Check off the List
It was time to toss Puck’s black Chucks. The kid had worn them straight through, and they didn’t fit anymore anyway, even though I knew he would plead to salvage them, like he does with every scrap of everything in his life. So in they went with the egg shells from breakfast, and Puck none the wiser. Sometimes a mama’s gotta do what a mama’s gotta do. Guess I have to get used to the idea of also being Mamá in the next few years, by the way…
Tried to kill my gnawing on pen-ends habit today.
Failed that.
I’ll be regretting this lack of self-control somewhere around age 63 in the dentist’s chair…
It looks like September outside. So many tree leaves have already died and fallen off; it’s just one big crunchy masterpiece.
Days at home I just kind of sit back for that one hour of quiet in the afternoon and think about the world – that one great collective Tower of Babel…
Rose joined us at the usual hour of 7:30 with a fat book of interesting wall posters, a couple of hours after something attacked the right side of my throat again as the sky rolled over with some new colors other than sunshine. Probably all those little annoying mold spores looking for munchies.
The Bear Netflixed – Natalie Portman and an L.L. Bean catalog model in “Thor” – over Duo Cheez-Its for us while the kittens ran mad. Must be rain in the air. Rose and I had a pretty good time groaning through the entire script together. About the time we laughed up the memorable quote of – “Magic is just science we don’t understand”… It was getting so embarrassingly bad that Rose distracted us from the set by looping her big toe through the plastic soda ring and dangling it in front of my face… “Collette, want a Fanta?”
Thought of the Day
I’m supposed to be learning Spanish.
So is my husband.
Puck, well, he can do whatever.
Spanish.
That second U.S. official-unofficial tripping race-car speeding romance language that forces the tongue into knot-tying triple flips just to say anything containing an “r”.
When you sign up for South American adoption, they kind of sneak that little notation in there…
“Give us detailed records of all your financial accounts. Update your weight and height every fifteen months. Let us know if you have any animals in your house… Oh, and by the way. Learn Spanish.”
Alright, so it’s not like I have to be able to carry on an elaborate conversation with the President of Bolivia about the economic state of Venezuela or anything. But for a husband who already has to crank out four semesters of Greek and Hebrew over the next two years and sometimes can’t recall the correct difference between a comma and a semicolon…
For the man who replies, “No hablo,” like a backwoods red-neck from Mexico milking an Arkansas accent for all the tortillas in Pan America — which I am not entirely certain exists at all — yes, that’s right. Not — “No hablo español.” [I don’t speak Spanish]. Just “No hablo.”
Which is not true at all.
Let me counter this whole bombastic description by explaining mildly that the Bear is actually very good with words.
I would hope so.
He’s in seminary.
A pastor who can’t speak or communicate in some fashion is going to be a difficult situation to get around. But there’s nothing quite like hearing a kid from Texas who lost his original accent try to say, “Hola, señor.” He either sounds like an Italian Shakespearean actor gone very, very, wrong, or like he just walked out of a cornfield in southern Missouri.
There is really no middle ground here.
Now, I don’t so much mind hearing my talented husband butcher the Spanish language. Mostly because I probably wouldn’t know just how bad the murder actually was. But some people… might. Maybe most especially when we have to live south of the border for five solid weeks.
Which… I have a lot of problems, and a lot of non-problems, with. But without stripping your ears with pros and cons, which no one wants to hear unless they, too, are adopting from northern South America…
I can only hope that our mutual effort to communicate with local grocers for bottled water and imported processed meat doesn’t so highly offend that we are denied access to necessities for survival.
My apologies are sent to you well in advance, mi amigos y amigas.
Let me say only this — I am very glad that my cousin married a jolly fellow from Guatemala five years ago — because at least we can begin the practice of getting around this monster.
Every Christmas at least…
This may be a rough ride.