I walked into my first staff meeting Tuesday, and sat across from a pretty blond, "Hi, I'm Lacey!"
Lacey?
"From Missouri?"
"Ahm. yes."
"Lacey. Hm. We were 8th grade locker partners."
"Woah. Wow. Yeah, we were! How are you?"
We're having lunch tomorrow to catch up on the six years since we shared a tiny upper locker in Jeff. Jr. High.
I don't know how I feel about those cutesy books full of babies sitting in giant flower pots, or dressed like fuzzy snails, or just sitting, naked , sleeping with giant hyacinths on their heads. But I do know these pictures seem but a minor offense when compared with the names found in Anne Geddes' book Baby Names. These are just a few of my favorites:
Girls
Albina (white)
Bryony (twining vine)
Clover (from name of plant) you're kidding me
Drusilla (dewy-eyed)
Eugenia (well-born) hope she's blonde and blue-eyed...
Flavia (yellow)
Germaine (brother)
Hippolyta (Queen of the Amazon)
Iolanthe (violet)
Jael (wild goat) "It's like Jail, only with an E"
Kezia (Cassa tree)
Lettice (mid-evil)
Mignon (darling) bet she'll grow up vegetarian. Friends with Lettice.
Nerys (lord)
Oonagh (one) seriously, who will ever spell that one correctly?
Prue (provident)
Quinella (5th)
Rasheeda (wise)
Sigrid (victory)
Tryphena (delicate) sounds like a dietary supplement
Uta (diminutive form of Ottalie) better Uta than Ottalie
Valmai (mayflower)
Wilhelmina (protect)
Xaviera (new house)
Yseult (midevil)
Zephyrine (west wind) I think that's the name of my allergy medicine...
... and a few good ones from the
Boys
Auberon (elf power)
Easter (from the Christian Holiday)
Granville (high place)
Kain (var. of Cain) seriously? Cain?
Marmaduke (servant of Maedoc)
Urien (privileged birth)and no one will make fun of that one at scout camp
Zilcomo (thank you) another allergy medication?
The elephant sat between us on the front porch like some lazy family dog. I leaned against your deck chair to block him from view, but he just watched us dolefully, and you and I sat, as usual, in silence. I was too busy taking my own pulse to ask if you minded the intrusion- after all, I had first named him and invited him to follow us about.
When our usual contemplative and lonely silence became too uncomfortable, you commented, in passing, on his pachydermine proportions, and I could think of no reply but, "Why? Don't you see--things could have been so different."
Instead, I said "How true."
And we each returned to our busy solitude-- I, blankly staring at the empty browser window, you, intently watching the screen of your i-pod.
"I could go for a burger or two."
"Bacon cheese burger?"
"Done"
There wasn't room for him in your little car, but that's the way I prefer it. All our best conversations happen in the Wendy's drive-thru.
I learned this week that Thomas O. Lambdin is dead. My classmates chuckled when the Harvard grad, who was lecturing on the Blessed BDB, told us that this man, the source of all suffering and tribulation in our lives over the past two semesters, had in fact moved on to the other side.
I was shocked. For a moment, I was afraid I might start crying because somehow, somewhere between stewing over his lists of vocabulary and grumbling over his complex translation homework, I became very attached to the author of my text book: Introduction to Biblical Hebrew.
Thomas O Lambdin is a man of mystery. His Wikipedia article is two lines long-- brevity that perhaps nods to the famous brevity of his Hebrew Grammar. He taught at Harvard University, but besides a few papers and my shabby green textbook, paperback cover peeling away from wrinkled and well thumbed pages, there is little left behind to remind the world of this brilliant Hebrew Scholar.
So this is my tribute to the man who was my Virgil through Hebrew Grammar (is it a sin to cross dead language metaphors thus?): my guide through the forms and tenses of Biblical Writ.
Dr. Lambdin, you will be dearly missed.
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