R.A.Q. Volume Two

It would seem that answering questions only generates more questions, so in the interests of befuddling clarity, so here are some more answers to recently asked questions:

1. How do you pronounce your name? Is it French?

Every time I try to type out another way of spelling my name phonetically, it looks wrong, so I hesitate to tell you that it's pronounced "jewel-anne" or "joulanne", although it's something like one of those. "Jule" is one syllable, and it sounds like you're saying "Julie" without the "ie" on the end. "Ann" is pronounced like every other Anne in the world, and usually gets the harder emphasis of the two syllables. When I was in Croatia, everyone said my name perfectly once I told them that it was spelled "Djulan", so if you're Croatian, that might help you.

My dad was the son of missionaries, and he had a childhood friend who was the daughter of missionaries. She was named Jule Ann, and I am named after her. Unfortunately, the exotic history of my name ends there, because that Jule Ann was named after a character in a pulp romance magazine. Ah well, I can still pretend my name's roots are dignified. This book came out about a year after I was born, and I was not named after it, nor it after me, although the Jule Ann of the book is probably only a few years older than me and hails from my home province. (And I have no idea why the website spells her name wrong; the book, the original Jule Ann, and I all spell our names without an "e" at the end.)

When I was in high school, I found one half of my name in a binder at one of those mall kiosks that will put your name and its meaning in a picture frame for you. The binder told me that it was Old English for "one who likes to cause trouble". I liked that meaning immensely, especially when paired with "Ann" which means "graceful". And even though I never have found any corroboration elsewhere to the binder meaning, I still tell people that my name means "graceful troublemaker". It fits me better than Latin for "downy-bearded" anyhow.

So no, it's probably not French, although some websites have dubiously tried to convince me that it is French for "jewel". However, after being educated in French for many years of my life, I will confess that I like my name better when people say it with that soft, French "J".

2. I'm sneaky and found your blog and I know you in real life, but I don't want to tell you who I am, so I'm going to leave anonymous clue-laden comments. Can you guess who I am?

No, and I'm too lazy to figure it out.

3. Where on earth did you get the idea that your grandmother was born in Cairns? She was born in South Hurstville, NSW, Australia, a suburb of Sydney.

I'm sorry. Australia is a big place, and I've never been there. So yeah, I guess I was wrong about my grandmother's place of birth. The reason I thought it was Cairns was a conversation/almost-argument I had with my grandmother once about how to pronounce that word. I thought it was pronounced "Cayurns", and my grandmother corrected me, telling me that it should be pronounced like "Canns". So I repeated it back to her, "Canns?" I asked, "No, Canns!" she answered. I still don't know how I was saying it wrong.

4. Do you enjoy an oven-baked butternut squash?

Yes, I do, although I usually use it as a base for something else, rather than a meal unto itself. I make a tasty cream of squash soup, and a harvest torte with squash, noodles and craisins. Very tasty stuff.

5. How do you incorporate Jewish traditions into your Christian life?

That's a big question, and I promise to deal with it more in the future. For now, here is a link to a short blurb I wrote the first year Jer and I celebrated Passover, which also includes a link to our first Passover Seder Haggadah. I've polished and reworked the script every year since then, so if you would like a copy of the updated Haggadah, just ask, and I would be glad to email it to you.