Fish for tea Sacagawea

Do you ever wake up with a weird name floating around your brain? My weird, middle of the night, name has always been Sacagawea. Before the advent of Google, I had no idea why this name kept on coming to me. I did think it might have been my 2nd cousin who enjoyed the Ouija board that summoned ghosts and ghouls and all sorts of spirits to her home in the 1960's. Maybe it was her 'Spirit Guide'? I remember her saying that she had an American Indian princess as her guide. She would go into a trance and speak a strange language that she insisted was Shoshone. For all I know she might have found this information in the encyclopedia or she might have been truly gifted. There was a real push for families to buy encyclopedias around that time ... I know we had some that had amazing pictures of the human body that you could peel back one sheet of plastic at a time. Fabulous. She would often invite people over for these evenings and my mother would always decline to attend. Mom had no need of Ouija boards to commune with the dead. Auntie Pam (my second cousin) was quite successful at her spirit talking stuff. And people seemed to enjoy her parties until that Ouija stuff all went out of fashion and Auntie Pam stopped the invites. Anyhow, I digress. Who is Sacagawea? She was a Shoshone woman who helped the explorers Lewis and Clark in the late 1700's in America. She was an interpreter for the expedition and helped guide them along the way. The name means 'Boat launcher' or 'Bird Woman'. Why on earth this name has haunted me for decades is a mystery. I am not an interpreter or a launcher of boats or even an ornithologist, so why does she haunt my dreams? For a while I did change the name in my head for a Maori man called Tamatea. He was incredibly insistent and would march next to me as I went for walks of a morning. The name would pound in my brain ... Tamatea! ... Tamatea! at every step. So glad when he moved on and I could go back to gentle and kind Sacagawea. She is much better mannered and only now and again wakes me up in the middle of the night with her name on my lips and a question in my heart. Why? And what does she want me to do? She was abducted as a young girl and brought up by the Hidatsa tribe. Not that that has any bearing on my monologue. Shucks I will have a word or two to say to those two spirits when I am dead and gone.

I was watching Gwyenth Paltrow the other night on TV. And she was telling the audience that her brand name, Goop, is derived from the two letters of her name joined with two O's because she believes successful internet companies need a double O. Like Google etc. I thought 'Wow, I can brand myself like that too.' Did I really think that would work? My initials are P and P ... joined with two O's? Yeah right. So my options would be Poop or my maiden name Roberts would spell Poor. Another friend is Darla Mack .. so she would be Doom, or Danila Shelver ...mmmm no. Wow there are a lot of bad names you can form with double O's. I spent a few minutes considering all the brand names and what the heck, I will just stick to being unbranded for the moment. Or maybe I should appropriate the bird woman name? Actually that wouldn't work either because my surname means 'big scary fish'. Maybe Ika .. which is fish in Maori or Piscis which is the Latin version or maybe even Zulu .. Inhlanzi. Now that has a nice ring to it. Although I have found that if I use Zulu in my stories it alienates people and they say it is too hard to pronounce. Of course I could assimilate the Sacogawea connection and call myself a Fish Eagle? Love the sound they make. It reverberates right through you. Although to be honest, I am never going to aspire to be a Goop competitor. They sell stuff like beard wax/oil. Not my cup of tea ... or oil de beard. What am I selling? Nothing tangible. Just lots of stuff and nonsense and me yakking on about absolutely nothing at all. And my books. Which are going swimmingly. I started writing the sequel and it has got out of hand. It was supposed to be a novela of 20,000 words and is now screaming ahead with a mind of its own into its own little stratosphere of murder and mayhem.I am sure I have told you umpteen times that I cannot ride a bike. No balance etc etc etc. Anyhow, this week I bought a trike. Yes like little children have, but this is for an adult. I have been procrastinating buying it and finally bit the bullet and hit 'Buy' online. The shop then sent me an email asking if I knew that the bike/trike came in a box and would need to be assembled? Yes, I am not a complete idiot. Then they instructed me that it had an axle. Again really? If you have three wheels then you really do need an axle. I was speaking to my daughter, Ang, today and we agreed that others do judge us by our gender .. ie that woman cannot assemble bikes/trikes without a male at their shoulder.So I was all up in arms with feminine disgust ... until the trike arrived and I needed the male courier driver to carry it down the driveway. For all my saying that women can do anything ... well the thing is so heavy that this feminist had to admit defeat. It is now propped against my back doorstep and I might have to phone a friend to come and man-handle it into the house. It's either that or seriously strain something or other trying to do it myself.

I bought a lovely book last month called 'Mainly for Mormons'. Spoiler alert ... it is mainly for Mormons. It's basically a selection of stories that pull at the heart strings. Have you ever read one of the 'Chicken Soup' books? Chicken soup for the soul? Well, it's along similar lines. This young man went on a mission and when he was asked to give talks in sacrament, he would collect stories to add. Over time he shared it with his companions and later, after his mission, he was encouraged to make it into a book and sell it. Which is what he did. Self publishing, not through a traditional publishing company. They wouldn't touch him with a barge-pole. Anyhow the concept took off like a rocket and he has produced about five books. We had one of them in South Africa. A person who was in need of uplifting stories borrowed it ... and we never got it back. Hence, I am now in need of uplifting and went in search of something to do the trick. I was thrilled to find this copy online at Amazon and again I clicked the Buy button. When I feel the dreaded sobbing times approaching, I pull out the book and flip it open in the hopes that it will stem my tears. And it does. Although I often sob my way through the stories. I have invested in Netflix too and watched a movie about a boy in Kenya building a windmill to help his village avoid starvation. I am filling my life with happy happy joy joy stories as much as I can. So when someone suggested I would enjoy 'Peaky Blinders' I jumped at the opportunity to watch something positive. What the heck? Positive? Not a chance. It's all about gangs and violence and horrible stuff. I wanted happy happy and all I got was 'oh goodness me noooooooo!' So I will have to vet my viewing from now on. No horror stories, no violence and definitely no bad language.

So my dear ones, may my stories float your boat ... or lift your spirits like an eagle on the wing... or even just amuse you, have a great day