mini-me

Hi there, and happy friday!
What a wonderful day it is. I like to watch the aeroplanes fly over me as I walk home from work (I got home just as the last tiny bit of light escaped from the sky into pure darkness. 4:45, I swear.


I was going to make peppermint meringues today, but didn’t realize until 9:00 that the egg whites have to reach room temp before the whole “still peak” experiment does begin. So stay tuned tomorrow to see if it works out! I bought some york peppomint m&m candies to chop up inside. Who doesn’t love a little pep-o-mint? (clearly, I’ve dipped into the york bites already… sorry…)


What have I been up to instead?
-Cleaned mold off shower! hooray!
-turned on pineapple express (thank you library)
-made fun of man go round (might have to do a bit more of this)
-played with my camera
-sampled asian pear (see photo-splosion below for more details)

no flash

through my fleece- whoops

through two layers of white paper… bettah!

through an ivory envelope- sorta messed up

through my super-worn navy t-shirt… me likey!

dried flowers that will probably get tossed soon- enjoy em while they last!

and da asian pears

I’ve had asian pears before, but not man-go-round. He approves! victory! see mom, i cleaned the shower AND ate my fruits all in one day! 


so… I had some fun in the kitchen with the erasers, the flash, trying to make a good indoor picture at night with no natural light…. you see what I do with my free time. I”m not just a word nerd, I’m a nerd nerd! Nerd nerds unite! Like Celia Hodes said, I’m lettin my freak flag fly. Not that this is anything new I guess…

Okay okay, onto the “word” nerdery now. I don’t want to lose anyone due to sidebars.
Man-go-round has expressed to me on various occasion that he takes issue with adding the prefix “mini” where it not apply. He technically doesn’t like the word “miniature” either unless it is referring to some quaint train set or nostalgic hobby apparently. However, his prejudice carries over to times when “mini” is actually a HELPFUL description- examples that I find helpful, not irksome. Here is his hierarchy, as I understand it:

Worst:
“I had a mini meltdown”
“it was a mini crisis”
-“there was a mini-traffic jam”
“I need a mini favor”


Medium:
mini-marshmallows
mini-muffins “just call it a muffin” he said… um, no dude, a “muffin” is not small, its muffin sized…
mini-skirt
mini-backpack
minibike
mini-series

Acceptable:
“the nerdy man collected miniatures”
Minnie Mouse (its her name… I added this one)
Mini-Cooper (brand name I think)

Personally, I have a slightly different opinion. I find the “worst” column obnoxious as it is slackily using language badly to be manipulative and downplay how annoying, negative, and complainish (not a word? I DON’T CARE!) you are about to be. However, I have no issue with the word “mini” itself… I mean, it is a helpful qualifier. Por ejemplo:

-“what kind of skirt is it?”
-“mini skirt”
-“oh! now I get it! its not a bubble skirt, it’s not a maxi skirt! It’s not a jean skirt. It’s a MINI-skirt!


_”what are you bringing to the potluck?”
-“mini-muffins”
_”oh, okay, now I know how much sweets will be available. Since they are only mini muffins, I’ll bring cookies!”

See- sometimes it is an effective use! Just another example of people ABUSING one word when they are just too darn lazy to shut their yap long enough to think of a unique word that would more appropriately describe their sitch. (translation, sitch-ation, dubya style 🙂 )

Do you all have issues with applying “mini” to things that aren’t, in fact, a miniature form of something else? Do you hear obnoxious valley girl types using this or is it just us?

And finally, in honor of my diminutive stature, I will provide some alternate ways to profess something as smaller than usual: Hooray!

-petite (favorite derivative- petit four)
-small
-itsy bitsy (teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini)
-wee (as in my old nickname, “wee one”)
-little
-shrunken (not a fan, makes me think of shrunken heads? what on earth is wrong with me???)
-tiny (as in the enormous guy I used to work with that was nicknamed this)
-itty bitty (derivative of itsy bitsy I guess)
-micro (maybe too specific, too small)
-pint sized/ little half pint (little house on the prairie anyone?)
-baby (baby carrots, baby back ribs maybe? I guess I wouldn’t know on that one…)

What else? It’s late so likely I’m lacking here.

Eenie Meanie Miney Moe- Catch a Meri Meri Mo!
Posted in photography | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

stars n stripes



Happy Veterans Day Everyone!


For this occasion, I wanted to compile a list of military/ war jargon to reflect upon. It’s one thing to be morally offended by the bellicose personality disorders of certain political leaders in the world, past and present, but honoring our vets is not a very controversial activity. Therefore, I hope I don’t offend anyone with my lack of knowledge in the area. I simply find war/military words to be intriguing, and am inviting anyone who has more experience or knowledge to enlighten me please!


But first: some simple math:


1+1= 2 treats! (plus a lot of batter to eat from the food processor)

ingredient numero uno


ingredient numero dos
machinery…


End Product! You go right in the freezer little cookie dough balls!

This tasted pretty good as healthy sugary batter, but if I don’t raid the freezer later I might try baking them and see what happens. You will be kept posted, do not despair.


Now, onto the word nerdery! I can’t stay away from it for long!

Military words:
-AWOL/ASAP/POW
-Private/Cadet/Corporal/Sargeant
-dogtags (kind of a strange term, yes?)
-ballistic ( I LOOOOOOVVEEE this word. in all of its incarnations)
-fatigues (interesting)
-jarhead (a jake gyllenhall movie- what does this mean?)
-“military time”
-platoon
-munitions
-infantry
-militia
-SNAFU/FUBAR
-objective

war-like words that are cool:
-espionage
-rampart
-bunker
-trench
-armory
-arsenal
-artillery
-stealth
-recon
-guerilla
-subterfuge (looove this one too)
-covert
-squadron/fleet
-warpaint
-samurai

That’s all I have for you in this moment. I promise tomorrow I’ll be sitting in a session with some kid and think of some word that I just obsess over that has war-like roots. And then I’ll promptly forget it. So share some of your own with me!

Has anyone else been watching Conan this week?

G’night (aka all quiet on the minnesoter front…)
Meri

Tagged , , | Leave a comment

plop plop fizz

Okay class! Now, who can tell me what makes flowers grow?
Bobby?
“sunlight”
-yes, that’s right bobby! great work! What else?
Bueller?
…Bueller?…Bueller…

Sandy?
-rain!

Yes Sandy, Rain… Rain makes things grow…
…


Lovely things! I love rain, it creates beautiful things and can be fun fun fun. Buuut…
it also ruins my corduroy boots when I underestimate the torrents that will be pouring down on my walk home from work. Holy monsoon batman!
I decided against headphones for the walk today since I wanted one less item to coordinate/ one less possible thing to drop and ruin. Therefore, I heard the lovely “plip plops” of the ocean being dropped from the heavens. It sounded less like “plip plop” to be honest, and more like “CRASH WHAAAFRKCKALKGJKS.” Meaning, it was loud and intense. 

It also made me think of onomatopoeia!!!!
Didn’t everyone just love this word the first time they heard it? Can anyone spell it without looking it up? I wasn’t even close (sounded more like “camp anowanna” in my head).

In honor of the typhoon that I walked through (which conveniently slowed the minute I got to the front door), here are some great onomatopoeia!

Noises: thud, thunk, clunk, crash, beep, plop, bonk, pop
Verbs: sweep (or is this one just me?), clap, whip, hiccup, slap, screech, stomp
Animals: buzz, tweet, quack, chirp, woof, meow, moo, purrrrrr, hiss, oink
Food: crackle, crunch, fizz, whisk, sluuuurrrpp, clink


Hmmm… what else?
Anyone else like onomatopoeia? I obviously use the above ones, as they are common words, but I also frequently make up my own words and assume they will be understood by all due to their onomatopoeic qualities. Well, to be honest, I just use the best word I can think of and conjugate it to verb form by any immediate means necessary, disregarding correct vs. incorrect usage with my blind arrogance and ADHD…

What a joy it is to invent words though! I prefer that immensely to constantly repeating the words du jour and hoping no one will notice that I use “epic” 40 times in one day (you people know who you are, and you need to STOP!) 

end rant.

Enjoy the precipitation, and you desert readers (ma, pa) can enjoy it vicariously through me and buy me new boots! hehe just kidding.

good night
Posted in flowers, rain | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Blink and you’ll miss it!

… a rare moment where I admit that I don’t, in fact, know everything! (Kidding, mostly)


Today at work, I was sitting  around with co-workers discussing Netflix, and one of my co-workers admitted that until last week or so, she had been pronouncing (at least in her head) the word “queue,” as in britspeak for a line, so that it sounded like “kway.” One day, her husband heard her refer to her Netflix “kway” and laughed his way to correcting her. From here on out, this story/pronunciation does not fail to make me bust into giggles. Not at her (gasp) ignorance of this pronunciation, not out of awkward angst that I mispronounce things, but because it just sounds so funny.


However, I think we could all admit to a few occasions where we read a word, thought it was pronounced one way, and then later either fared the same fate and embarrassed ourselves, or if we’re a bit luckier, hear it pronounced by someone else first and can then pretend in perpetuity that we “already knew that.”


I’ve had both happen to me. At times, I argued that I was using the “french pronunciation” or some other lame lame excuse, but sometimes I just get the giggles again and laugh at the word I invented. Here is a short list of words I either didn’t know how to say at some point, know how to say but can’t make my mouth create, or STILL do not know how to pronounce. 


1. drawer – this is an embarrassing one. I remember reading a particular boxcar children book and wondering what the heck a “draw-er” was, if not an artist. This simply did not make sense in context! Of course, I had heard of a drawer before, but in my head it rhymed with “door” and was probably spelled like “dror” or something. I must add here that I was not a stupid child. This word just caught me off guard. At some point, this one just clicked, with no embarrassing mispronunciation.


2. Hermione– Yep, so if you’re doing the math here, you know I was PRETTY DARN OLD here when I thought this name (Hermione Granger, of Harry Potter fame for you non- Potterphiles) sounded something like “Her-mee-own”. The real pronunciation is much more graceful for such a wonderful, rounded out character (ooooooh eerie a Harry Potter ad just played on the TELLY as I was writing that!) 


I’m noticing a theme with british words here… queue, Hermione, drawer, technically… but now onto a few frenchy sounding words


3. barrage– does this &*#*-ing word rhyme with garage? or carriage? HOW DO YOU SAY THIS WORD?!?! It’s such a good word. But even though I’m pretty sure it rhymes with carriage, I avoid saying it in FEAR that I’ll sound like some mouth breather who says, “expresso” (that was provided to me on annoying missayings by a commenter. Thanks!) Someone please rescue me here.


4. homage– similary, where is the stress placed on this word? does it rhyme with “fromage” or more like “drawbridge”(its a near rhyme, give me a break…) This is another pretty good word, but I sure can’t say it.


5. auxiliary, bouillabaise, vichysoise, bougainvillea- these ones I can hear about a trillion times, completely know how to pronounce, but have to spend about 30 seconds to slowly form in my mouth to say them right. Is this some sort of apraxia I can blame? Seriously, what is the deal?


And finally…. for controversy’s sake… some words of common dispute as to the pronunciation! Place your vote!


-caramel (care-a-mell vs. car-mel)
-coupon (cue-pon vs. coo-pon)
-foyer (foy-er vs foy-ay)
-ketchup (ketch-up vs. catsup)
-tour (toor vs tore)




What am I missing?
Sorry for the boring, photo-less post today. At least I mocked myself several times! That’s gotta be worth something!


One more day of gorgeous weather!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | 8 Comments

the fabric of our lives

I guess its cotton…




Today wrought some hurricane of a headache upon me. Maybe its the extra hour of sleep… hmm no that’s not logical… so I’ll be brief here and get back to my foot rub/ beer cure.


I clearly am some sort of masochist- I returned to the “megamall” for the second time in three days, to exchange my shoes for a different size (I think they need to make a 6 and 3/4 size just for me). I was fairly content en route (who wouldn’t be content with windows down in November?) but started to gain in crankiness as the evening wore on. As I scanned Nordstrom’s juniors dept for approximately 12 seconds before deciding to take my sorry butt home, I noticed a wool cardigan, and started thinking about how weird the word “wool” is. I then started thinking about how weird many many fabric names are. 


And that’s the point of today’s word nerdery. I’ll categorize, and if anyone wishes to contribute, I’m sure I don’t know them all:


1. Great Britain-y/Angloesque sounding fabrics made for stodgy fellows and preppies like moi!
-plaid
-tweed
-twill
-wool
-jersey
-corduroy


2. frenchy or sassy lady sounding fabrics:
-chenille
-cashmere
-velour
-charmeuse
-shantung
-voile
-tulle
-satin/sateen
-silk chiffon
-velvet
-tafetta


3. cheap crap industrial street sounding fabrics
-rayon
-pleather
-lame’ (imagine that with me knowing how to accent an “e”…)
-spandex
-nylon


4. weird ones
-felt (felt? like past tense of feel? what the…?)
-terrycloth
-suede (swayed by suede?)
-dotted swiss (i have a slight countrified obsession with this one)
-lace- another verbish one like “felt”
-fleece, i guess, if we’re on the verb list…


what is the stuff that looks wiggly that you sew on as detailing? its often on doll clothes and things. mom, I know you know what this is- what is it called?


where does linen fit? or denim? any sewers know more fabrics? 


Alright, back to my lovely beer. Here’s a picture of last night’s sunset at 3:00 or whenever it got dark…

Right before it turned into cotton candy stripes

And here’s some of the friends that were playing in my Disney movie backyard yesterday. I believe they are a downy or red-headed woodpecker and of course a blue jay. There was also a lovely male cardinal and some chickadees along with the usual gaggle of sparrows/ squirrels. Lucky for the grackles they were nowhere in sight, or they might have been pelted with stale bread or mango pits from the kitchen window.

sorry friends- this wretched photo doesn’t do you justice!

goodnight! here’s to another beautiful day on tomorrows radar!

Posted in birds | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

pannekoeken! pannekoeken!

I can still hear this as it sounded echoing through my parents house in the morning, most likely a saturday or sunday morning. When I was a kid pancakes were most often a weekend thing, and so I still associate them with lazy mornings. However, as I’ve grown into an “adult,” they have also become sort of a fallback panic meal when I have no food left in the house. I know a lot of people are way into pancakes, and I’m not one of them. I’m not a very carby girl, so we’ve had this box of pancake mix in our cupboards for about 8-12 months without being opened. Last night, that box of pannekoeken got a ride on the meri-go-round…


but first ! ! !
why was I so busy that I didn’t make it to the grocery store for the 8th day in a row?


Aha! it must be holiday season! I went to my first bazaar of the year yesterday with my mama and sistah. 
This blog post is brought to you by the word:

Bazaar (and Bizarre also because I like both words)
When I was a kid I looked forward to the church bazaar every year. There was always baked goods, crafts for a crafty nerd to look at, and the official start of the holiday season (This feels a lot more real than the christmas candy on display at target or mele kelikimaka playing in the Limited yesterday…)
People, hear hear- the holiday season has arrived! And seeing as it is supposed to be over 60 degrees for the next 2-3 days, I am overjoyed by this. Nice weather and holiday cheer in unison! Holla!

I think bazaar is a cool word because it’s seemingly exotic with its double a yet has evolved to be something very everyday in churchy, midwestern culture. Where did this word come from? Persia, officially, but it is apparently used around the middle east and around the world (I did research so you don’t have to!) Look-

marketplace/bazaar in Tabriz
Not much different than what I went to yesterday! 

I then proceeded to spend the next 6 hours at the mall. Of America. For some reason it was ridiculously, ridiculously (zoolander voice here) busy. Barf. I did buy two pairs of skechers though. Skechers are one of my top retail obsessions. I’m on my 5th or 6th pair counting my lace up boots. Every single pair I’ve ever gotten has become a new favorite shoe. Here’s what I got!

these and these. Now go buy some skechers and your feet will do a little dance!

So, after shopping til I nearly dropped (thank you mountain dew) I went home and did not have the physical strength to go to rainbow foods. I found some barley in the cupboard (amazing little kernels, barley. more on that another day…). However, much later, I was quite dissatisfied and hungry again. No amount of leftover fun size halloween candy was going to fix this. I looked in the cupboard, 

et voila!

Pannekoeken!

I recently discovered that if you happen to be in possession of silicon measuring cups, you can make a 30 second microwave pancake that tastes quite delicious, and requires almost no cleanup. Sounds like a meri-go-round snack attack recipe to me!

Pancake mix, water, cinnamon, and sugar!
So you can choose to measure correct proportions or not. I’m not sure it matters that it’s exact, because I don’t measure. It should be more or less the consistency of pancake batter. I also added some cheesecake flavored pudding mix last night, and almond butter another night. this was good. Here is the official instructions:

-mix pancake batter, water, mix-ins (anything your heart desires: berries, nuts, banana, chocolate chips, almond butter, bacon… well, maybe not bacon…)
-microwave for 20-30 seconds. this is for “one” pancake, about 1/3 cup mix. It fits in a one-cup measuring bowl.
-renuke to desired consistency. You can also flip it over with a spoon and remicrowave.
-top with more cinnamon and sugar, syrup, chocolate sauce, or anything else you feel like.

And when you are done, the wonderful non-stick silicon will mean that you don’t have to grease a pan, turn on the stove, or soak a dish. it practically looks clean as soon as its done. now go make one, two, or three!

I’m off to go enjoy this gorgeous day. happy sunday!

Tagged , , | 1 Comment

…the gunpowder treason and plot…

Remember, remember the 5th of November…
It’s Guy Fawkes Night people! Celebrate by watching V for Vendetta or reading this:
 
(Consequently, today also marks the beginning of Diwali)

 
I’m going to get straight to it- when I was thinking about Guy Fawkes night, I was thinking about the word, “remember,” and that got me thinking about the word of the day, which is:
 
Mnemonic!
 
This word wins for it’s staccato and its silent m. three cheers for mnemonics, without which I would be unable to recall any of my sight reading musical abilities!
 
Here are some of my favorites:
1. The aforementioned Every good boy does fine/ FACE for reading music scales(thanks piano/band/ orchestra/guitar teachers for this ability! Thanks mom and dad for the lessons!)
 
2. My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas (and variations)
Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto…. although in recent years they must have come up with a new mnemonic, or they would teach kids, “my very eager mother just serves us nine…….” hmmm, with no pluto, you get no pizza! So make pluto a planet again for crying out loud!
 
3. HOMES- The great lakes! Huron Ontario Michigan Erie Superior
 
4. Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally– Order of operations for math. Boo for math.
 
5. There was some mnemonic for remembering trig functions. I cannot remember it. Anyone know what it was?
 
6. Red sky at night, sailor’s delight
    Red sky in morning, sailors take warning
(I think this one is hooey, for the record…)
 
7. And a personal fave from the college years,
“Liquor before beer- in the clear
Beer before liquor- never been sicker!”
 
Hooked on Mnemonics worked for me!
 
Anyone have any other mnemonics to contribute?

I’m off to make some of this:

‘stachios… toasting…

grinding… processing…

clumping…scraping…

‘stachio butter! hooray!
Well, actually I’m going to make almond butter. but the picture story looks the same!
Tagged , , | 4 Comments

you’re just a pawn in their game



Hola peeple!


Tonight, after a quite strenuous “rearranging” of the dining room with little to show for it, I decided to settle in to a DVD find from my local library- Shiva Rea Yogini.

BEHOLD the healing powers of water…

Now, maybe I should have taken note to the fact that it is distinguished to be “for women,” which isn’t typically a fixture on the yoga DVD. At least not for me, since I usually rock with Rodney Yee. But I like Shiva Rea! The production on her videos is inSANE and she’s a gorgeous goddess who wears chandelier earrings while doing chataranga. The last DVD I checked out was on a gorgeous beach, and alternated between vinyasas and pushups, talking about water quite frequently… every time I wanted to stop the pushup sequences I would look at her incredibly arms and do more! I mean if that’s not an effective DVD, I DON”T KNOW WHAT IS!


This one was special…

This one had direct quotes such as, “marinate in your own essence and beauty,” instructed users to massage their… upper torsos in manner of a self exam… and massage their “wonderful buttocks,” in the healing meditation. Now, I can appreciate some spirituality but when she brought up the “extraordinary fragrance rising from my heart” I couldn’t take it anymore- i had to go take notes for this blog. I guess I”m officially addicted. 

I also noted that she used the word “undulation” a few times. Now, I don’t technically have an issue with this word, but I have heard feedback over my many years that others find it a little hard to bear. Which brings me to my word of the day:

PAWN

Now why is this the word of the day? BECAUSE I FIND IT UTTERLY REPULSIVE TO THE EAR.
You may think I jest. I jest you not. When people use this word, I get physically uncomfortable. Some contexts are better than others. If playing chess, I’m okay. When bobby d or sublime sing about it, I don’t love it but can admit they are good songs. But when people are referring to the pawn shop it gets more difficult. and if people just slowly repeat the word “pawn, pawn, pawn…” I get quite cranky. You don’t want to see it. I blame this bias on an old teacher who used to say it in a way that was not ear friendly, and my prejudice is now as much a part of me as my “wonderful” buttocks. It’s baby steps each day.

Now, I know others have words that disgust them to hear. “Moist” is one I hear typically. This isn’t a great word, but I don’t really notice it much.

What words drive you up the wall/ bring you to utter disgust? Come on people, you can do better than pawn! And if you play nice, I’ll show you three stages of tonight’s lovely sunset!

Fireball!


Orange and Blue


Almost dark!
Goodnight!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | 5 Comments

Double "O", skip the "7"

Hello there.
Did I lure you in with that mysterious spy title? Well, there’s nothing mysterious about today’s word nerdery… okay maybe a tiny bit!


I seem to be getting stuck on word “categories” thus far… misused/mispronounced words, spanish words, and now today’s post. Tomorrow will be different, rest assured. In the mean time (what does that “mean” anyway? mean time? can anyone enlighten me here or must I look it up MYSELF?)


Today I would just like to serve up a big platter of words that have a double o. They get bonus points for being strange, outdated, or festive words. Or if they describe a delicious food or beverage (you’ll see my point soon.) Here is my list so far, and if you have any please share them with me and the WORLD AT LARGE. Inquiring minds want to know!


1. starting off with “MACAROON”- which got me thinking about this in the first place. Macaroons are delightful, the word is fun to say, it has a cousin, “Macaron” en francais which is a slightly different treat, and it is strangely akin in letters to “macaroni”… hmmm… what can this mean?

“eat me”

2. Next at bat is “festoon”

Festoon (from French feston, Italian festone, from a Late Latin festo, originally a festal garland, Latin festum, feast), a wreath orgarland, and so in architecture a conventional arrangement of flowers, foliage or fruit bound together and suspended by ribbons, either from a decorated knot, or held in the mouths of lions, or suspended across the back of bulls heads as in the Temple of Vestaat Tivoli. The motif is sometimes known as a swag when depicting fabric or linen
Thanks Wikipedia! You say it better than me. What a ridiculous word. I need to start using this frequently. Luckily, the holiday season has started! I know this because I went to Target tonight and all of the christmas themed candy and decor were out. Egads.

3. This one is for a friend of mine:
Doubloons!
You know who you are. And since you probably don’t read this, I am going to email it to you! or get it to you somehow! and then wait to see if you have something to say about doubloons!


4. 
Cameroon!

5. Rooibos/Oolong- both fun to say. I sort of still am not entirely sure I pronounce “rooibos” correctly, but that’s part of the fun for me. I feel like a middle aged man in a snowmobiling jacket who goes to Boca Chica and requests, “HALAPEEENOS, I DON”T SPEAK SPANISH,” with no shame whatsover. That’s me at the s-bucks ordering my cinnamon rooibos. I’m not sure i’ve ever drank oolong tea, I just think its an awesome word.


6. More: balloon, bloom, sloop (I thank the beach boys for this), droop, poop…

Okay, I’m going to stop while I’m “ahead” and go finish my Clif bar. This is noteworthy because it is the first Clif bar I’ve ever bought. I’m not very rugged and usually just eat cashews or something for snacks. But today SuperAmerica SOLD me on the Clif bar with it’s promise of 10g of protein. I’m not that impressed. If you are interested, it was Oatmeal Raisin and I have to say I prefer regular oatmeal, with or without raisins, but definitely with pumpkin pie spice. But if you must see for yourself, they also have peanut butter and chocolate chip flavors, and probably a lot of others that I guess I’m not too inspired to ever buy.

Later!

Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Dia de las Palabras


 Bienvenidos a Meri-Go-Round!




Happy Voting Day Peeps! I will be so so so happy to not see Michelle “Satan” Bachman’s face on all of the internet ads anymore… woman, your face may haunt my dreams. Not cool.


But that’s not what I’m writing about tonight. Tonight, I want to spend a bit of time to focus on Dia de los Muertos!


Now, when I think of Day of the Dead (we’re in America people, so I’m going to refer to it in AMERICAN now) I think of the paraphernalia that accompanies it (sidebar- did you know paraphernalia was spelled that way? I had to google it because spellcheck didn’t like “paraphanalia.”… have I never written or typed this word? It’s such a force of a word!)


As I was saying, I think of sugar skulls, colorful altars, and marigolds. So, I decided to slightly detour my  morning walk to work past some neighborhood marigolds I know of. It is getting to be a little bit “Day of the Dead Marigolds” unfortunately, but here’s what I got:

    

  





Click flower photos to enlarge if you wish! 


Now, in honor of dia de los muertos, I thought I would celebrate some of my favorite Spanish words. I really love the Spanish language, even though it threatened to finish me in my quest to minor en Espanol during university. (I’ll apologize in advance for being too lazy to figure out how to put ~ on the letter n…)


Between colorful professors, Madrilenos, my Spanish mama, and the power of the telenovela, here is a composite list of swears, slang, nouns, phrases, blah blah blah.


1. “Jo#$r”- don’t feel comfortable typing this one since it means “F”, but it is the single most expressive swear I have ever met. It feels SO good as it rolls off the tongue, and yet Spaniards use it in a jolly way at times so I don’t feel so guilty about using it (not that that ever stopped me in English curses…) The important part of this one is to put the main emphasis on the first syllable. Gosh, I’m so glad I revived this one, I’ve been neglecting it! (If you do not know this word, just ask and I’d be happy to curse you out! As a learning experience, of course!)


2. “Cono” (with ~) and it’s cousin, “que con~o”- I’m okay with typing this one, but I guess its technically a swear as well. I like the versatility here, as you find in swears in all languages, and that it can mean so very many things. Non Hispanophiles, the second one means “what the F”so don’t use lightly. The prior is more of a general name to call others lovingly (like “B*&#$ in our lexicon, perhaps)… or it can be an exclamation, or however you want to use it. Please don’t feel constrained by my narrow definition!


3. “!Esta lloviendo a cantaros!)- Raining cats and dogs. My Spanish mama taught me this one, and she was so determined that I learn it that it has become one of my favorite expressions to use. 


4. “microondas”- microwave. This is just the coolest word, it has a double o for crying out loud. In a Spanish word. Awesome. I like to just repeat this word with alternate pronunciations at times because its so great.


5. “gilipolla”- hmm, I think I need a one act play for this one. Because it took me that and more to figure out what this one meant. Which like “a cantaros” i think is my basis for liking it… The players in this scene are myself and my friend from Madrid Adrian. We are in a plaza in the evening, going out for a copa


-MGR (thats meri go round…)- “blah blah blah boys are annoying i’m in college blah blah talking about myself blah blah”


-A (adrian)- “…but… Rubia… (I must note that at this point, I was not in fact a “rubia.”I had approximately 3 blonde highlights in my Spaniard hairdresser approved maroon hair…) it is sure that you date the gilipolla… hehehe… not a macho man like me”


-MGR- “que cono is a gilipolla?”


-A- “oh, you know… the man with the flowers… he wears the flowers.”


-MGR- “no, i don’t date florists…”


-A- goes on to describe in great detail what I’ve come to deduce is a sort of hippy crossed with a eunuch crossed with a frat boy. I assure him that no, I am just a man hater in general. Equal opportunity man hater! 


To this day I”m not positive of the exact meaning, but I don’t think its incredibly complimentary. 


6.”Fabiola”- yes, its a name. one of my favorite Spanish words is a name… but come on, try to say this and not fall in love with how it rolls off the tongue. When I finally get my dog, it will be named Fabiola, male or female, so that I can say this name several times a day with meaning. 


And if that dog were a boy, with a name like Fabiola, I intuit that the other kids at school might call him “gilipolla.” and then I’d have to go gangster on them.


What are your favorite Spanish words or phrases? Or other languages?

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
Posted in flowers | Tagged , | Leave a comment