Totally Random Ripples in the Inkwell Post: Dog Days to Buttercup

Have you joined the #inkripples movement yet? Ripples in the Inkwell is a monthly meme created by Kai Strand, Mary Waibel, and Katie L. Carroll (me!). On the second Monday of each month, we post on a particular topic. The idea is that we toss a word, idea, or image into the inkwell and each post is a new ripple. There’s no wrong way to do it and we’d love for you to participate (full details here). August’s topic is dog days and/or things that drag you down.

I’m going with the dog days part and I’m gonna see how many different ripples I can include in this post because this is honestly how my brain works. I think of one thing, then it leads to another, then it leads to another, until I come out the other end with something totally unrelated, like a game of telephone (do kids still play that or is that a very out-of-date reference?). So here goes:

Whenever I hear the term dog days, I immediately think of the song by Florence + The Machine called “Dog Days Are Over.”

But of course, dog days actually refer to the hot summer months (which are July and August in my part of the world). They are called the dog days because at one time they coincided with the rise of the star Sirius, the brightest star in the sky (it’s really a binary star, but it appears as one star, not two, to the naked eye). Sirius is part of the Canis Major constellation and is known at the dog star.

But when I think of Sirius, I think of Harry Potter’s godfather, Sirius Black (who doesn’t). I watched all the Harry Potter movies several times before I realized Gary Oldman is the actor who played Sirius in the movies.

In fact, it was only after watching The Dark Knight for like the hundredth time that I realized Sirius (Gary Oldman) is also Commissioner Gordon. The Dark Knight is one of those movies (along with The Shawshank Redemption and Clueless, among others) that I always watch when it’s on TV.

The Dark Knight is one of my husband’s favorite movies (and probably one of the last ones we saw in the movie theaters together because since having kids we hardly ever go to the movies, that and movies are crazy expensive these days). It’s a fitting favorite for him because he is affectionately called Batman by some of my family members.

This started back when my oldest nephew (who is now 16 years old) was a baby and couldn’t say my husband’s name very well. One day he said it and it sounded just like “Batman” and the nickname stuck.

Unfortunately I don’t have any cool superhero nicknames, but I was once dubbed “Buttercup” by some of my soccer teammates. They got this crazy idea to wear these hideous tuxedo shirts with ruffles as jerseys (it was a co-ed team and it was the guys who thought this would be fun). So they printed up numbers on these shirts and put silly names on the back. I was the only person who fit into the yellow “Buttercup” one, and then the team would sing The Foundations song “Build Me Up Buttercup.”

Totally random post, right? And so far removed from dog days at the end there. Did you notice, though, that I managed to bring it back full circle to a song? So some semblance of order amid the chaos.

Hopefully you’re not drowning in all ripples. And I’d love to see you add your own ripple this month. Make sure to link to it in the comments so I can check it out, and don’t forget about Mary’s and Kai’s posts.

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