – In the year 2005, during some particularly tragic, awful, heinous, unfathomable events in my life (which I will write about One Day), my mind got a little overloaded.

Tired of thinking and trying to come up with words, I began to substitute “bloop bloop” for words I thought I could get away with omitting. For example: While having dinner with my Blood Sisters (BSs), who were likewise gathered around these tragic, awful. heinous and unfathomable events (TAFU-E), I might point to a bag of crawfish on the table and say: “Pass the bloop bloop.”

As time went on, an entire, goofy system was built around bloop bloop. Any time during TAFU-E that any of the BSs didn’t want to say a word or couldn’t think of a word, we started saying “bloop bloop.”

This was eventually disconcerting for others in my life, i.e. my children and my husband, who often get dragged involuntarily into BS, especially when bloop bloop started becoming as common a phrase as bread or water in my head, but it didn't translate well to those around me, as in “Chris, do you want to bloop bloop with me today?” This could mean have lunch, swim or take a zip line from the flour mill to the river.

Meanwhile, my sisters and I, so obviously cut from the same crazy quilt, continue to often and randomly love our "bloop bloop, which we have come to say with a popping, melodic cadence.

BS Susan (BSS)’s partner Charles has even taken to calling me “Bloop Bloop.”

“Is that Bloop Bloop on the phone?” he calls out to BSS.

Otter – Otters are my favorite animal. Hands down. Ever watch them play? They are playful, but they are also smart. They have to be to swim around in water all day long without bumping into each other. And they are loving. They hold hands, to wit this popular utube (14 million hits) from Vancouver Auditorium. www.youtube.com/watch?v=epUk3T2Kfno". Of course, I didn't make up the word, "otter." But I kind of made up its usage: People that I like a lot, I call otters. And puppies. "You're a puppy, a kitty and an otter" is a really good thing.

A blog by any other name

Up until three days ago, this blog was called BloopBloopOtter because I say "bloop-bloop" a lot and I like otters.(See future post on "language" for deeper meaning.)

But it didn't work.

First of all, I just slapped it on there when I created the blog and needed a title. Secondly, nobody knew what it meant. Thirdly, I didn't know what it meant.

For months after the christening of BloopBloopOtter, I considered other names, even as I also considered this blog's reason for being.

I considered "Raison d'Etre."

And "Joie de Vivre."

I thought about "Ambient Light" because I'm all about natural light, photographically and otherwise.

Maybe "Soul Sistah" because I am my mother's daughter?

How about "Synchronicity" -- a play on words?

"Taking the Long Way Around" because that's the angle of my journey?

Or "Daily miracles" because I believe every day has at least one?

Everything was too literal.

And then my children and I came up with the current one. And God it fits.

It sooo fits.

First of all, I love me some funk music.



Secondly, I love me some funk shoes.



Thirdly, I thought of a summer night about three years ago, when, after wayy too much wine, two friends and I started The Passion and Intimacy Club. We didn't really DO anything. We knew we weren’t chartering a real club with membership dues and meetings. We were just making a statement about what was important to us.

Tragically, one of the “members” up and died not so long ago. But the other one is here. And she manages to get up offa that thang every ding dang chance she gets. Does she dance every day like James Brown? Actually, I think some days she curls up in the fetal position, just like the rest of us.

But I do believe she experiences all of life from the middle of the dance floor.

That's what this blog is about: Refusing to sit it out.

Into each life, a little James Brown must fall. Unh.