Names and Omens

I am, lets face it, a chronic namer of things. Most of the inanimate objects I surround myself with on a daily basis have names. I don't mean words that describe them to others (like "car" for example) I mean personal names. Why? I don't know. I smell everything too - lets just call these personal eccentricities.

In keeping with this trend, I feel my house needs a name and as I've spent a little time here I think I'm learning the personality of the place. It's odd - the people who lived here before me were nothing if not consistent. The entire house was completely unkempt. It's filthy, unmaintained and in most cases broken or damaged in some way. Every wall either is dirty or looks dirty because the paint is so old it's yellowed. Things are cracked, chipped and generally in disrepair. There is, of course, one highly notable exception.

The half bath downstairs is mysteriously put-together. It looks, contrary to what the rest of the house would lead you to believe, like someone cares. Not only that, it looks as though they spent time caring. In fact - they did spend a tremendous amount of time caring because they hand painted (HAND PAINTED!) a ridiculous shell/seaweed/starfish motif border waist-high around the room. It's a small room, and I'm not averse to work, but I'm pretty sure you couldn't pay me enough to hand paint that thing. Anyway, I digress. The room is decorated in every possible way with shells - they're stuck to the light fixture (don't ask), there are shell knobs on the doors, there are even little shells just kind of hanging around in there. This leads me back to the name - I'm thinking I'm calling it The Shell House. More of a title than a name really, but it suits.

There is a nice little double meaning here as well given that I do feel like I'm working with the shell of a house and making it into what I want it to be. I feel also that the house is an outer example of an inner process that I'm going through - a reflection, if you will. Also I like that it makes me think of a hermit crab or something similar that might carry it's home with it. Sigh. I love it when it all comes together like that.

On a totally different and slightly more random note, I feel I've been given some kind of sign or omen, not that I have the faintest idea what it means, but still it felt significant. I was in the garage a couple of days ago when a little pair of birds - fat birds like wrens or something similar - flew into the garage. They sat on the workbench for a minute chittering to each other and then flew into the house. They flew around downstairs, one flew through the vents to the upstairs, and they both found their way out through windows that had been left open to help with the paint fume asphyxiation factor. So - what does this mean? Is it good luck? Bad luck? Does it mean my vents now have bird poop in them? What? What?