Ten-Finger Exercises

Polar bear?

Casting around for something to write a blog about, or even a headline, I thought of my exercise debacle of the day.

It's very cold here, and to get myself to cooperate by going to the Y to exercise takes some inducement. Today's was the temptation of an exercise group in the "warm" pools, the therapeutic pools in the room behind the big lap pool. I was all set to go, had left myself ample time to get out and dressed before my first afternoon appointment, but I just couldn't do it. I'd left my wet suit and towel in the trunk of my car, instead of taking them home to wash and dry, and they were quite frozen.

Bill commented that the suit would have thawed fast in the heated water, or I could have thrown it in and then gotten into it if that felt better.

I glanced at my last blog and saw a name I'd never seen before in it: Anatithenai. Who the heck is that, and did I screw up the suser-thing again, I wondered.

No, it is Formerly Known As Erik Stark, all right. I wonder why he changed his name, and why to that? Maybe he'll tell me.

It's a fine tradition to change one's name at the beginning of a new chapter in a person's life. In the Bible, Abram became Abraham, and Saul became Paul.

In my family, my first husband started life as Weyman, and when he got out of the Air Force, became Hank. When I started writing here, I became Wren instead of Ann.

And of course women, although much less frequently than in the past, change their names when they marry.

People change their names around here very often, and it's confusing. I once saw a forum where people explained why they'd chosen the handle they had. Is it still around?

Is there, hidden away in plain sight somewhere, a search function that could point me to it if I wanted to find it?

Stay tuned to the answers to these and other questions, including "What happened to Wren's friends Margot and Frederick? And was Celia really his ex-wife?" Maybe later this week.