Day 40: Demolitions

You may have noticed that I posted later in the day than usual. I usually hit Publish a while after lunch, so that each post represents the first part of that day and the second half of the one before. Molly gently pointed out my flawed logic and wondered if I might consider putting up stuff when the day is closer to done, so each post represents a single day. I’ll give it a go, for today anyway.

In the early 80s, one of Eleni’s preschool teachers was a native Spanish-speaker whose English was fluent but sometimes unconventional. Just like my Spanish, except for the fluent part. One morning she—a warm, bubbly woman—gathered the toddlers around her, picked up a Little Golden Book and began to read. The story, she announced, was 101 Demolitions. I was delighted to hear her repeat the word every time she encountered it in the text—which was a lot—and to this day, that’s still what I call them.

Speaking of Eleni, here she is in her Etsy purchase. She wears it religiously in public, even though she lives in a semi-rural place where masks are the exception and wearers are sometimes mocked. I wish I could do that with my eyes. I can’t curl my tongue either, or roll my Rs.

Molly and I watched the first episode of Russian Doll together (virtually) on Netflix. This sounds straightforward enough, but it wasn’t. Because I am a technological dough-head, I couldn’t figure out how to set up my computer despite her clear instructions, which I was following at a glacial pace. So I reluctantly granted her access to my screen on Zoom, and within twenty minutes (most of which time I was looking for headphones) we were up and running: watching the same video at the same time from our respective houses, and still able to hear each other. What a strange TV show that is. I’m reserving judgment till after the next episode.

Oh, and thank you, Molly, for sending these dog photos for me to draw.

I’ve driven my car a total of nine miles since my last fill-up. That was over five weeks ago. I hope gas doesn’t get stale.

For several hours this afternoon I heard now-unfamiliar sounds emanating from the backyard of my neighbor two doors down: voices, laughter, shrieks of delight from adults and children. A party. Perhaps all those people were maintaining physical distance, though I can’t see how, in that small area. I feel like the coronavirus police again, judging people who may or may not be violating the orders I’m so rigorously adhering to. Maybe I should mind my own business. I generally do, and don’t get involved in the lives of people I don’t know. In contrast, there was the time they showed up at my front door and threatened to call the police on me one winter day. I’d had a fire going in my fancy, low-emission wood stove (it wasn’t a Spare the Air day) and they were mad about the (very light) smoke from my chimney.

Back to second-language errors for a moment. As a former ESL teacher, I have a particular fascination for them. And as a language learner, I find them entertaining. Elsewhere on this blog I’ve written extensively about my own, uh, creativity with Spanish and my often comical and occasionally disastrous choice of words. I tracked down a post from January 2010, when I was living for two months in Mexico. It describes one of my many regrettable moments:

As you’ll learn when you get an MA in teaching, mistakes are powerful tools for learning. In Guatemala where I’ve studied most of my Spanish, “chaqueta” is “jacket.” I can assure you that in Mexico I won’t use the word again, for I am not the kind of girl who talks freely to strangers of male masturbación. Please use “chamarra.”

I also learned some cool colloquial words: “flaca” is “skinny,” “chafa” is “cheap,” “flojo” is “lazy.” Well, I didn’t learn them. I just wrote them down… I’ve encountered a bunch of words that either mean something else here, or that don’t mean anything here.

Sadly, my Spanish, never beyond beginner level, has gotten so rusty that my vocabulary is like confetti: random words and phrases (whose meanings I may or may not remember) float unmoored in my brain. I can’t summon the right ones, but all of a sudden, some noun—abogado, perhaps—will drift, solitary and alone, through my awareness. And as for my grammar…

Buenas noches. Los extraño.