What's In a Name

Ryan and I have a habit of creating nicknames for people. Or maybe I'm the one who has always created nicknames and Ryan just joins in. Let's go back a bit further. You know when you're reading a book and you come to a name that you're not really sure how it would be pronounced...well I tend to make up a name for them. For example, one of the character's name from Hunger Games is apparently Finnick Odair. So I would probably name him Finny. Wikipedia describes him as some type of "playboy" as my grandmother would say so chances are I'd name him something like The Big Cheese or something which would then be shortened to Cheese. Get the point?

Sidenote: I have not actually read the Hunger Games (gasp) but knew they probably had some funky names in there.

So we're really bad about dubbing people in the neighborhood with nicknames because we know nothing about them but what we see in the 30 seconds it takes to drive past them in the car. We're awful I know, but it really is quite entertaining. Its also nice when you happen to pass them walking and can use the nickname and they're none the wiser as to who you're talking about. Ha! Crafty are we!

Silver Surfer
This was our first neighbor who was christened. Silver Surfer is an older woman with silver hair, hence the Silver in Silver Surfer, but don't ask me where Surfer came from. That's all Ryan. Here's the thing about Silver Surfer, she's a runner, but I use the term runner loosely and this is coming from a girl who says I don't run unless something is chasing me. I can probably walk faster than Silver Surfer can run, but man she's out there, doing her thing. The crazy thing is we can see her on the way to the grocery store and three hours later when we come home, Silver Surfer is still at it. Its like she's the energizer bunny...

Mom and Dad
Mom and Dad are not an actual mom and dad, they are in fact a newly married couple. We dubbed them Mom and Dad because whenever we get drive past their house on the way home or on the way somewhere they have this black/white cat who sits on the kitchen table which sits in the front window. When you drive past, you can see the kitty waiting on "Mom and Dad" to come home. And of course when Mom and Dad are home there's no kitty on the table waiting for someone to come home. Did I mention that we refer to each other as Mom and Dad when talking to our dogs, so this helped aide in naming this couple.

The Newlyweds
Another ironic nick name. The Newlyweds are an older couple, and by older I mean over 60. When Ryan first moved into the neighborhood before we got married this couple had just bought a house here too and had Newlyweds on the back of their car. Then we saw they were an older couple and of course I thought that was fantastic. So they were dubbed The Newlyweds. They're really cute, walk their dog every morning, plant flowers/plants in their garden together, and generally are just really cute.

The Crazy People
I hesitate to write about this people because they could very well be stalking me and know I write a blog and see the description of themselves and then start doing their crazy people things to me directly. I'll take my chances. They have (or had) two dogs that are so malnourished you can see their ribs. The smaller of the two dogs has disappeared so we're thinking its gone on to better places. They don't have a car and the woman out of this couple walks EVERYWHERE. We can be 10 miles away from home and will see crazy lady walking around. Ryan has never made a secret out of his job (all things animals/meat) and this lady approached him to tell him the benefits of all organic Salmon and this is the only thing they eat. She makes multiple trips a day to the grocery store near our house, I'm guessing for all her organic salmon. They also never have any lights on in their house, we're pretty sure they burn their trash, and they put their dog's poop in other people's trash cans. Ew. I can write a novel and go on forever about this couple. Did I mention they're brother and sister and yell at each other when walking throughout the neighborhood. Their nickname fits like a glove.

Last one...Awkward Runner
On a busy road near our house is beloved Awkward Runner. Awkward Runner is just what his name implies. He's awkward. He runs for short periods of time. He also sports a HUGE backpack on his back that bounces to and fro while running. He's not exactly the runner type so when he does run for longer periods of time its a little concerning that he'll just fall out. However we haven't seen Awkward Runner in a while and got a little worried about him, but never fear we were describing him to our neighbors and they had just seen him last week. Whew!

Now all of this is to say I'm sure our neighbors have nicknames for us. Bald guy and chubby/pregnant girl or Obnoxious Saturday Lawn Mower guy and his wife. I'm good with having a nickname from our neighbors, even a little curious if we do have a nickname. I wonder what our nicknames would be...