And a renaming

waaaaaay back in fall 2015, which seems like a lifetime ago now, I bought a stuffed-toy baby hippo. I tried to name the hippo - first Oswald, then Hector, then Owen. But none of the names worked, and the hippo remained mostly anonymous.

I wonder, sometimes, if funny little things happen - funny in a cosmic sense, weird little coincidences, or things not happening until they're supposed to. Even something as dumb and trivial as the name for a stuffed toy.

Because 2017 has been The Year of Fiona - Fiona, a baby hippo, was born prematurely at the Cincinnati Zoo. She became an Internet star because she was cute and small, but also because she struggled - I seem to remember that she couldn't swim or walk on her own at first, and I think there was a point in time when they were unsure she'd make it. But with good care and feeding, she thrived and grew and is now big enough her trainers can't really work with her any more - for their safety (when a four-hundred-pound creature pushes against you, or mistakenly steps on you, it's a big problem).

I think the reason she became a "star" (other than that she was cute and almost everyone likes baby animals) is that this has been a year or two of just such bad and unpleasant news in the world, that it's a relief to just have some cute and funny news for a change. And also, I think MAYBE the zoo played up her progress as a PR move - I think they were the one where that gorilla had to be put down?

But anyway. Most people love Fiona. I follow her Twitter feed and periodically my timeline is blessed with a cute Fiona picture or a tweet "written" by her (in her own sort of argot, what her keepers imagine a hippo might say).

And I realized this evening - I still have that hippo. And that hippo still doesn't have a name. Maybe that hippo isn't a boy hippo at all; maybe he's a she and should be renamed Fiona.

Seems to fit:

And I don't know if it will show, but I have a new "topcoat color worn as only color" on my nails that is almost Fiona's color - it's called Stardust Memories and I guess is supposed to be like an evening sky (it has tiny, tiny glitter sparkles in it like stars)

Yeah, I'm changing how I feel about blue or grey nail polish, even if it does still say "inadequately oxygenated blood" to me - at least it's kind of translucent