quince

I have an Abuela who doesn't speak any English. Yet every Sunday dinner she spills out her compliments and questions and I look around for a relative to translate as I say, "Que ? Que ? ¡Si !"

Today we had an extra long time to sit across the table and chat with each other as the rest of the family worried about the cooking time, consistency, and location of brown saffron rice compared to white (final and only consensus was that brown rice takes a lot of planning ahead). She showed me how her wrists hurt and and how it's hard because you use your wrists as you eat, but what are you going to do? You eat anyway. And today, as she has every Sunday for the last two months, she asked about my novio (boyfriend). My Tia (aunt) explained that we had broken up. But I liked him, Abuela said. I couldn't remember how to say, "Yo tambien," quickly enough so I made Tia teach me how to say "I'm good, he's bad." And also, "Voya querer atantos muchachos commo pueda." Which may not be remembered exactly, but at the time I did tell my Grandma correctly in Español, "I'm going to love as many boys as I can."
She then explained how when she was young she always had boyfriends, if she didn't have real ones, she'd make them up.

Yes, Grandma and I had some great bonding today.

being short shrifted

Voila le printemps !

Congratulations monde [world] for making it to the Spring Equinox! It's in the air and tagging along behind is amour for you and you and you-oo. That's my mandate, comrades, we're all going to sing along with that Beatles song "All you need is love!--all together now--ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE!--hearty, boisterous chorus now-- ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, LOVE--now Nicole Kidman don't interupt with your pessimism*"

Did you celebrate spring, Dears? Did you revel in its embrace, its porch-ness, its light and fluffy taste? I did. I sat on my porch, I've been eating grapefruit, I walked about and took a polaroid of a neighborhood tree that's had "LOVE ME" spray painted on it, I fixed my bike, aaaaaannnnddd IIIIIIIIIIIII {drum roll} CHOPPED!


Take a good look Ladies and Gents! Stare as the pithy (wait, was that a joke?) Marge Bjork does and dance and shakes her bobbed head around! There go your gorgeous locks! HA! HO!**

And I had a spotting of a 1970's muscle car with my ex-marine inside.
And I have mono.

The end.



*That admonition for Nicole Kidman is not actually in the original version of the song, believe it or not, but I added it in case Kidman was around ready to chime in with her line from the Moulin Rouge version, "Love is just a game."

**Those last few exclamations are something I might say if I were to see my real ex-novio (but in a charming I'm-celebrating-life kind of way)