10.18.2006

naming

So I had this dream last night that when I was out to lunch (as ever, some might say), the ocean broke through the dunes and flattened my old house. The new one was still okay, but I cried because I had loved the old one. This dream could be attributed to guilt about becoming attached to the new place or about owning two houses at all but one thing it cannot be is prophetic, since the old one sits much higher than the new one.
Which brings me to the real issue: What do we call the two places? Not as in painting signs (how twee is that?), but for purposes of clarity in speech and writing. My bro-in-law's places next door are known as "Big Barn" and "Little Barn," but this nomenclature is way out of date, as Little Barn is not a barn at all any more, but a house. Likewise, in ten years, "New House" and "Old House" are not going to cut it. I have been calling the new house the Barn, the Site, but these are likewise no longer descriptive. The Sculpture might be more accurate. If this was Hawaii, you would call them the Makai House (for towards the ocean) and the Mauka House (for towards the mountain, or inland) but this is not Hawaii and naming things in other languages is kind of show-offy, I feel. We could go with the strictly true but counter-intuitive plat 3-6 and 3-1. Or we could go for the rather more straightforward fire numbers 109 and 110. Or we could call the old place, as I often do, Claudia's Surf City. Or the Mothership. Or CSC I and II. Or--but I give up.
Your turn.

4 comments:

  1. Dowling House and Glenn House

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  2. How about you just call them "Houses of Hat", and have done with it. As I understand it, Dan and Rex are mine, anyway. As I understand it.

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  3. I LOVE Claudiesin East and Claudiesin West. Rolls nicely off the tongue. But so does Brad and Angelina. Those would be fun names.

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  4. Well, as to new and old designations, there is (among others) the precedent of Le Pont Neuf (Paris), built in the late 16th C.

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