Learning a foreign language

The boys have been in Spanish this year and have had what looks to me like success. I can relate better than they realize, but not because I took years of German with progressively lower grades until I finally graduated high school with a D in German III. 

I got that D only because the teacher allowed me to write many (like what? a dozen, maybe) short essays on food, destinations, traditions and culture in Germany. German I is a class I remember. I sat behind Susan and we made each other giggle. I still remember the dumb lesson about the newspaper:

Q: Where is the newspaper?
A: Today is Tuesday.

We laughed at the absurdity of these conversations we would never use. Mostly, we laughed at this one because, if you listen closely, you can hear the real reply whispered from a corner of the classroom:

Q. Where is the newspaper?

A. It's Tuesday, you moron.

If you look up zeitung in Google images, you get this confounding image:

What is she sleeping with? Even the headline is curious. 
Apparently the newspaper in question wasn't delivered on Tuesday, which is an odd day to skip publishing, but that was not explained to the ignorant little Americans. All the audio for this class was on LP vinyl the teacher played on a big, brown school record player. Lift the needle, lower the needle, but we got by despite the technology of our day. 

German II was spent sitting in a room with sunshine pouring through the windows (there's a window memory). Herr Reck didn't teach a thing about German, as I recall. I had a permanent late pass to German II because I was in the school store. I don't remember missing anything, either. Herr Reck took us to London. To be fair, we already lived in Germany. To be fair, I think he liked visiting London. But it would have been cheaper and faster to take us somewhere in Germany. 

German III was in Texas. American teacher in a Texas high school. I hated that school, I hated Texas, I hated her, I hated her class, I hated her lisp. The only good things were the extra credit papers that I got to write in English. I think she was afraid I would come back to her class another year if she didn't let me pass. 

Once she had the class to her house and we made German food, which was nice. These days, she'd be arrested. In the years since I returned to the United States, I have never had really good German food. Since 1982. I was pretty disappointed with the spaetzle at her house, but it was fun making it. The German III class was all girls, too. That made for interesting dynamics for teen-aged drama and nightmares. 

This photo sums up my feelings about the high school in Texas and especially the German III class (although I'm grateful for the super easy extra credit). It also apparently sums up how Germany feels about bailing out bankrupt countries. 

But I'm not writing about German. I'm writing about Irish. 

Years ago, I decided to look into the Irish language. I started trying it out a little here and there at a job where I sat at a computer for 8 hours with about 30 minutes of work every day. It was impossible to figure out the words at that time. I fiddled with it here and there and tried to make sense of a language that bears no resemblance to anything that I was familiar with and offers up only 18 lonely letters in the alphabet. So I put it aside. 

Then years later, I decided to try again. One thing foolishly led to another and I assembled a merry band of people who were also interested in deciphering a language that is lovely to listen to, but difficult to master. Ummm, not master, exactly. We would have been happy to retain even the smallest amount of information about what letters and letter combinations sounded like. 

I showed a teen-aged girl a kid's book that I have. It is in Irish and I was flipping through it. She asked if I had read it and I said no. I couldn't read yet, although I eventually learned a bit. With a deadpan expression, she said with dry sarcasm, "How can you teach a class in Irish if you can't read a little kid's book written in Irish?"

Touché. 

I spent a few years reminding everyone, "I'm not actually the teacher." That's  múinteoir in case you're interested. It's pronounced moon-chore, but there are a lot of nuances in the language and I can't explain them here. So please just go with moon-chore. 

When you look up the word in Google images, you get this exciting teacher-related photo:

In elementary school, back in the early to mid-seventies, back when diversity had a lowercase "d" and wasn't something political, my second-grade teacher decided to introduce us to refried beans and tortillas. I don't remember what else she made us that afternoon. The refried beans were heated up in an electric skillet in our room and most of us were convinced she was feeding us dog food. But I think that may have been the year we started eating tacos at our house, so it was a win. Because Mexican food is delicious.  

Refried beans in Google images brings up this startling image of eyeballs:

At the same school, in the fifth grade, my teacher Mrs. Derby had a student teacher who spoke some Spanish. He was a white guy with brown hair who looked a lot like KC from KC and the Sunshine Band and we were sort of happy to be distracted from our regular duties to learn a language from so far away that we had absolutely no practical need of. Little did we know! He taught us to count to ten, the days of the week, our names and probably a few other things. But it wasn't part of the curriculum and he was only there for a semester or six weeks or something like that. We went back to our regular writing, reading and math. 

He was pretty cute, eh? How did we giggly girls learn any Spanish? 

Around that time I read a book about a girl who was Mexican. Her family lived in a box car. The kids at school were mean to her because she hadn't learned to speak English yet. I don't know how the issue was resolved, but of course she is a nice girl and it was a kid's book. We can assume it ended well. Anyway, the important take away from this book is that I memorized lo siento, which is Spanish for I'm sorry. Not that I use it. 

Reading is fundamental. But Blogger for Android is not. I just accidentally deleted the image of the book. Maybe KC is into computers these days. 

Here is the book again:

Stepmothers

Seriously?

Shameless blog rip off: windows

I'm ripping off a windows blog from my pal Rose who writes a wonderful blog nothing like mine here. Today's post, which you can read here is about windows and it brought to mind some windows in my life.

The first window that comes to my mind is a window in my grandmother's house. I spent the night with her a lot when I was a kid, or so it seems to me. In the summer, I would lay with my head at the foot of the bed. This arrangement allowed me to look out the open window, which was supposed to get a little breeze in the hot house and usually failed miserably. I would listen to the traffic on the busy street out front and listen to the bells from the church across the street. I imagined there was someone whose job was to ring the bells every hour.

My other grandmother had a big window in her bedroom and although I never spent very much time in my grandmothers' bedrooms, I have one memory of her room and it surrounds the big window with lovely filmy curtains gently blowing in a soft breeze coming in from the back yard.

I moved around a lot as a kid and then I found myself moving a lot as an adult. Finally, I moved to Des Moines and got myself a cute little apartment with old, drafty windows that I mostly kept covered up in cold weather. But cold or not, I didn't put up curtains at the kitchen window and I read something about how Army Brats sometimes don't do "permanent" things like put up curtains in kitchens. That was the window I looked out the most to check the weather, criminal activity in the laundromat parking lot and so on.

When I was a child, I spent a lot of time in a hospital in my hometown. I can remember being in the playroom with my mom when a building in the city caught on fire. We could see the black smoke from the window of the room.

I remember being alone with my dad one summer in a pick up truck that may or may not have had AC. I had my legs crossed, feet up on the dash and sunshine pouring through the front windshield. I believe the song on the radio was The Things We Do For Love by 10cc. The song, my tan legs, breeze in my hair and relaxed attitude made me feel carefree and grown up.

My grandson was born on my grandmother's birthday and I called to tell her as I stood at a window looking outside at a brick wall.

In the 7th grade, I swore because my brother and I missed the school bus and I got slapped as I walked back in the house. Apparently THAT window was open. Who knew? I certainly did not. I also didn't swear in front of my mother for decades, so ... well played, Mom!!

We lived in Tennessee in a house where my bed was between two windows. I can remember laying at the open window during a light rain storm. There were lilacs or honeysuckle outside and I could smell the strong fragrance. I wanted to remember that forever and so far I'm on track. Except for the honeysuckle/lilac debate. If I had to pick and lie to you about which one it was, I'd go with lilac.

In Texas I had a window at the foot of my bed and I slept with the window open so our cat Fritz could come and go at night. I usually woke up with him in my bed, but sometimes he woke me up as he came in.

My office of nine years has a window in it. In fact, the entire wall from side to side is glass. I look out at trees and deer and birds. In the past four years, there are fewer animals to look at and that makes me sad. Early on, I saw a raccoon asleep in a tree just feet from me. I wish the windows opened even just a crack on nice days, but they don't.

What surprises me is that as I'm thinking about windows, there aren't as many memorable windows as I think there should be. Also, the windows bring up only the smallest moments in time. I can't think of any big-ticket window moments.

Random Five for Friday

There's this blog thing some bloggers do. Five things on Friday. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to link this somewhere, but here we go for now.

1. I looked at my Pinterest pins and I have 20 million pins, none of which I had ever, you know, actually gone back to look at again. I think the point of Pinterest, if there is a point, is to index things to refer to, read, create, bake or laugh at later. So today I looked at mine and I only deleted two pins. Most of my pins are still lovely or funny or relevant. I could look at them endlessly like old family photographs. What's more, my pins are a visible collage of what makes me fabulous. And that, my friends, may be the real point of Pinterest. Get on Pinterest and see what makes you fabulous and infinitely interesting.

2. I have never had a stranger quote me back to me. (When Harry Met Sally reference)

3. A mouse once woke me up because it was chewing on cookies so loudly. Think about that. The crunching woke me.

4. A business lunch today turned into a long discussion about Dr. Who, possibly showcasing a deplorable want of good manners on my part.

5. A local self-serve bakery has a sign by the take-out boxes saying,  "boxes are for 3 or more pastries only" but their pastries are so big, only two pastries fit in a box and smashed together at that. This sort of bureaucracy pisses me off.

One Friday Morning

I finally got to work this morning, fully dressed, and am currently sitting at my desk when this happens: I start to get up from my chair and I realize I have one boot on, one boot off.

Do you remember the nursery rhyme?
Diddle, diddle dumpling, my son John
Went to bed with his stockings on
One shoe off, one shoe on.

That's me and my shoes right now. Furthermore, I do believe the free foot has been prancing around being carefree and foolish with the fidgets. And now my foot is cold.

I don't recall taking the boot off or why I took the boot off. It isn't even 11:00 in the morning. Is this a sign?

In which I ask the musical question: What's Going On?

In order to abate your breathless excitement about my return to blogging, I looked through all the photos on my phone, which of course, besides Facebook, is the only chronicle of my existence these days. If you are actually experiencing breathless excitement and do not want it to end, stop reading.

Also, am currently in the depths of decision making. Do I pay 2013 prices for opening and closing my grave or do I wait until I am dead and make someone else pay for it at current prices? The cemetery sent an email. They want to know.

Here are some of what I've been up to.

One year ago yesterday, something insane happened to my back during a slow 3-mile run. My foot began to hurt and the pain moved quickly up to my hip through my knee. A few days later, I could hardly move. There was a lot of pain on top of some other medical issues to add to the mix. I sat at work on an ice pack. I was so much fun. How my coworkers handle me I can hardly imagine. Except of course that most of the time I'm a delight to be around and I have a great personality.

Shut up.

Despite the stupidity going on behind me, so to speak, my doctor told me I should run. "It will shake your muscles loose and besides, runners are crazy. If you don't start running soon, we'll have mental health issues." You have to love a doctor who gets it. So I started running like a grandma post hip-surgery. At least in my mind, I was being cautious and I'm sure that although I think I took my time, I probably took a few cautious runs and then said, "this is crap" because in July I ran or walked hills to the tune of 100 miles.

In October, I ran what I think was my best half marathon ever. I also did a run/walk/run all year long, but on The Day I ran the entire 13.1 miles. Proving that you do not have to kill yourself all year just to complete an event. Chill, fellow runners.

I may or may not have spent a lot of time and money on this one. The thing is, and don't most of us realize this, when he goes away to college and I don't get to see him it will not have been enough time or enough money or enough prayer or enough love or enough lecturing or enough of anything. I already wish I could rewind 6-7 years and snuggle more, hang out more, pray more, spend more, love more.

Speaking of going back in time, I only recently started hanging out a lot more with this one. I had let his shyness hold me back, but not any more. This guy makes me smile. Ditto the 6-7 year rewind. He's a junior in high school, so I still have some time to put in a big supply of Kleenex for when he goes to college.

I do my level best to keep this girl amused. Like suggesting she use potato chip bag clips in her hair. And then photographing them. And then popping those photos up unexpectedly, which makes her so happy not ever. She loves me. Who wouldn't?

 Apparently I spent some time at football games. If you know me on Facebook, you get that: it's sort of a joke. I miss very few football games these days.

 I visited family here and there in the last two years. This is me visiting family when I was a teenager. A couple years ago, my mom, my niece and I visited my dad's sister in Tennessee. Mostly I visit the Ohio relatives. I have relatives elsewhere on the future to-visit list. Hope they let me in when I get there.

Football players ripping through Doritos. The guy in the back is the youngest and I'm not sure yet what he'll be doing in high school. I'm not convinced football is his gig. He wants to play drums. I'm not touching that with a ten-foot pole. His parents might kill me.

Oh and track meets. How I love track meets. The world loves a good track meet. Let me tell you in case you didn't know: attending track meets is a sign of love that surpasses attendance at any. other. sport. known to teen-aged athletes. Talk about watching grass grow. Literally, you can watch it grow because track meets are 12,32.y9 hours long and your runner finishes his event in 46 seconds. If that isn't love, it's lunacy.

Christmas Starter Pack

Each year at Christmas, I rummage through the storage under the stairs dragging out boxes and sweepers and dusty seasonal items that I forgot I had until I get to the Christmas stash. Hunched over and hitting my head on the low ceiling, I'm hot and annoyed. I get everything stacked in the laundry room, then shove all the other crap back inside. Full of the joy of the season at this point! 

While I go through it all, I see things I realize I could have used before I finally convinced myself that the do-I-or-don't-I decorating drop-dead date had arrived. Further annoyed and popping open a festive bottle of wine at this point.

This weekend I had a crackpot idea: I created a Christmas Starter Pack as I put stuff away. It's meant to be opened in November (when more organized, jolly women are putting up their tree). In it I put a few nativities for Advent, cards and stickers and outfits for the cats in case I can get anybody to wear one next fall. Naturally, I can't remember what else I should pack in there, so if you have any ideas, let me know. It's at the very front of all the boxes and bins so I can get to it.