An Odd House Keeping Routine

      Last week my manager asked me to do a number of house keeping tasks. Usually I do them as part of my share of keeping body and soul together. I have been known to whine from time to time about having to do some of these jobs.


     Last week though, I go to do some heavy duty housework. I was asked to wash a bed room floor, vacuum a bedroom, vacuum living room furniture, vacuum the TV room and vacuum the games room. Wow! Not much was left.

29 cushions to clean off!

    Now what caused me to do all these jobs was a polite request from the manager. What was the manager thinking? Well, the manager was going in for some medical tests this week. She had been increasingly worried about these tests. She knew the preparation was not fun. She became more and more uncomfortable about the tests themselves. She was worried what they would find. She even had her self convinced that she might not survive the test   The tests went by with flying colors. The report was that they were only 1/8 as difficult as she had thought. Nothing wrong was found.


    So going away to the hospital and worrying about not surviving brought on the odd house keeping habit. I've heard of it before. I've heard people try to explain it or give an excuse for it. I don't think any answer for its occurrence is near complete or accurate. For an odd reason some house keepers get the urge to have their house spotlessly clean before they go away.



     I would never be one of those house keepers!

A Break in the Heat.

       Saturday we had a very welcome change in our weather when it slowly clouded over in the evening. There was just a little bit of rain. Sunday Afternoon we had a little more rain and Sunday night there was a lot of rain. We had a high of 24 C (78 F) on Sat. 16 C (62 F) Sun and 19C(69 F) on Mon. Tomorrow we are back to higher temperatures but nothing in the hot range.


      The rain was welcome Our grass was starting to show some heat stress. We weren't dry, just hot.. We probably had 250-350mm(1-1 1/2 in) of rain.

     A blogger I follow in Montana received some precipitation but they had been very dry.  Another blogger I follow in southern Alberta also cooled off and got wet. The weather radar showed a large system centered around Lethbridge , Alberta. It extended to both borders  of Alberta and down into Montana.


     So we have a welcome break in the hot weather.


     Today at 1  PM we had a thick layer of cloud  that gave complete overcast.

View to the west

View to the east

View to the south

Nick Names: Love'm or Hate'm

     Now I haven't taken a survey but I would guess that the percentage of people who have or have had nick names is pretty high. There are family , school , friends and sport nick names to name a few. My last post was on given names and then I got thinking about nick names.


     Now all of my family had family nick names. I was the first born and I was always called Grandpa or Grandfather by my Dad. I don't remember anybody else in the family calling me grandfather. My next brother was called Merce because some little guy, namely me, couldn't say Myrven. Other people in the community used this name. My sister was called Deen or Deeny because two little boys couldn't say Doreen. The fourth sibling was called Ditter because two little guys and one sister couldn't say Victor . My youngest brother was so much younger that he didn't suffer receiving a nick name caused by siblings who had problems pronouncing a name. Our mother did call him Dadid as his name was David. The Dadid probably comes from him not being able to say his own name when he was little.


    I have a neighbor who is in his mid fifties. His nick name is Dirt. He's a twin and guess what? His twin brother couldn't quite say Stewart. The closest he  came to it was Dirt.


    High schools are great places for nick names. My high school nick name was Pop, Pa or Paa. See any connections to another nick name I had? I don't know where this nick name came from and I was always too afraid to ask. The skinniest guy in the class was Tub. The guy with an early peach fuzz mustache was called Shnir ( don't think this is spelled right) and it means mustache in German. Other nick names were from name alterations. Bergy came from Bergen. Remp came from Rempel.


    As an adult I have had several names. The Eskimos called me Ehunga which means crooked mouth. It refers to my physical facial feature. When they got mad at me I was Ehungnaq. They would never tell me what this meant.


     As a teacher , I know that most classes have a nick name for you and it's usually not discovered by the teacher. One I did discover was Slime. Did I say anything? No. I did not let on that I knew their secret? No.


     As teachers we quite often played against school teams. I am not any kind of athlete, but I got the name killer in volley ball and it stuck for quite a few years. The sports world is full of nick names.


    Nick names probably come on a very incidental basis from very small happenings. But love or hate your nick name you're stuck with it. Somebody who tries to fight a nick name they don't like is asking for trouble.


  Fortunately most people have interesting  and descriptive nick names that end up being a lot of fun.

Naming Patterns

    A few posts ago Far Side of Fifty made some comments on how her grandchildren and some relatives were named. It was interesting post and got me thinking about patterns used by different cultural, ethnic and religious groups for naming children.


     Far Side got me thinking about naming children in my family. My ancestors came to Canada in the late 1800' to early 1900's. They came from Volhynia which is in the Ukraine. They had gone to the Ukraine in the late 1700's. So they were cut off from the main German culture. They remained as Germans from the late 1700's.


    So the German naming pattern usually went this way. The first grand son or son was given the paternal grandfather's name as his second name. The second grandson or son was given the maternal grandfather's name. They also had a pattern of giving a child a first name after a saint. The second name would be the name used every day. As with most groups these were general guidelines and variations occurred.  The same pattern applied to female names.


    Now it only took a few generations for these patterns to be forgotten or changed. Many did not learn the German language. Many Anglicized their names. My name was originally spelled Klein. My Dad changed it to Kline.  Some of his family were not very pleased with him.


    The Jewish religion has many fairly strict guidelines for naming children. My friend told me that the Rabbi had to approve the names he wanted to give his children.


    The English had a custom where a child was quite often given a surname for a second name. As a result you see many English names which include  surnames. My brother in law was named John after his father and Elliott after his mother's family. To my way of thinking many of these names had a rather elegant ring to them.


    Icelanders use a patronymic system of naming children. Jon Larson's son becomes Peter Jonsson. His daughter Anna becomes Anna Jonsson. Again they liked to use Saint's names.


    Naming by our aboriginals was interesting to say the least. Children were given names that had significance in a spiritual, animal or place origin. Names were changed when circumstances called for it.  Someone could be renamed if there had been a misfortune and they wanted to change their status to become more fortunate.


    I did not use any pattern in naming my children. I picked up my adopted son a couple of days before Christmas. It was a very unexpected placement and we hadn't thought of any name. Since we were going to my parent's place for Christmas, my wife said, "We need a name before we go for Christmas. I don't want your Dad to name him."


     So I've had a brief look at naming patterns and you don't have to look very far to learn a great deal. 

Red Hot Heat Wave

     For the last four days we have been experiencing a heat wave in Central Alberta. For four days we have had temperatures in the 30 - 32 C (88 - 92 F) range. That is hot for this area. Now I know that some people would scoff at me saying this is hot and a heat wave! I've been watching heat waves in other parts of the continent and they are brutal. You have my sympathy. My daughter keeps me informed about the heat in Chicago.  

      Our usual summer day time highs are about 20 C ( 70 F). A few days each summer we may have a 26 C ( 80 F) temperature and once every five years or so we get what we're getting now. 


     Now very few houses here have air conditioning. It just wouldn't make economic sense to install air conditioning. Our houses have a high insulation value to keep heat in in the winter. Most commercial buildings will have air conditioning.


    However, life goes on here heat wave or no heat wave. Outdoor workers continue the regular routine. Plants, crops and wildlife suffer from the  heat . Farm crops suffer some damage as yields could be less. I remember when I lived on my Dad's farm and we had a heat wave how it would bother my Dad. He knew that he was losing income as long as the heat wave continued. 


    So I have fans running in my house hoping to keep the temperature down. I stay in my house from noon to 3:00 pm to try to stay out of the heat. 


    I hope that all heat waves end now and that we go back to normal temperatures. Then I can stop being grouchy.

Today is International Kissing Day!

    That's right! International Kissing Day today! This day has gradually been declared in most countries.


    Now I'm sure that anyone expected this topic on Hiawatha House. Why I didn't think this topic would ever be on Hiawatha House. However, I heard a piece on CBC radio's The Current about National Kissing Day and it was interesting. 


     So there are pecks on the cheek, pecks on the forehead, kisses on the lips and probably many more that I'm not aware of. There are good kissers and bad kissers. There are favorite kisses. There are kisses that have big influences. Russian men give the big bear hug and kisses on both cheeks when they meet a man.Where did kissing come from? The experts aren't quite sure . Alexander the Great found kissing in India and brought it back. The Europeans are responsible for spreading kissing around the world. 


    Some cultures didn't have kissing but "smelling." We have small musk glands underneath the eye. That scent can be picked up, subconsiously I guess, and in so doing the person is recognized in some way. 


    My Grandma was like most other Grannies. She adored her grandchildren and would shower them with kisses. When my brother and I were little guys we didn't like Grandma's kisses. She would come on the train to visit us. We would be dancing up and down until the train stopped. Then we would run behind the station and hide so Grandma couldn't kiss us. However , sooner or later we had to face Grandma. 


    My most surprising kiss? I was in the staff room one day enjoying a coffee and going over some upcoming lessons. The office staff happened to be in the staff room and they were rather excited. One of them was applying a thick coating of lipstick. So she said she was going to kiss me. I treated it as a bluff. But it wasn't a bluff and too late for me I got the red lipstick kiss. Of course , all the office staff were in on it so that was the reason for their lively behavior and they found the incident hilarious.


    I come from a family of four boys. Once in a while our wives swap stories about their husband's kissing. Then they embarrass us by discussing our kissing habits. So their story is that we are all shy and some initiative has to be taken on their part. They all say we are getting better so that's a good thing.


    My friend's Dad died last year. They were together as a family and talking about what they would miss most about their Dad and husband. When it came mom's turn she said "the kisses." It was something none of them expected but something that spoke volumes about the couple's relationship.


    So to all people out there, "Happy kissing day" or whatever you're supposed to say on such a day. 


     Some bloggers quite often end posts or a comment "Hugs to all " and some "hugs and kisses to all."


     


    

Have a Great Fourth of July

    To all my American readers and followers: 


    Have a great Fourth of July.