esrosedotblog

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

We know a lot of people in our neighborhood.

We are not reclusive.

On the other hand, there are a lot of houses that have no tenants! How could we know?

These are the people who show only occasionally; maybe weekends, Some are rarely seen. A small minority are seen but not appreciated for some reason and, therefore, are unknown to us other than sight.

A typical Palm Springs neighborhood.

For the unknowns, we cannot say "Bill and Marlene's house is getting a paint job". We need another designation.

So we go by a series of intricate nicknames based on events or even the people when we last saw them.

There is the 'bartenders' house' on Mesa, for example.

When we moved here, someone told us that two bartenders lived there. We never saw them but, three owners later, it is still 'the bartenders' house'. We even know the name of one of the present occupants but that hasn't made a dent in the naming.

Sometimes, a house name can change.

Consider 'the bathroom house'. That used to be 'the GP's house' because the guy who lived there had a license plate that said JUSTAGP—neat!.

But he died. And we never met him.

Three owners later have redone the house—badly. Most egregiously, they have built a huge jutting cube over the driveway.

It turns out that this addition is all bathroom; hence, of course, 'the bathroom house'. The addition trumps the GP all to hell.

There is some confusion around a few of the names. I have one house that I call 'the modern house'; John another. Now we have the 'ugly modern house', 'the blue tile modern house', and 'the gargantuan modern house'.

Gotta get new names.

'Randy's house' is a vacant, derelict teardown that our friend Randy (somehow) likes a lot.

Some houses are personality driven.

There is the 'bathing suit lady's house' where the owner wears an extraordinary variety of halter tops that look like the bra part of old fashioned two piece bathing suits. This one is a little arcane, I admit.

We have 'the leg weight guy's house' (he has very long legs and we fear for his sacroiliac) and so on.

It all makes for lively conversation as we not only tell the story of today's dog walk and, at the same time, relate all the new data about the neighborhood; who is doing what, where.

But the juiciest part is often just trying to figure out which house is being nicknamed and why.

History. Geography. With a smile.