Simone

This morning Simone and I were sitting in front of the hallway closet mirror. She was in front of me between my legs. Out of the blue, she looks up at me, like she does sometimes when I'm reading to her, and says crystal clear, "Mama." Now, I know she probably doesn't know what she's saying but I have to admit my heart still skipped a beat. :)

I like names and was looking up the popularity of Simone over the last 30 years. I noticed a few quick rises and falls--one peaks at 1987. Simone goes from 708 (1986) to 510 (1987) to 312 (1988) and then goes down after that. Another small peak is in 2004 when it jumps up from 543 (2003) to 477 (2004) and then back down to 554 (2005). The latter peak I guessed correctly was surrounding the death of singer Nina Simone. The first peak I figured out by googling Simone and 1987. Btw, we considered the name Nina* for Simone but decided we liked "Simone Kang" better than "Nina Kang." Using Nina as a middle name "Simone Nina Kang" seemed too close--I like Nina Simone but not _that_ much.

*This was to create a tradition of similar names...Nipa (my mom), Nita (me), Nina...

From Wikipedia:
"My Baby Just Cares for Me" is a song written by Walter Donaldson with lyrics by Gus Kahn. It was one of three hit songs from the 1928 musical Whoopee, starring Eddie Cantor and Ruth Etting. It is best known as the signature tune of singer and pianist Nina Simone.

Simone recorded the song in 1958 for her debut album, Little Girl Blue. The track remained relatively obscure until 1987, when it was used in a UK television commercial for Chanel No. 5 perfume. [1] To follow up this exposure, the track was released as a single by Charly Records, entering the UK Singles Chart on October 31, 1987 (1987-10-31) and becoming, at Number 5, one of Simone's biggest hits almost nineteen years after her previous chart entry. A claymation music video was produced by Aardman Animations and directed by Peter Lord.