I totally don't have my dad's permission to post this on my blog.

But he and my mom are going to Paris tomorrow, and we already know how I feel about my parents, or my possessions, taking trips to places that I want to go.

And so, without further ado, or permission from my dad, I give you...the email he sent to my sisters and me entitled "Resurrecting my French." (I should mention that he was fluent in both French and Spanish as a young person, and continues to be fluent in Spanish also as an older person, but not as fluent in French. Hence the need to "resurrect" the French.)

And now, ladies and gentlemen, my father:
 

For the last couple of weeks I've been immersing myself in French for almost 2 hours per day.

I remember how we heartless children used to make fun of my father, listening to his Berlitz records late at night, and never getting anywhere. 

"Un."

"Un!"

"Deux."

"Deux!"

So ashamed.  As busy as he was - coming home at night and working on that.  We were wretched.

If you cast your bitter herbs on the water, they return to you.  Or verbs.

I got some intermediate/advanced CDs and work on them walking to and from the train and on the train.  The guy says something in English.  Pause.  Girl says it in French.  Pause.  In French again.  Pause.  Then the guy on a new phrase.  So I use the pauses to try to figure out how to say it, then correct myself, and work on pronunciation. 

Two hours a day of this is pretty intense.  I'll look for them.  Cram some of this down their charming oh-so-competent "sur le pont d´Avignon" throats.

Ruining Spanish - sometimes a French word or pronounciation intrudes.  And French phrases and conjugations keep flitting through the brood-o-sphere.  And dreams.

The verbs are the worst.  Je suis.  Tu est.  Il est.  Elle est.

The whole language nothing but insane labyrinth of verbs.  Doing things to or by a few innocent nouns.  Subjunctive.  Passe compose.  Conditional.  Darn it all.

Thank heaven for the occasional cognate.  [My mom] woke up Sunday absolutely bushed after Saturday's excesses.  "Je vois que tu est tres poupée."  Yes!  I can do this!

The nightmares.  In my dreams it still doth haunt me.  The prehistoric jungle with gigantic insane reptilian birds verbing their way through the dense miasma of eons-old wreckage and decay.  Purple.  Greenish orange.  Brownish blue. That's just the birds.  Snatching out your liver.  Ma fois!

Marie Antoinette.  "Qu'ils mangeant du brioche."  A precursor to the tumbrils, the guillotine.  Charles, a peasant, hauled to the scaffold for disobeying her.  "Je n'aurai pas du ne pas y en avoir mangé du brioche.  Avoir.  Chouette."  "I shouldn´t have not eaten the cake."  J'ai.  Tu as.  Il a.  Elle a.

me te se nous vous

le la les

lui leur

y

en

Accents!

Darnit darnit darnit.

Gloria en excelsis les neuf inmortels.

Halleluja!

Amen! 

And to that I say also - amen! :) And also - bon voyage! :)

True dat.

So after several hours of logging video from Abu Dhabi, I went into my coworker's office and said, "I just want spring break to start NOW!" and he said, "Start it!" and I said, "the problem is that it's not like I'll really have a break. I mean, the only thing that really changes for me next week is that I don't have Arabic class" and he said, "Um, but Arabic class is the bane of your existence!"

Well, yes.

So I guess it will be a nice spring break. :)

Weeping and wailing and...what? Oh.

I just got a phone call from my sister, and I panicked--I couldn't understand a blessed word she was saying! She sounded garbled - like she was sobbing uncontrollably or there was something horrendous happening in the background. Possible explanations flashed through my mind as I left my office and ran to a place with better cell phone reception - her husband lost his job? Got a better job? One of the kids got hit by a car? She broke her leg??

None of the above.

She was laughing. Uncontrollably.

She just called to say that she got my email with this link in it.

Well. I'm so glad she enjoyed it. :)

Reason #1,900,889 that I completely adore my family

My aunt, my dad's sister, sent out the following email:

Because of an unfortunate event involving a demonstration of water safety to horses, my phone drowned. My new number is .... It's a Verizon cell with a two year sentence.

The horses did not snicker out loud.

My dad responded with:

I'm sorry, but you cannot leave the story like this.

I can picture you lending your cell phone to a horse who, texting while water skiing, ran into a wombat in a canoe being chased by a feral chicken. I can see the chicken, distracted, catching the cell phone dropped by the horse and, preferring a live cell phone to a wombat sharing a canoe with a horse, crossing the road and disappearing from human ken with your phone. But why would this cause your cell phone to drown?

I can also picture another, less likely, scenario, which ends up with your cell phone breathing its last (with a smile on its face) in a vat of molten (not moulted - that is a detail that goes with the other story) Ghirardelli chocolate.

Which of the two happened? And did you really mean drown, or did it just run off with some chick?

:) :)

Retail therapy??

After discussing some other topics in a gChat convo with Jeremy:

me: have i mentioned that dan and i broke up?

a month ago

Jeremy: no way

do I need to get my gun?

5:09 PM me: and then we had the grad student symposium that I was co-in charge of. i've been so swamped but its catching up to me and I'm REALLY frightened for the THREE papers i have to do in the next 15 days.

no. it was mutual. we both got the same answer. but it still sucks.

we were best friends for more than a year and dated for 6 months of that.

5:10 PM Jeremy: ok, but I could still get my gun

plz?

me: so it's just weird.

Jeremy: what, my gun?

me: do you HAVE a gun?

lol

Jeremy: not yet, so I need an excuse to get one

me: oh

then by all means.

Jeremy: cool.

I can't wait to tell brooke

me: lol

Jeremy: about the gun, not your breakup

me: right :)

You've got the right idea, Jer. Shopping does make everything better. ;)

From the kitchen of Dan

And I quote:

Worcestershire sauce makes meat more beautiful. It's like make-up for women. ... Except not really, because make-up tastes horrible.

I <3 my sister Amy

We just had the following gChat conversation, after I sent a relatively incoherent and babbling email to the family in response to a suggestion about future Christmases, admitting in the email that the incoherence was due to the fact that I was saving all coherent thought for the paper that's due in 7 hrs:

2:46 PM Amy: You know, that email actually made a lot of sense. Does this mean I should be worried about the coherency of that paper-?

2:47 PM

me: i don't think you should be worried about the coherence of the paper, but if you wanted to just WRITE it, that would be terrif.

2:49 PM Amy: Oh, shore!

(That was not "sure," that was, "running for the shore, ain't writin' no more papers this month")

Bwah hahahaha! And her funny...ness is not the only reason I love her, but it shore helps! Um, as in...uh...she lives near the shore...and I'd shore, eh, sure jump in and drown if she wasn't my sis...

Yeah, about that paper.

P.S. And she responded as follows to the family email: "I think we should agree to not decide until AFTER Christmas day, when everything's a little more sensible. Just so Margaret's head doesn't explode before she regurgitates its contents into her papers."

Regurgitating its contents...yes, that would be why this paper is making me feel like I want to BARF.

/distraction

So there ARE some fun things...

For example, today we had to write sentences using the new vocab for ch 12, and I wrote the following. The bold words are the new vocab.

My day off was great! I missed class, and I didn't learn about the death of my teacher. I was appointed to speak at her funeral.

My teacher even laughed when she read it, and that was kind of a triumph for me. :)

Also, one of the students in my class is still in high school (!!), and she's considering going to college in Scotland, and we had this big (tangential) discussion today about how people in many (most?) other countries don't take great care of their teeth, and she was kind of disgusted. Then later we were answering conversation-type questions, and another student said, in answer to one of the questions, that he ended a relationship once because the girl had Scottish teeth. :) hee hee :)

So it's not ALL totally heinous and painful. :)

A letter to my dearly beloved

I miss you.

I know that when we first got together it seemed like we'd be spending a lot of time together, just you-and-me alone time, and I think we both really looked forward to that, and yet that hasn't really happened as much as I think either of us would like. These little brief snatches of time that we have together really aren't enough! And I know it's my fault - I've been so caught up in other things lately that I haven't made time with you a high enough priority, and I regret it - A LOT. This has been a problem with me in the past, with similar relationships, and I have always regretted it.

You have been there for me, consistently, and yet I have not given you the time you deserve. And really, everything in my life goes so much better when I get to spend more time with you on a regular basis. I sleep better, I feel calmer, I am more productive, and I have more energy. It's really amazing to me what an impact you have on my life!

So I'm asking for another chance to make things right between us - I do better, I really can! After today, when I turn in my papers at 5pm and then at 10pm, we'll get to spend LOTS of time together, dear bed, I promise!!

So...can I see you tonight?

Love,
Me

Good quotes from today

"It's not a lack of cookbooks that makes one a poor cook." - one who prefers to remain anonymous

"Have you ever been to Hawaii?" - one of my profs

"Hang loose!" - same prof. (Turns out that's why he asked me the above question. And it's a good thing that I realized that that was why, because I was about to get really bitter about it.)

"You are in a good position - lots of people are trying to give you money!" - same prof, after he offered me a PAship for next year. And told me that he respects and admires my "intellectual assertiveness" and "intellectual excitement." :) :)

Waahahahahahaha!!

Oh man, you guys. Oh MAN this is funny.

Seriously. Go watch it.

Hee hee hee

hee hee

Bwahahahaha!

It's been a busy couple of weeks...

I mean, how could you expect me to get my school work done when I was so busy choreographing and practicing and making costumes for this?!

(This entertainment was brought to you by Elise, who said, "One might wonder why I don't have a job...until one receives links to dancing elves. Then the mystery is solved.")

Take a listen.

OK, Jer, this is for you.

And for me. In 5-7 years.

And for Chris, in a few less than that.

There's magic in the air...

...but only for a minute.

Some people can't just TELL you their big news.

No, they have to IM you as follows:

Jeremy: have you seen my new blog theme?

me:

um, not since last week.

10:00 AM did you get it back up and working again?

Jeremy: i haven't restored the old stuff

but I create a new summer-time look

me: ok, i'm checking right now

Jeremy: what do you think?

10:01 AM Brooke doesn't like it

10:03 AM me: um, is this a subtle way to make me find out that BROOKE IS PREGNANT WITH TWINS?!??!?!!

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!

:) :) :)

Jeremy: what do you think about the theme?

Nice, Jer, nice.

And he pulled the same stunt on Alan, but Alan isn't obsessive about being up-to-date on everyone's posts, so after he responded that he didn't like the theme, Jeremy actually had to prod him...

Alan: Then he said, well did you read the first post.

me: ah HA!

Alan: and I said, sure...started reading.. got bored, said I'll finish it later.

me: lol

Alan: He said no, keep reading.

Alan: So I skimmed to the bottom.

me: no shame.

Alan: Sure enough ultrasounds, and I thought it was a joke.

You know, Jeremy.

Congrats, guys! Just think - in 7 months you'll have twice as many kids as you do now!! Hee hee! :)

P.S. OOooh, he didn't like this post. :P Next time - just tell me your news!!

Weight-loss tips from Allie

So at the end of the six-week Biggest Loser competition, she wrote:

I think our scale is broken...because it only works right if I hold onto the desk, stand on one foot and lean hard to the right. Which is really weird, because when the competition started, it only worked right if I stood really still holding a watermelon. So weird.

So how does that translate into being able to fit back into those, ahem, "out-grown" clothes??

Really, Allie.

Life's big questions

With all of the political rhetoric flying across the airwaves and internet, it can be really refreshing every once in a while to get a straight answer to an important question.

Like the one addressed at this site.

Thanks, Josh.

I work for Jane Austen?!?

I mean, I just sent an email to ebennett@[mycompany].com - and WHAT IF SHE ANSWERS???

I USED to work with foreign languages.

And now I work in a computer field that I know very little about, and sometimes ... it's not that different. Today, for example, one of our engineers sent out a question to a distribution list that I am on, so I saw the question and the responses, one of which ended with this:

Always a bummer to have 4gig DAEs and spindles running at 2gig.

Yeah, I really hate it when that happens.

A few funnies, to demonstrate that I am still blogging :)

My niece was talking about how her baby sister rips pages out of the scriptures, and eats the pages. And I made some comment about how it's no good to eat the pages of the scriptures, and my niece said, "Why not? It says we're supposed to feast upon the word." FAR too clever for a (just turned) 9 (today) year old.

A few minutes later in our phone conversation she said, "Well, do you have anything else to tell me? Because my arm is getting tired, and I even switched a few times."

A little boy in church today, pseudo-whispered during the meeting: "Mommy, if I went outside, Jesus would help me get back inside the church. He helps me."

My hilarious darling Grandma, a month and a half ago, I can't remember the context, but it doesn't matter, it's still 100% Grandma: "Don't be right ALL the time; it's dull."

My youngest sis and her husband are on the west coast for grad school, and we have agreed that it would be really cool at some point to talk on the phone when she is standing in the Pacific Ocean and I am standing in the Atlantic. So on Friday night, when I couldn't bear the thought of just going back to my apartment, I wandered until I found the Potomac River. And I had been so excited to get to the WATER that when I got there I called my sis to tell her. And AS I was leaving a message I realized that this was NOT quite the "event" that I had been thinking, because I was only next to a river, not the ocean. So I left her a kind of sheepish message about how here I was, next to water that is CLOSE to the Atlantic Ocean. And on Saturday I got a reply voicemail: "We thought maybe we'd call you while we were standing in the bathtub - then we'd be in water that was NEAR the ocean." Little snot.

And I need to post Kate's meme, and I had a FABULOUS weekend, such as I have been WANTING to have ever since I moved to this state, so I need to write about that, and I just FINALLY got a batch of pictures off my camera, so I'll get those posted SOON. Really. :)