Tuesday, June 16, 2009

"What's in a name? A rose is a ..."

"... is a rose is a rose."

True. A rose flower would still smell as sweet but I doubt it'd be as popular with gardeners and florists is it was called "sweaty butt muncher".

So I'm looking for a fitting name for my boat.

It nameless now, but it's generally considered bad luck not to re-christen a boat when it becomes yours. I don't think there's an accepted time-frame, but I'm arbitrarily calling it a year.

The relationship of man (or woman) with a boat is symbiotic. There's a lot of give and take. Well, mostly 'give'. I bought the damn thing. I transported it across the country. I pay to have it stored at my club's boat house.

And I just bought it this snazzy cover so it won't get all dinged up and covered with dead insects when I precariously strap it to the top of my car:



As far as the 'take', well, as I use it more ... I'm becoming pretty fond of quietly gliding across a nice lake at 6:40 in the morning with no one else around.

(Especially when I run into a dock! Like I did this morning; don't worry - no damage to me or the nameless boat.)

So, I'm taking this naming/re-christening kind of seriously. I've always wanted to try to be appropriate and right on the mark with this kind of thing. Hell, they were almost wheeling us out of the maternity ward before Laura and I settled on "Peter". We were seriously thinking that "baby boy Cytrynowicz" sounded OK, but we were worried we were limiting his future career choices.

We took a long time to name our cars, but "Bob" the CRV and "Miles" the Mazda are so ingrained into our vernacular to the point that we forget when we talk about them to non-family members.

I could go with something profound or moving, but that's not my style. I could just call it "Owen" as that's the name of the manufacturer, but I'm having trouble committing to that - it's kind of lazy.

I'm also contemplating "Minnesota Fugue" - ripping off the name of this blog - but that's too wordy. Maybe just "Fugue".

I don't want some corny, pun-ny phrase like "Myassis Dragon". Or something stoic like "Endeavor" or "Fortitude". However, "Sanity" is looking kind of good now.

A friend of mine has suggested the "Flying Wasp" and I'm considering it as an homage to my youth and one of the funniest movies ever made.

I also don't want to get too personal, but the "Bowlegged Sculler" keeps on percolating to the top of the list. I broke my right ankle in college and as a result my right knee wants to flail out on the recovery when I get tired. It's a definite technique "no-no" but maybe my boat name will let others know that, yes, I do know how to scull, I'm just not that good at it sometimes, so shut your pie hole.

Any name suggestions? The boat is red (my boat club already has a "Red Beaver"). It's old (made in 1988). And, it's helping me keep fit and healthy, physically and mentally.

I'll consider all - just as long as it doesn't contain any of the these words in any order: sweaty, butt, muncher.

5 comments:

Chris said...

Hi- this is Christine from the comp team (I saw your blog link on Linnea's blog). I just bought a used single this year (it was a former MBC rower's boat so I didn't have to transport it) and the boat hadn't yet been named. It's such pressure! I asked friend and fellow rower Sarah Fisher to come up with boat names for me, and she found a perfect name. Are you ready for it?!? Sweet Martha! I wanted to name it after my grandma Martha, plus there's the additional irony of the cookie connection/lightweight boat.
Anyway, I have a whole list of spare unused boat names. Here's a few:
HOT BANANA
Irene
Tiger
SUGAR
Delight
BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
Serenity Now
Take your pick. Or, you'll have to mill about the boathouse sometime when Sarah is there- she's a boat naming savant!

Also, Kerry can order boat lettering and apply it when it's time.

Glad you're enjoying the single, perhaps we might meet in person at the club sometime.

Gotta get to bed, have to get up at 5 to go out in SWEET MARTHA!

akalinear said...

You could go the steak route and call it No Name. Or No Name Owen, or just combine those words into Nomen (but that makes me think of Nomenclature), or Omen (which easily turns to "Omenclature" in my mind, and an omen CAN be a good thing, so actually maybe that one's not too bad). And that makes me think of "BowManClature" and all sorts of weird things.

If you do enough free word association, I'm sure you'll come up with something perfect. Or maybe not.

I'd say go with Flying Wasp, but I'd be afraid you'd break off the bow...

Let us know what you end up deciding.

If I ever actually purchase my own single, I'm pretty sure I already know what I'm going to name it, but I won't share that with ya. I just know that it's taken me about a year of rowing Martin's to come up with a couple ideas, and it'll probably take me until I actually buy one in a year or two to finalize it...

Chris said...

The Ninja! Silent. Stealthy. Deadly.

docbonsai said...

Ninja! hmmm ... I like it. Definitely in the running.

Anonymous said...

how about:
seven?
wounded knee?
wounded ankle?
doc's baby?
sliver? (no. not silver! it's red!)
hongse (means red in mandarin)
eric's little brother?
shelley? (too obvious?)
water bug?