It's What?

We're painting the house - it's a sort-of longer term project than painting usually is, as we're doing it one wall at a time so that we can work around the kids more easily.

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I've got the colors all picked, and apart from some brief drama over paint types, it's going well. However, I was having second thoughts about the upstairs bath, and as I was browsing the paint swatch book I just really had to stop and say "That's what? You named this color that? What?"

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Now, I'm all for fun names. I'll go for a nail polish named "Ladies & Magenta-men"; I've got yarn named things as exotic as "Bloodflowers" or "340682". Our bathroom is now "Mermaid", which is a nice soft grey with a bit of purple. (The purple was a surprise - I like it, it remains to be seen what the man thinks.) The downstairs bath is "Adonac", a brilliant orange. No idea what an Adonac is, but if I ever see one, I bet I'll recognize it.

(Orange! It's a little different than this in real life, but hard to photograph.)

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There are some names in this paint swatch book that I'm having trouble with. "Rat Portage" was sort of a nasty brown, and if that's the color you paint something, then that's the name it deserves, I guess. But "Blue Mayonnaise"? If I ever see blue in my mayo - or my yogurt - then I throw it out. "Clingfilm" is clear, people. I've never been to Mexico, but when I get there, I'll be sure to check & see if "Mexican Tan" is really a gunmetal grey.

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But the color that left me feeling the most offended is a soft, peaceful blue named "Saladin". I mean, Saladin was a hero, a fierce warrior, an honest and noble man. How does a powder blue reflect any of that? You can't even guess that maybe his eyes were blue; he was an Arab of Kurdish descent. And he was Muslim - a green would have been so much more appropriate.

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(His tomb - I borrowed this image of the internet, I was still using a film camera. There are two sarcophagi - one is a wooden one, that he's in; the other marble one was a gift from an emperor hundreds of years after his death.)

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Maybe I'm just feeling a little more of a connection (and mild offense) on Saladin's part because I've been to his mausoleum, by the Omayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria. Still though. Ridiculous color name. It's like, um. Naming a silly banana yellow after Queen Elizabeth I.

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And speaking of silly bananas... it's morning snack time!

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