A rose by any other name....

My name is Brae. I know. It's different. Many people tell me it's beautiful, and usually ask me to repeat it several times.

It's not hard. Not if you understand the English language. You've heard the preschool poem "When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking. It makes a sound just like it's name, the second one goes to sleep."

So, with that in mind, one should know it's pronounced "Bray" Long A, silent E.

All three of my years in junior high school, I had the same teacher for 4 different classes. He was my science teacher for 3 years, and my last year there, he was also my home room teacher. Every single day for 3 years and 4 classes, Mr. Sherratt would call roll and over the chatter of students, he would say "Brea?" (which he pronounced Bree-uh)

I would answer with "It's Br-ay"

Once, somewhere in 8th grade, I stopped answering his call for "Bree-uh", and simply ignored him, thinking I'd teach him a lesson.

Instead, my parents got a phone call stating that I hadn't been in class for over a week, and I was the one who learned the lesson.

From that point on, i just answered "Here."

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This Saturday, which was too long and awful to go into much detail about, we were walking around Wal-mart while our car was serviced, and Mahone, dressed, as usual, in his superman cape, was flying much too far ahead of us for my comfort. He also has this knack for being under people's feet and on top of everything else at the most inopportune times.

So, I broke out the middle name.

"Mahone Raphael!" my son did a loop, one hand at his waist, the other in a fist out in front of him. But he behaved.

Brandon mentioned, with a smirk, that he could always tell how long he was grounded by how many names his mom called him by.

"Brandon!" meant "Be right back, guys."

"Brandon Craig!" meant "See ya in an hour guys."

"Brandon Johnson Craig!" meant "See ya tomorrow guys."

"Brandon David Johnson Craig!" meant "see ya next week."

"Brandon David DAMN-IT Johnson Craig!" meant "See ya in AT LEAST a month, guys- and that's if I live through it."

My dad usually called me "Miss Lee" (Lee being my middle name) when he had something to talk to me about, but it wasn't that serious, but I don't think my parents ever used my name at all when they were angry at me.

Now a days, I have a nickname for my husband. He hates it. He always has, but it's just always been what I call him. He teases that he knows when I'm angry, because it's the only time I call him something affectionate, like "honey." Otherwise, i just call him "Punk."

In retaliation, he has developed a nickname for me, and calls me "Brat." If he calls me "Brae" then I know he is serious.

So, the question posed is- would a rose by any other name smell as sweet? Yes. But how many names do you think Romeo's mom called him by when she found out he had murdered Tybalt, married a girl who was supposed to be his enemy, and then killed himself on her death bed? Hm. I wonder.

Not Me Monday- through the years.

In kindergarten, I did NOT get in a fist fight with a boy twice my size because he kept flipping my skirt up. I did NOT win. (It also did NOT have anything to do with a solitary white chair in a sea of brown ones that I always wanted and so did he.) In FIRST grade, I did NOT get into trouble because I did NOT call two boys 'booger butts' because they were NOT calling my Native-American friend 'Chocolate person.' (they actually, for real, did not get into trouble. I was REALLY upset about this.) In SECOND grade, on the day back from being off track, I did NOT chase every single boy down and kiss them.In THIRD grade, I did NOT kick a boy, Frank, in the teeth because he did NOT keep crawling under the desk and kissing my knees. I also did NOT get into trouble because my 3 best friends and I did NOT throw mud balls at the portable (which was our classroom) and we did NOT have to miss an awards ceremony to clean it up. For YEARS afterwords, my best friend's mom did NOT lecture us about it every time we were together.In FOURTH grade, I did NOT bite the girl who sat next to me (Alicia) on the elbow because she would purposely lean over and stick it on my desk. In FIFTH grade, I did NOT have a teacher tell me there was no Santa Clause because she felt I was too old to believe such things. She also did NOT tell me that I should run away and never come back. She also did NOT make fun of me, and my best friends Brad, Rey, and Jake (all boys) at the time, telling the whole class how she saw all of them kissing me, which was absolutely, for really real, not true- we spent all of our time on the swings, and they were for really real, not my boyfriends. And when I was in Fifth grade, my BROTHER was in SECOND grade- and he did NOT change his appearance each day so that he could sneak through the lunch line several times. (Bottomless pit, that one. LOL.) In SIXTH grade, I was NOT an absolute looser with no friends because I switched from D track (where I'd been all my life) to A track, where the rich, spoiled, 'popular' class was, and I was NOT dirt under their feet.

Writer's Workshop

Losin' It" src="http://i913.photobucket.com/albums/ac331/mamakatslosinit/poodle4.jpg">

The prompt I chose from Mama Kat's Writer's workshop (click above to link up!) is:

Can you almost stop time with your words? Write about the fastest ride you ever had, but describe only a few seconds of it…as though it was happening to slow motion.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZipper.

Metal clangs into place. It's too late now, to turn back. I shiver beside my sister in law, who looks exactly the opposite of me. We giggle. I have not been on any type of roller coaster or fast moving ride for at least five years- before I was pregnant with my first child.

Engine starts, like a heart throb, we go up, and over dizzying flurry starting in my forehead. Upside down, my hair hangs, whips against my chin, eyes, lips parted in a horrific, choking, but uproarious scream as my eyes open, lights stretch into lines that zag around into a curlicue once again, as we flip over the center bar, losing our breath.

Brandon and I on the Tidal wave

I'm gonna get you!

(Nyssa and Stephie-my sister in law- on the Tidal Wave)

(Brandon and Nyssa together on the Zipper- Steph and I went together because we didn't want to spin much...none of us knew we had no control over the matter.)