malentendu

Anyone read Davis Sedaris?
I'm thinking of his book "Me Talk Pretty One Day".
I can't remember the specifics, but I remember laughing hysterically in the bathtub, reading about his attempts to make casual small talk in French while trapped in a doctor's waiting room, wearing only a paper gown, in front of a well-dressed older couple.

I tend to forget how much I sound like that, because my polite mother-in-law and husband generally don't correct me if they can figure out what I'm trying to say. Which is not always a good thing. (the p'tit minous feel no such obligation, which is generally a good thing, but not always a good thing either, depending on how it's presented...)

I realized tonight that I was brightly insisting we needed to put a blanket (couverture) on the enchilada casserole before putting it into the refrigerator. Mamie's gentle attempts to reframe my statement and ask about a lid or cover (are you sure we need a couvercle?) were met by my cheerful insistence that we really, really needed a blanket. To tuck the casserole in to bed, of course.

babel

Mamie is here. (Hurray!)
The books are off the floor.
There is the possibility of a dusting of snow.
All good.

My language skills are pretty rusty, however.
The French somewhere in the back of my brain is being further mixed up with the Spanish I'm trying to refresh and use at work. And all the rapid-fire code-switching in our house is confusing. Who speaks which language to whom, and when, and how....

And this evening, to make matters more complicated, our close friend and neighbor came by for tea. In Spanish nouns (no French, Mamie's adopted tongue of 60+ years), she was talking to Mamie about a friend who was learning Portuguese (Mamie's first language), and as I tried to translate what she said to Mamie, for some inexplicable reason I was trying to translate into Spanish (Mamie's second language) and she was speaking Portuguese (which I don't speak or comprehend at all) to me....

...and nobody was understanding anybody...

at which point I said to Minou, "I think I need to get up from the table!" and he replied "too bad--please stay here!"

It's laugh or grind my teeth. I'm trying to laugh.