We Are Family! I Got Ethelred the Unready in Me!

Grandpa Unready - Smiley Family Photo Album

I have this thing for history. No, let me get it right. I have this THING for history. While some people dream of retirement on a sandy beach somewhere doing crossword puzzles and drinking magharitas, I dream of retiring to a university town, on a beach, doing crossword puzzles, auditing classes on the 15th century sacking of Kiev and drinking martinis. Okay, so my dream isn't too different from other people's.

ANYWAY...

I've been doing some family tree research over the past...well, since I could read. My family always thought it was funny, "Oh look at Leslie. She likes pictures of old dead people." Sometimes they threw rocks at me and... well, okay, they didn't throw rocks at me. But sometimes they made fun of my hair and called me a "goddamned bleeding heart liberal."

Anyhow, I was looking up something after a long day over the keypad, when I found...well, it would be more honest to say I sorta stumbled into...some really cool stuff (that other people had spent the time, money and travel researching)that made my year.

Through my mother's (the Smiley's - isn't that damned precious?) family tree, I found that I am (and this means you too, Wendy) a direct descendent of some of history's more interesting historical figures. You see, in case you haven't figured it out yet, I'm a little odd. Where most people might long to be descendents of Queen Elizabeth, I'd rather come from Rasputin or some guy who invented the spork. That kind of thing.

Imagine my extreme and total bliss to find that I may be (pending DNA testing, of course) the great, great, great, great, (you get the idea) granddaughter of Ehtelred the Unready! And Lady Godiva! And that dude they think is the originial Old King Cole! That's right! Eat it, Mean, Rotten Uncle Terry. (Oh, and I should say that is actually his name - Wendy will back me up here.)

So back to history and relatives who are not alive and living in Indiana, Ethlered the Unready! How cool a name is that? It sums up his reign and insults him simultaneously! And Old King Cole WAS, after all, a merry old soul - who didn't want to hang with that guy? He had Fiddlers Three! I want Fiddlers Three! Just to follow me around and, um, fiddle whenever I want!

And there really was a Lady Godiva! I had to explain to my 21-yr. old niece that no, she's not the Chocolate Lady but a real noblewoman who rode naked through the streets to protest her husband's unfair taxation of the peasants (she was less impressed than if Godiva had been the Chocolate Lady) I ate an entire box of bon bons. Then I threw up. Apparently, you shouldn't eat the WHOLE box in one sitting. (In my defense, they should put warnings on those things.)

Sigh. I'll have to do some more work on this. To be continued...

(Anyone interesting/strange/possibly demented in your family tree?)

From now on:
HRH, The Assassin