lydy | Roomba Roomba

Well, I've appeared to have named my roomba. Normally, I prefer to name my inanimate objects elegant names, preferably Greek or Roman deities. However, the roomba has decided that its name is Red Rover. (It is a red roomba, at least.)

Did any of you play Red Rover, Red Rover when you were kids? You had two lines of kids in parallel lines, holding hands. One side would call out, "Red Rover, Red Rover, send So-and-So over." So-and-So would run and try to break through the other line. Mayhem ensued, occasionally injury resulted. If the chosen victim broke through the line, they joined that team. Depending on house rules, either the winning team got to choose a new victim, or it was the other team's turn.

While I'm off on a tangent, does anyone remember dodge ball being a kinder, gentler game, or was it painful hell for you all, too?

Whee. A very tangential tangent. I've been kind of making a collection of kid's games, kid's rhymes, odd sayings, and camp songs that I've learned that are different from the ones other people learned. Are they regionalisms, differences in age, differences in culture, or just plain different 'cause things aren't always the same?

There is, of course, the important controversy of "duck, duck, goose" versus "duck, duck, grey duck." The only thing I have to say to that is "duck, duck, grey duck" doesn't scan.

How did you pronounce "ally-ally-all-out-oxen-free"? In Pittsburgh, we said, "ally-ally-out-in-free."

Did you chant "Old mother witch, fell in a ditch, picked up a penny and thought she was rich," or any variation thereon? How about, "Hark, hark, the dogs do bark, but they never bark at me." I think that one is from Thurber's "13 Clocks", but all I remember is the rhyme.

Did you call them thorn bushes or pricker bushes? How about baby doll or doll baby? Trivet or hot plate? And of course, casserole or hotdish. Ever chant to an apple seed, "If you love me, pop and turn, if you hate me, sit and burn"? My grandmother taught me that.

Ever hear "all about Robin Hood's barn"? How about "land o' Goshen." Is it "could't hit a barn door", "couldn't hit the broad side of a barn", or "couldn't hit a barn if he were inside"?

"Bright eyed and bushy tailed", "sure as god made little green apples", and "like likes like."

I do know that I'm the only person I know that says "red up the cupboard" meaning clean the closet, and that couple means more two or more and usually less than five.

When it gets warmer, anybody want to go out and have a bonfire, put hot dogs and marshmallows on sticks, and sing campfire songs? I call dibs on the bear song.

Oh, returning to the topic that was at hand some time ago, the bot seems to like being called Red Rover. Roombas seem to generally like everything, though. They're nice, cheerful little creatures. Their one real flaw is that they can't cope with electrical cords, which means that in a house like mine, there's some significant prep work that has to happen before I can let Red Rover off on his cheerful mission of making much noise and slowly, but entirely unsupervisedly, vacuuming my floors. Yay, robots.