Some people (not I, but some people) believe that your name says a lot about who you are. And who you are, apparently, depends upon how you enter your name in the search field on a site called, Is This Your Name?When I entered my name as "Connie Schmidt," I got some ho-hum info, although I was pleased to see that my power animal is a mule. I like mules. (By the way, my birth name is simply, "Connie," not "Constance," as the site seems to assume.)
Then I entered "Cosmic Connie," and found that not only is my power animal a grizzly bear, but that I am a person of undetermined gender...and I am truly unique:
People with this first name are probably: Male or female... We don't know yet. We're working on it!...
...According to the US Census Bureau°, fewer than 0.001% of US residents have the first name 'Cosmic' and 0.0001% have the surname 'Connie'. The US has around 300 million residents, so we guesstimate there is only 1 American who goes by the name Cosmic Connie.
Yup, that's me, the one and only. Actually, there is at least one other "Cosmic Connie," but she's a fortune teller, and her "Cosmic" is apparently not ironic as mine is.
My partner Ron Kaye, when his name is entered as "Ron Kaye" in the search field on the site, can claim the dwarf zebu as his power animal. But his birth name is "Ronald," and when you enter "Ronald Kaye," his power animal is the blast-ended skrewt. Hmmm...it sounds as if someone on this site has been around our place after Ron has cooked up a batch of his famous lima beans.
Anyway, Is This Your Name? is a fun site, and yet another good way to waste some time when you should be working. (Warning to my friend Lana Walker: be prepared.)
PS ~ Yeah, I know I promised to pay tribute to some more Scammy Award winners, and I will, but today I'm taking a small break from snarking. Don't worry; more snarks are heading your way from my Whirled. But probably not today.
PPS (added Sunday evening) ~ A few hundred thousand reasons why I didn't particularly feel like staying inside snarking today (click on pics for enlargement) :
And by the way, both photos were taken by my wonderful partner Ron, and I don't think he called upon either of his power animals – the dwarf zebu or the blast-ended skrewt – for assistance.
Gosh, that's purty. The flowers are juuuuust now starting to think about it in my neck of the woods. This morning I stopped at a traffic light in a town down in the river valley (it's at least ten degrees warmer than where I come from) and I noticed a forsythia bush getting ready to bloom. Soon, my pretties! Soon....
ReplyDeleteSo I wonder which name I should go with on the name site? Either way I don't rate mammal status. My maiden name gives me a Leopard Gecko for a power animal. My married name, on the other hand, makes me out to be a Cane Toad. I don't think I've seen either one of 'em in any of the Totem Animal books I've leafed through. Nor does either one have a Mohawk clan named after them.
Ya see, people, this is why I've never explored my past lives, neither. Everyone else gets to be Cleopatra or Alexander the Great, whereupon I can pretty much guarantee I'll be someone like Ahmet the Camel Scooper.
Hi, Mojo, and thanks. Once again I am reminded of how spoiled we are here in Texas, with our long growing season, mild winters, early springs, etc. Frankly, though, many of us were surprised at how well the bluebonnets are doing this spring, considering our dearth of rainfall in the past few months. But they popped up early, and they're really glorious now.
ReplyDeleteAnd funny you should say, "My pretties!" The moment I stepped into that field of brilliant bluebonnets and Indian paintbrushes that you see in the second picture, I uttered, in my best Wicked Witch voice, "Poppieeeees!" Although they were not poppies, I found myself quite hypnotized...
And don't feel bad about being a non-mammal. At least geckos and toads are real (and pretty darned cute, in my opinion). For his totem, poor Ronald has only the blast-ended skrewt, which is but a figment of J.K. Rowlings' imagination.
The Leopard gecko looks like a sportier version of his cousin who sells car insurance. A very striking black and white.
ReplyDeleteMy only real quibble with cane toads is the environmental havoc they are wreaking in Australia. And even then I'm fairly ambivalent, since I'm not directly affected. But here's my problem: I saw a documentary once (geez, probably 20 years ago...) which provided a variety of Australian viewpoints regarding the cane toad (one let their kids dress up a pet toad like it was a Barbie doll, for example).
One extreme disliker of the toads had taken to running them over with his car whenever he saw them. Cane toads are really, really big (some look to be the size of dinner plates) and they made the most awful farty-poppy "poom" noise when they were hit by the tires.
And the documentary, being made by our rowdy, fun-loving Aussie friends, really (somewhat) morbidly dwelt on this particular shot of this angry Australian guy mowing through a herd of toads on the road, swerving all over, trying to hit every one like it's a video game. And the noise went with it: "Poom! ... Poom! ... Poom-poom!"
The noise has always stuck with me, I'm afraid. So every time I think "cane toad" I think of that. Not the most pleasant of memories.
No need to thank me for sharing .... it's what I do, magnanimous creature that I am. Just pay it forward, is all I ask. And it wouldn't surprise me if you found that clip on YouTube, if you think Mojo's pulling your leg...it would certainly be viral-worthy enough, in a disgusting sort of way, like the Exploding Whale...
Well, Mo, a cursory Googlin' didn't uncover the video you mentioned, but I did find this one:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLLzYvy8rWs
Who knew cane toads had nipples and teeth?
I can well understand why the cane toad is a gawd-awful pest in Oz, but I confess a fondness for the Bufonidae -- and Ranidae -- families.
Let's face it, toads are cute. They look for all the world like grumpy little people, and maybe some of them *should* be dressed up -- I've long thought that three-piece suits with pocket watches would be just the thing. The challenge would be getting the outfit on the toad without getting peed on.
Frogs are terrific too, especially those that entertain us on those sweet summer nights out here at The Edge of Nowhere. And you haven't had fun till you've rinsed Galveston beach sand off your body in the outdoor shower at our dear friend Michael's beach house. Sometimes there will be dozens of the cutest tiny green frogs all over the shower stall. Once you get used to all of those beady little eyes staring at you, it's kind of neat.
Wait... I just remembered that the shower was destroyed in Hurricane Ike. Oh, well. I'll always have the memories...
OMT before I wander off into my afternoon: I saw a disturbing documentary on PBS the other night about the world's rapidly declining frog and toad populations.
Oh, and one more OMT: Speaking of nuisance species from Australia, guess who's back in the US, this time in Disney Land? Just between you and me, Mojo, if I had a choice, I'd pick the cane toad.
I don't care who you are, that's funny right there.
ReplyDelete-Yellow-Bellied Weasel, aka Dr. Anal
P.S. Love those flowers!
Here ya go--
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtMtIItimjQ
If you don't want to watch a poor Wee Sleekit get himself eaten (Robert Burnsian for "mouse") you will want to fast forward to a little after 2 minutes in.
It's a pirated upload, near as I can tell (the doc was produced by First Run Features, who has small clips of it up on YouTube as well, just not the scene I wanted) and the sound is just dreadful--only comes out one side, and doesn't give you the full sonic experience it truly deserves. But you get the idea.
It was called "Cane Toads: An Unnatural History" and was produced in '88.
And yes, I like just about any critter that doesn't actively try to draw blood from me. Just that in my limited experience, most of the "power" or "totem" animals seem to run more along the sexier lines, since people seem to like to insist on "human" attributes ascribed to our Noble Animal Brethren, and that's a little harder to do for the more squeamish sorts after they watch a toad v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y devour a mouse. Let alone deal with an animal that just plain doesn't exist....
Thanks, Mojo! Very interesting. And now I've got that catchy little ditty, "Cane Toad Blues" going on in my head.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Wee Sleekits, I think we have another one in our house. Where are those cane toads when you need 'em? (We have cats, but they just can't seem to get the job done.)
Be thankful you don"t have MY cat, who instead of killing them brings various critters unharmed (aside from the obvious emotional trauma) into the house through the dog door. The poor rodents (and occasional snake) are then subject to the Grand Tour of the Premises. My Favorite Husband calls this ritual a "Mookie-Ride", after our last cat (who also did this to a lesser extent), as in, "Oh, look, there's another mouse enjoying his Mookie-Ride!"
ReplyDeleteI have learned to stash leather gloves in strategic spots all around the house. I used to just pick them up until I encountered a particularly ANGRY mouse who decided his only recourse was to fight. The result was sort of like that viral video of the cat chasing the bear up a tree. (Me being a somewhat shrieky dance-y bear, so luckily the cameras weren't rolling so I survived the encounter with my innate human dignity firmly intact. Yeah. That's my story and I'm sticking with it!)
Oh, Mojo, aren't cats just such glorious little beings? So often – either directly or indirectly – they are responsible for turning their humans into cheap entertainment. Dogs aren't any better in that respect, of course. I think they're all just jacking with us.
ReplyDeleteRegarding that, I have one of those "instant karma" stories. You may recall a newsy bit that made the wires a couple of weeks ago, regarding how so many folks end up in hospital emergency rooms each year because of tripping over their pets, or sliding in the water-slop from dog bowls, etc.
http://tinyurl.com/d3jzts
I can identify. Although (knock on wood) I haven’t been seriously injured, I can’t count the number of times I’ve slid on doggy water-slop, many times coming very close to falling and hitting my noggin. And then there was the time, back when I was married, that I sleepily emerged from the bedroom one morning and stepped right into a puddle of dachshund puke. I slipped down and slid halfway across the room, bruising my butt in the process – and to add insult to injury, one of the cats at that moment decided I was a cat toy (“Oh, boy, Mommy’s sliding across the floor!”), and she pounced on me, scratching my leg up. To add even more insult to injury, my ex thought it was kind of funny. (Which, from my perspective, it was, but only later.)
So I knew that the emergency-room story was no laughing matter, especially in light of my own past experiences. The thing is, though, the anchor on one of our local stations was relating the story, and worded it in such an awkward way that it made me chuckle. I don't remember the exact wording, but it didn't sound deliberate on the anchor's part, and it did sound silly. I laughed and laughed. I told Ron about it, and he too got a chuckle.
Well, the very next night I was letting the dogs back in from their last outing before bedtime. I think you know where this story is going. Our hound-terrier mix, Layla, was the last one in, and as I heard her claws ticking across the tile floor, I shut the door and turned the light out in the room. The other dog, Kali, had trotted ahead into the bedroom, and as far as I knew Layla was following her. And I was right behind Layla…but then suddenly I was right on top of her, and then…BAM!…I was on the floor. Scary. The room was pitch black and I am night-blind, and I hadn’t seen that for some Gawd knows what reason, Layla had suddenly put on the brakes. I fell, and my leg was throbbing. It wasn’t an emergency-room situation (thank goodness), but it did hurt like the dickens.
Layla, on the other hand, was not hurt at all, just puzzled and a bit indignant that I had suddenly ended up on top of her. She scrambled out of that room quickly.
I guess that’ll teach *me* to laugh at these things…
BTW, my verification word is "morpicat." Hmmm.
Ha! - I see what you mean about that power-animal site being a time-waster...
ReplyDeleteWhat my friends call me = black mamba (pretty cool!)
Full name = Leopard gecko (still not bad; I'm quite fond of all reptiles/amphibia)
But my married name (which I didn't legally adopt) = clip-winged Pegasus (I didn't know there were subspecies of winged equines, but that just shows how ignorant I am!) - kinda ominous, since we KNOW those are mythical creatures!
My husband = lesser flamingo, poor guy!
I'm jealous I couldn't generate a mule! (gotta go feed mine now)
Val, I envy you for having a mule, and I think I can safely speak for Ron and say he does too. He used to have a mule and we hope to have one again in the near future. If not that, then at least a couple of mini-donkeys. Love those long-ears!
ReplyDelete