My dads family had a lot of boys with the same names, so Big Mike and so on. I’m occasionally annoyed my name is so unique but it definitely is!

My family seems to have as little desire/energy to go Christmas shopping as I do. We are just giving presents to the pets.

I have two uncles that were Uncle Nicknames and then to find out they were known in later life jobs as real name and I can call them real name, but never Uncle real name. Butch and Skip ftr, Charles and Joe.

Calli, I hope your niece is okay. Was she feeling ill, or was she tested due to work/contact tracing?

My cousin's wife is back at work after having had it. She isolated in her room, and my cousin and the kids who are still at home didn't contract it, which is great.

My father's family was country - from rural Tennessee. They got ... inventive ... with some of the names. My aunts Willie Martha May and Myrtle Dew and uncles who died young named Harmon Woodrow (which is pretty reasonable) and Claude Oppolous. My grandmother Roxy Ludella (called Della) and grandfather Harvey called Dick.

I guess we're kind of an identity crisis built in.

In other news, have you seen the Contact Tracys?

Helth ~ma to your niece, Calli.

It works for a dozen+ years before you have to figure something else out.

Middle K? Special K?

My mom had an uncle named Uncle Son. His parents, apparently, gave him an actual name and then just called him Son. They had other kids with actual names that they used. But not Uncle Son. It's a little, uh, odd to think about.

My grandfather had a brother they all call Unky because he was so much older than his younger siblings (12 kids). So he was known to everyone as Unky eventually.

Was she feeling ill, or was she tested due to work/contact tracing?

My niece is a teacher and has to get tested on the regular.

Recovery-ma to the niece, Calli!

Importing from another thread.

Jen, when you came back and told us about your tough health year, it didn't seem like the right time to talk about ours. C was diagnosed with Crohn's in January of 2019. We put off the diagnosis too long because his symptoms weren't typical and remitted often (and once it was clear there was an ongoing problem then had to wait to see a specialist).

He responded to treatment, but the damaged parts of his gut were never going to recover and he was hospitalized a couple of time for intestinal abscesses. He was on Cipro and Flagyl (at the same time) and a liquid diet for a few months prior to surgery, so all that combined with the reality of his chronic illness made things just awful. His strictures were so bad, the doctors said his small intestine had "fecalized," and was a "war zone."

In October 2019, he had his ascending colon, ileum, and part of his small intestine removed (more than 60cm in all). He's doing so much better, but he was still worried about the what-ifs, when he returned to campus in January of this year (but was only there for about six weeks, because of the pandemic).

Anyhow, I get very mama bearish about the subject.

Sorry for the delay. Mom called while I was typing. She just found out her cousin died over the weekend.