Lucy ?. Horton A.K.A. Goose

    My name is Lucy. Just Lucy. Not Lucille, not Lucinda, just Lucy. I have been hearing and repeating these words ever since I can remember. Seriously. I'm not being cliché. It's one of my earliest memories. When I was little, it was sort of a sing-songy sentence my mom used when people asked what my name was short for. Maybe she sang it to make it funny, or to show me that it was perfectly OK to have a name traditionally used as a nickname as a full name. Whatever. It's cool. I like my name. I was named after my grandmother who died suddenly when my mom was little. Maybe I'll get into that later.


    I don't have a middle name. You wouldn't think so, but this fact comes up quite a bit during conversation. People are intrigued. "Why don't you have a middle name?" "What would it be if you had one?" "That's so weird." "What do you put as your initial on applications and stuff?" and so on. Every now and then I meet someone else without a middle name, and we are undoubtedly instant best friends. It's like kismet. Or we're just drunk. Either way...new best friend. Awesome.


    Just so you know, I was called "Goose" way before Top Gun ever came along. Like most babies, I drooled a lot. Although, apparently I drooled more than the average baby because my grandfather, another grandparent I didn't know, called me "Juicy". Mom wasn't thrilled, so she changed it to "Goosey". Later, it was shortened to "Goose", and there are very few people who still use this term of endearment. They are my favorite adult people in the entire world; my mother, my father, and my brothers, Chris and Dom. (Obviously my husband is also a member of this elite group, but he's never called me "Goose".) I know for a fact that 50% or less of these people will be reading this blog, but they're still my favorite adult people in the entire world.