Month: February 2023

Meet The Bugbears

/ animar64 / 2 Comments

RDP Prompt: BUGBEAR

Ms J Moscoso December 2022

When I got married and changed my name, it caused a bit of a stir with a lot of the women in my family- both sides- both my maternal and  paternal which took some doing because culturally and politically they did  not have a lot in common.

What I did hear was that  giving up my name was a very ” Un-liberated ” thing to do and now that it was NOT expected of me, why on Earth would I do something so old fashioned?

The bottom line is, I wanted the same last name as my Sons and figuring they were going to be Fathers one day ( which turned out to be a life goal for them, they are both family men )  I wanted the same name as my Grandchildren.

Before I got married my name was Godfrey- which sounds dignified and I thought it sounded like a writer’s name. So I was cool with it.

Then before we got married Luis told me that a rough translation of ‘ Moscoso’ is

Mosca” Flies ”  / Oso ” bear ” which works out as ” Bugbear “.

Now when I found out my name roughly identified me as a creature like a boogeyman or a bugaboo, I thought-

that’s the name for ME.

Photo J.M. Moscoso

When A Question Isn’t a Question

/ animar64 / 10 Comments

Daily Writing Prompt: What is one question you hate to be asked? Explain.

It does not happen a lot, but it happens enough to really annoy the heck out of me.

I will be standing in line or riding the bus or waiting for the train and sometimes I will find myself in a conversation with the person next to me and sometimes they ask,

” So. Where are you from? ”

Now to clear one little point up, I have  lived in Washington state for most of my life and I have  never lived in  one of those towns around Seattle / Tacoma where it’s vogue to affect a Southern accent.

There’s lots of theories for why that happens. Once someone on my Facebook page said that the town  called Puyallup  and other towns around the area were  farming towns (like 100 years ago) and a lot of people moved from the South to work in the fields. So they passed  their southern accents from one generation to the next.

That’s a theory and it doesn’t explain why some of my friends who lived next door to me in the suburbs move to one of these towns and end up  sounding  like John Travolta or Debra Winger in “Urban Cowboy”, but it is what it is.

As a side note Puyallup is not exactly lost in the Cascade Mountain Range. It sits on the I-5 corridor and if you literally cross the street to the next town, nobody sounds like that.

Back to my point. I guess I have a bland West coast accent- though I’ve been told we talk pretty fast, which is true.

However, every once and awhile someone will ask me, ” Where are you from. ”

I’ll say I was born in Seattle and have lived around it for most of my life.

” Sure. But where are you from? ”

” Seattle. ” I will say.

At this point you’d think that would end the inquiry ( or maybe you could call it an inquisition ) but it did not.

” No I mean. What  are you. Where are you from ” they will gently demand.

Before I would go into my family history ( which is culturally blended, we are a pretty diverse bunch) but I got tired of having to give my racial makeup so I started to say:

” Well. My Mom  always said I came from Heaven. ”

Me by Me
2022

 

Let’s Erase This One

/ animar64 / 4 Comments

Prompt: If you could erase a word, what would it be?

I used to hang out with this friend who, took things like the arts and human rights  and Women’s issues very,  very seriously.

So I was surprised when she used this word on more then one occasion:

Rapey.

It’s a real word and it shows up in the Urban dictionary.

She would say she didn’t like a song because it was ” kind of rapey ” and she didn’t like movies because the scenes were a little to ” rapey “.  She would also describe   the waiter, or the delivery guy or guys she had a low opinion of she would describe as ” kind of rapey ”

That word really got under my skin because it reminded me about the times I’ve heard parents give nicknames to body parts because they thought their child was to young to use words like ” Vagina ” or ” Penis “.

I get why parents do that with little kids, but I think that when a grown woman uses a word like ” Rapey ” in conversations with other adults I have to wonder if she is doing it for the same reason- that she views the people she is talking to as not being quite ready for Prime Time Adult conversations.

That’s the reason if I could  erase a word, it would be ” Rapey “.