Amazement Everywhere

We are participating in that most American of ventures this afternoon and tomorrow: the garage sale. No doubt it has roots in the European flea market and the British boot sale, but it is always an eye opener.

I am amazed at the absolute dreck people will buy, stuff I can conceive of no earthly use for. I am also amazed at the audacity of people who pilfer one of a set of hand embroidered pillow cases or a used sweat/headband. Or the ones who try to keep me distracted while their kids take what they want. If anyone is that desperate all they have to do is ask. We don't sell clothes or used shoes at our garage sale, although we did when we had kids' clothes. These days we don't have kids around, except our grandsons who are in high school and college -- and these days kids in name only.

I am also amazed at the people who will bicker over ten cents. Especially since we deal in increments of a quarter only. It's too much change to bother with if things are pennies, nickels and dimes.

But there are a lot of things that amaze me, like the guy who was at the dog park this morning with his bitch Betty, which happens to be my late mother's name, too. I was not offended, except once he started talking, I didn't have a chance to tell him I was amused, and she didn't look like my mother at all. And she was a sweet dog. We have had dogs named after people, like Louise who was the smartest dog I ever knew, and now Stella, who with her pal Brando inhabit our lives.

And the names people give their kids amaze me, names so androgynous, so arcane we can't tell whether new babies are male or female. And so many names they give their children that used to be last names, and then dogs' names, like Madison, Washington, Adams, the early presidents, although not Fido (or Feideaux) although I knew a kid named Rex, whose mother is a famous financial writer. Leonard,the son of the people across the street who has a good, strong masculine name, and his girlfriend had a baby a couple of months ago, a child so beautiful it makes my heart ache, whom they named Ann. Ann, not Anne, a name so simple, so feminine, so sweet, that it too makes my heart ache. And when I teased them that they named her after my wife Ann (also not Anne), they took it with great grace. Of course they named their baby after my wife, long after my wife was named, an old joke. ButI was amazed that they chose a traditional name in this era of non-traditional naming. Perhaps that means that traditional names are coming back.

Wouldn't that be amazing?