Another Friday, and another session with my English-learning friend. Today we worked on a dozen simple fill-in-the-blank exercises. Well, "simple" if you happen to already speak the language. One involved the words cope cop cup. The sentence: The _______ couldn't _______ with the bug he saw in his _______. I mean, if you speak English already, it's a no-brainer. But the more we worked on these sentences, the harder even I started to find them.
So I was delighted when one of the fill-in words was am. There is only one context you will ever use am. I AM. Dammit. I am.
The last exercise included the word pen, which at first glance you would think would mean pluma, but in the case of this sentence, which also include pet and pep—a pet with too much pep needing to be put in a . . . —did not. I am a language person—I've studied, what, ten or more languages—and so I'm sure that if I were met with an exercise like this in any of those, I'd figure it out: it's a puzzle, a game. But my friend is not a language person. This is hard, it's challenging. And it's serious: she wants to stay in this country. She needs to speak the language.
But then she started laughing. She was having fun. It wasn't the sentences that she was finding fun, but our interaction, I think. Our connection, our friendship. As we parted she gave me a big hug. And out in the parking lot, she gave me an avocado. What more does a teacher need?
As I drove to our meeting, I noticed the parking lot near the local Russian Orthodox church filled with cars. As I drove home, I saw a hundred or more people spilling out onto the lawn, including a half dozen white-bearded men dressed in bright green chasubles wearing full-on crowns. All I find from googling is this: Престольный Праздник / Встреча Митрополита Николая: Parish Feast Day / Meeting Metropolitan Nikolai. This has nothing to do with my life, really, except that I noticed it: it's a part of the life of some of my neighbors, and that's meaningful. It was beautiful to see this crowd, and those bearded, crowned men in green.
The way home ended up taking three times as long as it could/should have, but I'll spare the details. Road work; rush hour. Whatever. We got home.
And then had a lovely dinner at a new-to-us restaurant in the not-at-all-chic nextdoor town of Seaside, but the restaurant, Maligne, has made its way into the Michelin Guide, so we figured it was worth a try—and yeah. It was terrific. Halibut with corn and shishito peppers for me, pork rind and fancy rice for David, and a luscious peach and plum cobbler for dessert. The occasion: our 44th anniversary.
We sure do hope to make it to 50. We'll see!
Finished the evening watching Tampopo. Delightful.
What more can one ask of a day?
