Kitty

Kitty Hello Kitty

Okay...grace period over. Let's all get on board with this Kitty thing, can we?

Yet not everyone thinks I'm a Kitty. I'm not fluffy. I don't purr. Or bat my little paws in the air adorably. I'm not very histrionic or particularly provocative, as many Kitty's are.

I don't like cats.

Dare I say that anyone who refers to their grown feline as their "kitty" best be chockablock with some kind of redeeming qualities. ***cough***cough***Annoying!

In other non sequiturs, the French and Latin origins of the name "Christine" are "child of Christ". Flattering? Sure. Consistent with my belief system? Oh let's get into politics or religion on a blog post, now.

Leaving everything you own and everyone you know 10,000 miles away sure does make for a clean break. Not that there was anything I wanted to get away from in America, we had great lives there. I just figure that being human is all about choices, and I am going to make conscious ones as often as possible. So it seemed like a good time to decide what I would want to be called. It didn't seem like a big deal, seeing as how this is the same period as when I got married. Lots of women change their last name when they get married...why can't I change my whole name?

The documentary 51 Birch Street picked Kitty for me. After 54 years of marriage, the director's mother dies. He, posthumously, reads his mother's many volumes of diaries and learns that, despite what he and his two siblings took for granted, his parents marriage "was not loving. It was a functioning association." Within a year of his wife's dying, his father moves cross country to be with the love of his life with whom he had worked forty years prior, Kitty. We, the audience, never really know the whole story.

I just know that my family's story is not unlike this. There were a lot of sacrifices made on my behalf. Many people, for compelling and honorable reasons "love the one they're with." Sometimes people put their own fulfillment behind that of others, for a long time, and that is poignant for me.

So this Kitty name, it really only has significance to me, and it brings up all kinds of reminders about gratitude and the blessings in my life, balance, commitment, and family.

It's also easy for people to remember. You know, like the ABC and NPR anchorwoman Mary Martha Roberts? And let's admit it, before you meet a Kitty but you know you're going to meet one, well, the mind boggles.

Cokie Roberts

Whimsical First Name-spiration

Sometimes, instead of actually applying for jobs, I like to imagine HR directors showing my resume to CEO's of giant corporations, you know, the ones worth more than the GDP of Holland? "Here's just one heckofa crackerjack ivy league MBA we've got to pursue." This is said with a flourish and wrist twist as my CV is flung down. Then they enunciate my name. That's the part of the fantasy where I burst into peels of laughter and hilarity ensues.

I was pretending I was chairwoman of the board here.

Actually, it's just me and my classmates. It really just smacks of

"someone's too lazy to stand up for the photo", you think?