full_moon_water_640The other day I was standing outside contemplating life, looking at the moon. And I thought, why do we call it THE moon. We don’t call it THE Mars or THE Jupiter or…..I have to say it THE Uranus. I just noticed my little fingers didn’t even bother to hit the Caps button on moon. It doesn’t deserve it…cuz it’s the moon. I’m not the only one that has pondered why we haven’t named the moon.

I love to name things (except changing the name of a credit union)  I’ve never said let’s get in THE car. I say, “Let’s take Buttercup to the store!” See how fun that is?

When I was just a fetus in the credit union industry (in the 1980s) the first ATMs came on the scene. Part of my job was to balance the ATM. Notice how we referred to it as THE ATM. So I named the first one Eddie Money. Then I could find joy in feeding Eddie Money. Get it? The next one was Johnny Cash of course. And finally John Dough!

You can always tell the difference between pet parents and pet owners. Pet parents NEVER say “Feed the dog.” Pet parents say “Has Dexter had his dinner yet?” Only pet owners say “Where’s the dog?” Pet parents know where there dog is at all times.

In Portland we’ve named all of the freeways. It’s not THE 84 or THE 26 (like they are fond of saying in California), We give directions by saying “You’ll take the Banfield to the Sunset.” Names are fun.

There’s a lot of psychology around how we feel about our name. A wonderful motivational speaker Alyce Cornyn Selby had a session about such studies and how she felt about her name. She had lost over 100 pounds and more importantly maintained that weight loss for years. Part of her transformational process was to change the spelling of her name from Alice to Alyce. It was her brand, and it worked. I love my name. I have two older sisters, Daedre and Darcie – I definitely got the good name. Thanks mom.

But back to the Moon. I say we name him Monty. Then once a month we can look up in the sky and see a full Monty.