I'm finally out of the closet!

I once overheard 2 classmates complaining aout the meanings of their Hebrew names. One was Esther, which means hidden, and the other was Ze'ev, which means wolf. They were each trying to one-up eachother until I chimed in and said "well my name means "closet" so shut up!"
For 28 years, I've been telling people that my name means "closet", or more correctly, "female closet". Isn't that what ארון means? Everyone always tells me I have such a beautiful unique name, but I always hated it. It frickin means "closet"! I also hated it because you can never find it on a keychain or a mug or necklace. Even Jewish stores have אהרונה, or something so close to my name, but not exactly.
I try to have fun with it. Whenever people ask me where my name comes from, I try to make something up. My favorite is I tell them my parents met in a coatroom and they decided to name me closet. (Really, they met at a singles shabbaton and I was named after my zeidy,
משה אהרון => ארונה מיכל - and the 2 are totally unrelated). Then there were all my friends who tried to have fun with my name. I had one friend who actually called me "Closeta" once and I actually answered. No one else got it.

Yesterday, finally, after 28 years of living in a closet, I finally was shown** how awesome my name is. I had the following, very random IM:

TCB: I love how your name means "I will cause gladness"

me: umm....my name means closet. but I like yours better

omg I love it

I'm totally changing it

thank you

TCB: Your name is better than Rina!

Rinah is just "gladness"

Yours is more active

more like in j0 face

me: omg I love it!

that's sooooo much better than "she-closet"

So now if you ask me what my name means, I will very gladly tell you that my name means "I will cause gladness". And I really will.

** I love you so much TCB!

That girl is poison

I learned a very valuable life lesson today. I got an eye infection yesterday - actually a month ago but I was not aware. I went to the eye dr today in the middle of my work day. He explained everything to me and told me very clearly, "you are Not contagious.....but keep your own towels and stuff" So I'm not contagious. Super! I went back to work and they all asked me what happened. I said "well, I had this eye infection but - " and one of my co-workers cut me off and jumped back and said "omg you have pink eye don't touch anything". She never let me get to the part about how Not contagious I am.
I've had pink eye more times than I can count. I'm so so careful. I never touch my face and I never touch anyone. I've never passed on an eye infection to anyone. I don't even use the same hand for both contact lenses.
The lesson from this story is that when you have an eye that's bright pink, don't tell ppl you have an infection. They will not go near you. They won't even sit next to you. They won't even share the same table as you. They won't even share the same city as you! Just tell them you're a drug addict and you had a few too many last nite. Or tell them one of your parents is an albino and you got that one's eyes. It's sooo much easier and it won't result in you being treated like you have leperacy :-)

Are you kidding me?

http://whoneedsalastname.blogspot.com/2006/05/some-people-are-such-idiots.html

The guy in that post Friend'd me on Facebook! I'm still laughing.

Survival Tip #125

When you sit, make sure there is something under you to catch you.....unless you meant to sit on the ground.