Chess Records

Thinking of my cats, as I was in my last post:

My cats are named Chess (the boy) and Genie (girl).

I love names. I'm fascinated (involuntarily) by what people's names are -- what nationality they are, how they are spelled, if they sound good, if they rhyme, if there's someone else by the same name...
It's ridiculous. I shouldn't even admit this; it started when I was a small child.
I used to sit with an 8 and a half by 11 sheet of paper and just list names.
My mother said, "You're a name nut."

There isn't even a pill for this.

When I got Chess from the Humane Society his name (given to him there) was "Buddy." I was trying to think of a good name for him while driving in my blue Ford Tempo, to a meeting at the state capital. I thought of cat names on the way out, and on the way back, while listening to blues songs by a variety of artists on a cassette tape.

My plan was to name the gray cat after a blues singer. But as it turned out most blues singers (at least in that particular collection) don't have cat-appropriate names.

Muddy Waters. Now, cats don't like to be wet, so "waters" didn't seem to fit, for that reason, and they're fastidious, they would not enjoy mud. So that was out. Howlin' Wolf -- then you're into a whole other species. Female names were out; finally I looked up in the right-hand corner of the cassette, where it said "All original Chess recordings."

Chess was the name of a record company in (Chicago, I think) owned by brothers who emigrated from Poland and started recording music from the African American community -- jazz, blues, R & B -- eventually they recorded Chuck Berry.

So I had a lot of respect for that name, plus it seemed like a catly name.
The cat accepted it right away. It has worked well.

On the occasions when I have introduced my cats to small children, they usually misunderstand and call him "Chest."

"Here, Chest! Come on, Chest!"

That's OK.
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It's so cold, where I live. If we wanted relief in a warmer climate, we could probably try Siberia.

I think of the line from Body Heat
when William Hurt says to Kathleen Turner,
"You can stand here with me if you want, but you'll have to agree not to talk about the heat."
We can say that sentence here, but substitute "cold" for "heat."

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