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Monday, Feb. 04, 2002 - 9:20 p.m. - Where Starbird (aka Starrbyrd) Came From
Since Michael and I went on our road trip up to the North Cascades in December, I’ve been meaning to write a journal entry on where I got the name Starbird (aka Starrbyrd). It’s kind of a cute story and I’d always meant to share. You see, I got the name from a road sign. Yes, that’s right a road sign. It all started when I was just a little girl. I’ve always been a reader and have always loved words. I’ve also always been very observant of people and places around me. Well, when I was young and until my grandparents passed away we used to drive up to my grandparent’s home in Canada quite often. The trip was approximately 2 ½ hours each way. To keep us children occupied my parents would play games with us like the Alphabet game and adding up license plate numbers, looking for license plates from other states (or Provinces), and counting windmills (we used to drive through Lynden, WA which is a Dutch community). We’d get a penny for every windmill we saw but we had to work together -- my brother would watch one side of the road and I would watch the other. Soon we knew where every windmill between Seattle and Mission, BC was, and for a few dollars my parents kept us occupied for the entire trip. This same game led to many family jokes about chicken apartment houses (chicken hatcheries) and flying doghouses (I swear I saw a doghouse in a yard and my family only saw a birdhouse and teased me mercilessly that it was a flying doghouse). To this day when my parents or one of us kids drive on the route we used to drive up to Canada we still watch and count windmills and point out the chicken apartment buildings. Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked as usual, about 45 minutes north on I-5 from our family home, we would drive by one of the few exits off the highway with an overpass which had the name Starbird Road.  For as long as I can remember I would watch for that sign and that exit. The name “Starbird Road” always elicited a small thrill in my little heart for some reason. I just always pictured a bird with feathers of a rainbow soaring among the stars. I always thought it was just a beautiful name for a road. For most of my life, I kept this small little thrill to myself. Each and every time we drove by I would watch for “my” road. We’d drive right under it and I’d always note it with satisfaction. When I first signed up for an AOL account back in 1991 or 1992 my first screen name was Heidiette (a nickname I got being that my mom is also called Heidi and it was cuter than “Little Heidi” or “Heidi Jr”) but there were times when I didn’t want people to know my real name so when I tried to think of another screenname I thought about Starbird Rd and Starbird I became. Since then I have used Starbird for most of my accounts, however, a few times I found that Starbird was already taken (I was tres disgusted with the person who would dare use my name) and thinking back on one of my favorite heroines of my Lucy Maud Montgomery books, Emily Byrd Starr, I rearranged her name and made it fit mine and that’s where Starrbyrd came from. So now I often use the two interchangeably. Starrbyrd is harder to spell, so I usually try to get the name Starbird, but when registering for domain names Starbird was already taken, but I am the proud owner of starrbyrd.com. It wasn’t until around 10 years ago, when driving past Starbird Rd that I mentioned to my mom how I had always watched for that road and that it had special meaning to me. She was completely surprised and thought it was really cute. Since then, each time my parents drive that route, they point out “Heidi’s road”. Michael has always known about it too. I told him the story back when we first started dating and drove up to La Conner for the tulip festival. What does all this have to do with the road trip we took in December. Well, all my life, for as long as I remember I have wanted to get off at that exit and explore Starbird Road. Each time we drove by I would ask Michael to get off at the exit and let me explore Starbird Road, but we were always on our way to someplace and returning home we were always eager to get home, so it never happened. Until this last December.  On this day trip, Michael took me down Starbird Road. We actually drove Starbird Road from one end of it to the other. One end ended at a river (not sure which one) while the other wound it’s way through beautiful landscapes of fields, trees, hills, farmhouses and trailers and finally turned into another road altogether. We continued exploring and found the Pilchuck Glass School where Dale Chihuly works and teaches. He’s a world renowned glass artist if you are unfamiliar with his name. And some of the views (probably of Mt. Pilchuck) were breathtaking. We even found a house that we fell in love with – it was one of those moments when we came around a bend and there was this house that took our breath away. Michael slammed on the breaks (good thing there wasn’t anyone else on the road at the time) and we just looked and then took a picture. We laughed about how we had found a dream home on Starbird Road. How wonderful would that be to live there? Maybe one day I’ll live on Starbird Road yet….  This entry ended up much longer than I had ever intended it to be, and might not have been interesting at all for many of you, but it was fun for me to write and serves a purpose as a memory in my journal. Plus it might answer the question some of you might have had where the name Starbird came from. On a complete side note, tomorrow is my first OB appointment with my regular OB. I must admit I’m a little nervous and have no idea what to expect at this appointment. Should be interesting. I’m getting all my questions ready for her tonight. Mainly I have questions about testing for Downs Syndrome and options for avoiding having to do an amniocentesis. I’d really rather not have to have one if I could avoid it, but my husband and I definitely want to be tested for Downs Syndrome.
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