When the thrill...
of Googling youself is gone, go to iTunes and see how many songs contain your name. We had a lot of fun with this. If only we had thought of it before Martha’s birthday last week. We could have done a fabulous compilation for her. Martha My Dear, Martha’s Waltz, Martha Stewart is the Anti-Christ. There was enough good material for a 2-CD set. Chuck had a lot more instrumental numbers, plus a few hip-hop bits with lyrics that are most likely X-rated, a song called Chuck You Farley , a bunch of Up-Chuck themed works of art and the classic, Chuck E.’s in Love.

Rick offered to look up my name. I thought that would be useless, but it came up with an amazing number of songs. Many of which were versions of what appears to be an old bluegrass standard, “Poor Ellen Smith.” (which just happens to be my maiden name.....Ellyn with a ‘y’...and without the Poor) How did I live all these years without knowing there is a song about me? My own personal pity party song.

Poor Ellen Smith how she was found
Shot through the heart lying cold on the ground
Her clothes were all scattered and thrown all around
And blood marks the spot where poor Ellen was found

They picked up their rifles and hunted me down
And found me aloafin’ in Mount Airy town
They picked up the body and carried it away
And now she is sleeping in some lonesome old grave

Ouch. My family would have had fun with that one. My parents were quite gifted at extemporaneous parody...so I can just imagine this being sung outside my bedroom door on those mornings when I would have been tending towards malingering. A Google search for the lyrics came back with 445,000 results. (Try that next year, Em. How many bluegrass songs are called Poor Emily Elizabeth Smith von Huben Cheng? Not 445,000, I’ll betcha.)

Gotta go. Time for Poor Ellyn to let the dogs in and drive Bridget (who we haven’t even ‘searched’ yet) to work.

Poor Ellyn Smith how was she found
Slipped on black ice and landed on the ground.