Spanglish

My new url is now http://www.wherehotcomestodie.com/. Ann's Rants bullied me into it becoming a dot com because apparently she is the boss of me. Adjust yourselves because the blogspot one goes to a very strange page the last time I looked.

I spoke to my mother yesterday and told her I met a cute Frenchman at the screening of Funny People. He was eating a box of Junior Mints and remarked to another man two seats over that he'd never had a Junior Mint. WHAT?

I turned around in my seat and said, "How is that even possible?"
"I'm from Europe."
"Where in Europe?"
"France."

And then he and I lapsed into French, he gave me some Junior Mints and the other man said, "Wow, it must be nice to just bust out another language like that."

Not to mention get free Junior Mints without begging.

So now my mother tells me she and Lindy read an article that says that you should speak a foreign language to your baby NO LATER than at 7 months. By 11 months, it's harder for them to learn. At 11 months aren't they just spitting up food and mocking you? Christ, I JUST LEARNED ENGLISH LAST YEAR.

So I reminded her that I try to practise my Spanish as much as possible but I really don't get that much opportunity. I told her our handyman, Humberto, learned English by watching American TV. I also mentioned he was in my apartment one day when I had to translate the Spanish word for Birds of Paradise. My mother asked me what the Spanish word was and I said I didn't remember because I doubted that the plant, Birds of Paradise, was going to come up in a lot of conversations.

"Zen what ARRRE you learrrrning?"
"Currently I'm concentrating on 'Please don't kill me' in case I run into one of the Crips."
"Well just rrememberrrr you 'ave to say a word 300 times before you really get eet."
"300? I thought it was 3?"
"Mais non, 300."
"Maybe I should since there are crips all over L.A."
"Zere arrrrr crips everywhere."
"Well, not everywhere, but mainly in L.A."
"We 'ave crips in France too."
"You do?"
"Mais bien sur, zey spray paint walls, arrre rude in zee subway and are good for nossing."
"Those are CREEPS Mom, not Crips."
"Oh you and your Engleesh."

Now Humberto is going to be afraid of me when I keep asking him not to kill me because he's the only Spanish speaking person I know.

End of chat.