It’s Friday and it’s time to have some fun!!! Speaking of fun, if you haven’t been reading Adventures in Tralaland, you should. Laura is a breathe of fresh air in the (sometimes stale) healthy living blogging community. When Laura tweeted about naming her bicycle, I have to admit, I got a bit giddy. I love naming inanimate objects. It’s just…fun and not to mention fabulous! I sent Laura some suggestions, but as you’ll see there is an art to naming your things. I am happy to say, that my suggestion that Lady be a part of the name, did make the final cut.
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Why hello, A Healthy Fit readers! My name is Laura and I blog about Caribbean living, styling, and exercising on Adventures in Tralaland. I’m glad that Angela is out having a blast. I’ll bet she’s actually eating or drinking something delicious right now—so let’s all live vicariously through her.
I recently was bitten by bicycle fever. It all started when I signed up for the annual Ride for Roswell bicycle ride, which raises money for cancer research at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, NY (my hometown). I signed up on a team with my sisters and a bunch of friends, got all excited, hopped on a plane for my visit home…
Oh yeah, and then realized I hadn’t actually REALLY been on a bicycle in fifteen years.
However, after a few sessions in which my three sisters (all younger than me) delighted in showing their scaredy-cat older sister how to not fall off a bicycle, I could have sworn that I was born to cycle. During my loooong visit home, I did plenty of bike rides with my chicas, rode ALL their bikes, and had a blast at the Ride for Roswell. I had to be stopped from literally stealing their very foxy bikes and wept sad, miserable, pitiful tears when I had to return home to Trinidad and had to part from them–their bikes, I mean. (The sisters too. Just a little, though).
When I got back to Trinidad, I decided to buy a bicycle, naturally. I mean, I couldn’t just go around giving the jealous eye, and then the evil eye, to everyone I spotted on two wheels, and I was apparently chanting the word “bicycle” in my sleep. So I shopped around and, in typical silly and cheap Laura ways, I bought myself a brand-new bike, my first bike without training wheels!
Now, though, I had a quandary. A bike is really, truly like a pet–you wouldn’t dream of having a nameless dog! How would you relate? How would you cajole it into peeing where it should? Ergo, this bike needed a name ASAP.
It really should have been easy to name it, because everything in my house has a name. E-book reader? Rita. Digital radio? Grace. Jalapeno-flavored pretzels? The Devil.
However, the bike needed to have the PERFECT name. I reached out on Twitter, I harangued family members, I looked at baby name websites.
And once I had done that, I analyzed the bike. You see, there are five key factors you need to carefully consider if you are to give your bike the name it really, truly deserves:
Is it male or female? This is the single most important factor, of course, and can be determined by its color and its temperament. Mine is hot pink and suitably fiery of character. This bike positively bites. There’s no doubt it’s a lady. In fact, it’s so feminine it might actually be a drag queen, but I’m scared of being bitten by it so I’ll speculate no further on the subject.
Is it a morning or night person? Mine loves its beauty sleep and does not appreciate glaring, hot sun, so it is not to be woken up until noon, at the earliest. It would probably sleep until three or four pm, but I am constantly waking it up to look at it, mess with it, or ride it (usually around 4:30 pm, when it starts to get bearable outside).
What would it wear? This bike takes my style cues like a little pro. It would wear the brightest, loudest, most clashing prints. It would have fairly big hair and it would be all about the headscarves in a Joan Holloway-kinda-way. My bike really hates that I wear pants while I ride (well, so do I) and has given me seat malfunctions on more than one occasion to protest this state of wears. Having said all that about the ultra-feminine bent of this bike, I don’t think it’s into extreme heels; it appreciates its own small stature and trades on “cute” rather than “attractive.” This might be because it could be hiding the fact that it’s a drag queen–maybe.
What’s on its i-Pod? Ooooh, my bike’s soundtrack is definitely Slumdog Millionaire. It loves anything Indian and I’ve had to ask it to turn down the bhangra/hip-hop mashups on more than one occasion. It also appreciates dancehall and can do a semi-passable Jamaican impression, but only because, in its dreams, it wants to be Major Lazer’s girlfriend (insert MAJOR LAZER LINK ON MADDECENT: http://majorlazer.com/)
Is it a cocktails, beer, or wine kind of bicycle? My bike knows only one word when we go to the bar: margarita. She nods when asked if she wants a salt rim with that.
Having done this, I weighed all my answers and my feedback. After careful consultation with key individuals (um, Angela and my sister Ana), I was ready. I went to the bike, sprinkled it with imaginary champagne, and christened it:
Lady Mehru!
Her foxy name is a nod to her ultrafeminine ways, lends itself to both adoring and cursing, positively screams Bollywood chic, and commands respect from all other bicycles it encounters. (And I think a drag queen would approve).
I think she really likes her name! She just hopes she can add “Lazer” to the end of it someday. I’m not about to burst her bubble about imaginary Jamaican superheroes, nor explain that superheroes don’t marry bikes, so I’ll just let her think what she will, as long as she keeps providing excellent rides in the tropical afternoon.
Do you name things like your bike or mixer or car? Do you consider Laura’s 5 key factors when naming objects? Are you gonna have some fun this Friday?




















