Royalty (sort of)

Those of you who followed my previous blog will remember the many instances where I was 'discovered' to look like Princess Mary of Denmark. It's been relatively quiet on that front lately but I did have the following conversation with the lady sitting next to me on the plane over to LA.

lady: has anybody told you that you look like...
f: yes they have
lady: you look just like her, especially when you were looking down ...blah blah blah

Given American ignorance of all things outside of the US there should be no more look-alike sightings. But I am encountering lots of problems with the name Fiona. I spelled it out over the phone to someone the other day and they came up with Siona. Must be the accent!

I have resorted to another princess in trying to describe my name. Conversations go like this.
American: Hi my name is (Hank)
f: Hi I'm Fiona
A: Ona? (or variations Iona? Siona? etc)
f: Have you seen the movie Shrek?
A: yes
f: Do you remember the princess Fiona
A: Aaaaahhhh! Fiona!

Fiona is pretty average compared to some of the names over here. My real estate agent asked her doctor if any of the babies he had delivered lately had been given strange names. He said that it was funny that she had asked as he had delivered a baby girl that morning and she had a very strange name. The mother, after giving birth looked around the room and saw a box of Kleenex (pronouned klen-ex). She then proceeded to dub her child Kleenexia. And they think Fiona is weird!