Wocky
Today, inspired by a little red boat – http://littleredboat.co.uk/?p=2282#comments – I decided to give my laptop a name. My laptop and I are very close and many mornings I wake up in the spare bedroom with my arm slung over my husband-cuckolding ‘puter. I gaze fondly into his unblinking screen and am sure he loves me back. He is definitely a male, by the way. I know this, by his inability to keep the kitchen tidy and unwillingness to ask for directions when we go out for Sunday drives and get lost.
So, how to choose a laptop name?
I wanted something that conveyed the reassuring steadiness of the laptop in the life of a blogging mother; the name had to embody how it was either a blog-life, religion or gin for a stay-at-home-mother such as PCB and PCB chose to cling to a blog-life for mental stability; The silicon/mineral nature of a ‘puter would be nice to reference, but there had to be some vulnerability too – suggestive of how, sometimes, the bloody thing just won’t bloody work. Also age – my laptop is not the youngest – had to be implied. I put a good 5 minutes thought into this important decision and thought of a name; the name wot I thought of, is Rocky. Rrrrrrrrrrocky, Rocky, Rocky.
I liked it.
That is not his name though because of the way things go, which was this way:
Godmothers Kate and Jane were in attendance during both the deliberations and the ceremonies.
“Wocky” giggled the Godmother-having-trouble-with-her-rs (and her ls and vs; shes fwee and a haff and a wewy big gull!), then “WOCKY!” she yelled. And so Wocky was named.
I had the girls dab a wee smidgen of water on Wocky’s lid in incidental but unintentional mockery of 2000-odd years of solemn Christian tradition, and with a promise not to tell Daddy. Not that Dave would mind the mockery of solemn Christian tradition or anything but WATER and CHILDREN around ELECTRONIC TECHNOLOGY would send him into purplish paroxysms yelling, “Sacrilege! Technology’s too good for the likes of you” (pointing at me). “Stone her, stone her!” (appealing to the world in general).
Wherein I would point out that he was being a big silly and anyway he meant “Wocky, not stone her! Wocky her!
“Wocky her and Wocky the little red boat (http://littleredboat.co.uk/) that put the idea into her head!” I can see him storm.
At this point in any of our tiffs, a strange fizzing sound often issues from Dave’s ears and he has to go and lie down. If you put your ear up to his ear, you can just make out the fizzy words whispering “Why did I marry her?” Over and over. And the oddest thing is that sometimes you’d swear those fizzing words sound just like his mother’s. Go figure!
But I lark. I don’t usually go in for mocking important religious rituals but, having a non-denominational naming ceremony felt a little cold, a little uncozy, for one such as my Wocky, and I don’t know how to do any other sort of naming ceremony except Christening. I’ve done that with loads of teddies etc. in the past so I figured I was in trouble with God already, if such a thing turns out to matter.
Anyway, Wocky he is and Wocky he will remain because that is the way things went.
Wocky, then. Wocky. Good.
March 9th, 2006 at 1:22 am
Long may Wocky weign over your iwweverent pwawade of posting goodliness.
March 9th, 2006 at 10:19 am
What fun! The humanist version is known in the UK as a baby-naming ceremony.
March 9th, 2006 at 10:58 am
Yeah, we had a baby-naming ceremony for Felix. Twas fun. Follow links from here to find out more.
Wocky. I like it.
Felix has started naming his teddies after years of them being happily nameless. Actually they’re not teddies, they’re dogs. He has millions of cuddly togs, now including a Phil, a Holly and a Rainbow.
March 9th, 2006 at 9:24 pm
very cute pictures, Clare. He looks like he could be a wee heart-breaker that one.
I’m going to be in Whitby for a few days around April 22nd and in Scotland for 3 weeks in late May. I’m going to see how feasible a sidetrip to Manchester is. I have friends there already and some in Leeds too, and it would be fun to meet you in person.
My children are playing with scissors (safety ones, but still, they are bickering today) and I want to keep the Scissor Sisters, a mere musical footnote in the life of our family and not a Chapter heading with words like, “horribly scarred” and “bald at 4″. So am off to supervise with a beady eye.
March 9th, 2006 at 10:05 pm
I had the girls Christened, for my parents as much as anyone, I think. It felt kind of rite of passagey too. I realize how lame that is and how if I’d thought it all out more carefully I might have come to a different decision, but I live thousands of miles from home and anything that connects me back home and keeps my friends and family connected seems like something I want to do. I have an inkling of Christian sentiment but not in the way the C of E or the Scottish Episcopal Church would recognize it. I don’t, for example, believe in a Virgin birth but I believe, at the very least, that Jesus was a bloke with some great ideas. Humility, charity, love etc. Can’t beat those for a way to live life. I think this i turning into todays’s post. “Scuse me while I copy and paste!
March 10th, 2006 at 6:58 am
You should name your children and goldfish but not your computer or your house.
March 10th, 2006 at 9:54 am
Dave, the only goldfish you ever named was called Fluffy and I seem to remember he met a fluffy end on the carpet. I don’t think you were that keen on names for the children either. Child 1 and Child 2 you wanted, wasn’t it?
March 11th, 2006 at 10:24 am
Hey, Fluffy is a nickname given to me by a friend on account of my penchant for the programme Buffy the Vampire Slayer and my ‘fluffy’ (ie a kind way of saying ‘unruly and often frizzy’) hair. It has sort of stuck amongst a few people (the name, not the hair). Of course being from Lewis it’s often also changed to ‘Fluffag’. Still, it was either that or ‘Gulliblebitch’ so I guess I got off lightly. My goldfish was called Indianna Jones Mackenzie by the way. He met a floaty end…in the end.
March 11th, 2006 at 1:14 pm
This site becomes more colourful everytime I read it – what with the greens of limericks, the yellows of haikus and the browns of sabbatical llamas.
I perceive Wocky as multi-coloured and like this, as well as the consultation process (glad you managed to resist the temptation of delegating the naming process to the offsprungs).
One final thought: I hope that you have some other external support for the bipolar thing apart from the blog – life and the medication.
March 11th, 2006 at 5:17 pm
Hey Fluffag! I love it! Does that makes Orla, Flufflet? In our house that would make her Fwuffwet. Slowly, slowly we’re all losing the ability to say our ls and rs. D’you fink dey’d offew a famiwy wate fow speech fewapy?
Hello Wes! In fact, Wocky is a utilitarian, Henry Ford black, but you’re right: in REALITY(which is a wee bit different from fact sometimes) he is is a multi-coloured, rainbow-generating box of possibilities and I wuv him. I mean love him (Note to self: really must get on to that speech therapist).
Luke, I don’t think I’ve said hi to you yet! Thanks for visiting. Going to have a peer at your website, in a bit. Cheers!