glupavomowhat?

“So, Sarah… um, what exactly is a glupavomomiche?”

Why, thank you for asking. (Come on, you know you’ve been burning with curiosity from the minute you read the title of my blog, it’s ok to admit it. You don’t have to join a twelve-step program or the moonies.)

It’s actually two words crammed together: glupavo momiche.  It’s Bulgarian. “Glupavo” (neutral gender) means “silly”  and “momiche” (feminine) means “girl.”  And voila, there you have it… glupavomomiche means “silly girl.”

So do I speak Bulgarian?  Nope.  Well, you know, just the usual:

Zdravei! Kak si? Mnogo dobro, blagodaria!

Oh yeah, and the awesome prahusmukatchka.

The name was originally intended to be a joke, which is a story in itself.

***cue lilting harp fairytale music***

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Sarah.   She was an exceptionally cute little girl, very tall with long brown hair in pigtails, big brown eyes, and a very big gaptoothed smile.  She lived in her cute little green house with her Mommy, Daddy, and baby brother.

Sarah’s Daddy had a very important job and had access to all kinds of new and wonderful inventions.  Sometimes, Daddy would bring home these inventions to show little Sarah and Mommy the amazing things they could do.  One day, when Sarah was about 5 years old, Daddy brought home an Apple Personal Computer!  At that time, very few people had a computer and most computers were very big.  But this little computer fit in a small box and featured a graphic user interface that allowed engineers and architects to draw up plans without a pencil and paper.

Sarah and Daddy spent hours and hours drawing houses… people houses, Barbie houses, dog houses, She-Ra houses, just about any kind of house you could think of.  In fact, Sarah was so good at it, she went to a special day at work with Daddy to show off her computer skills to a journalist, who wrote an article about how some day computers will help kids learn.

Many years later, Daddy brought home another invention for the family computer… a modem!  This modem allowed Daddy and Sarah to dial up and connect to the brand new internet.  It was a little boring at first, but then more and more people got on the internet, and there were more and more things to do.

Pretty soon, there was a program called ICQ that allowed you to talk to people all over the world.  The very first person Sarah met on ICQ was a boy in Bulgaria named Boyan (pronounced “boo-yahn”).  Fortunately, he spoke excellent English thanks to his Communist Era education, and soon Boyan and Sarah were chatting up a storm every night.

Boyan decided to teach Sarah some Bulgarian.  She proved to be an eager student, but pretty inept at learning a new language, especially one that involved a whole other alphabet.  Every time she made a mistake, Boyan would laugh and call her a silly girl.  Sarah finally got so tired of hearing the term, she decided to change her chat name from Sisser19 to glupavomomiche, just for one day as a joke.  But, the name stuck.  And even though many, many years have passed since that time, the nickname has endured and proven to be a very unique persona of the now beautiful young woman with long brown braids, big brown eyes, and a perfect smile.

***fairytale ending trumpet fanfare music***

So there you have it.  Blagodaria, Boyan!

Sarah and Daddy... when he still had hair.