When a client canceled her appointment this week I spent the hour across the street at the paint store. We’re planning to paint the exterior of our house so I thought I’d look at dark grays. Instead, my attention was lost in color names on little sample paint cards. The next night, Steve and I were on the patio of a neighborhood restaurant waiting for our check when I pulled out a stack of color samples with names I couldn’t resist sharing. When he saw the top card, titled Imagine That,  he worried that I wanted to paint the house purple.

One-by-one, I turned over the little cards: Mystic Tulip…Rediscover…Pompeii Ruins (a remarkable sky-blue for a post-volcanic sky)…Just a Little…Austere (G.I. Joe jeep green)…Power Lunch (is anyone’s favorite menu item pale gray?)…Industrial Strength…Philosophically Speaking (this murky greenish-brown I understand)…Bad Hair Day (for a brunette)…and Cherish is the Word  (purely Biblical).

Our check arrived as I shared the final two…a sad off-white: What Inheritance? And my favorite, totally void: Senior Moment.