rambling on

Here’s a word to wrap your tongue around: extraordinariamente. That’s right 19 letters and it means exactly what you think it means. At least I think it means what you think it means. I mean I don’t really know what you think it means. You might think it means something completely different from what I think you think it means so I guess I’ll have to tell you. It means an extra ordinary dinner mint. See how easy Spanish is. Now if I could just figure out how embarazada came to mean pregnant I’d have it down pat. (downo pato)

I stumbled on my new favorite long word (see above…and it’s not embarazada) while reading Harry Potter Y El Caliz De Fuego, the fourth book in the series. I’m not a big Potter fan, but I’ve heard it’s a law that if you read one you have to read them all. Okay, maybe it’s only a law in England, but I know you know how I feel about the Brits. Wait, how do I know you know how I feel… Nevermind. Anyway I’m plodding along at a rate of about ten pages a day. That may seem extraordinariamente slow to you, but hey, It’s Spanish! Took me ten or twelve years to get the hang of English and I still don’t know why cereal and serial are pronounced the same. The best word in the Potter books is not really a word, it’s a name. Voldemort. That’s a stroke of genius. Voldemort. Even if you know nothing about the books you know that is not the name of a good guy. At least I think you would know. You might think it’s the name of a duke or a count or a queen, but then, you’d be wrong and weird to boot. To boot? Is that English or Canadian?

I’m also finishing off a book entitled “Wolf Boy” that despite it not being an extended version of an Inquirer story about a kid stolen from his parents by a she wolf who has lost a pup and raises the kid as her own; a she wolf who then defends the helpless child against every kind of danger the wild has to offer until he is grown and returns to his natural people where he uses his knowledge of plants and herbs to cure cancer and in so doing becomes the most famous man on the planet and a catalyst for world peace and also looks a lot like Elvis, I am enjoying even though it is a rather sad book about a family grieving over the loss of an older brother, each in his/her own unique way. Granted the first story, had it been written, might have been a more cheery read, but the second, an actual story, is highly recommended by me, the guy who only a paragraph ago said he had the hang of English, but who’s word on the subject after this current paragraph is now highly suspect.

I am now nearly a full page in and I have not mentioned my pal Gus who is lying next to me in his doggie bed gnawing on a bone that he has protected against all the dangers the wild has to offer, namely the next door neighbor’s dog Bobby, and that he hopes will one day grow up to be a cow. Gus. He’s now been mentioned.

Charly is abajo, pronounced ah bah ho which means below or in this case downstairs and is not the New York way of saying woman who sells sex at a pub, watching House which is a show that has nothing at all to do with one.

So you see it has been a very complicated and confusing day and I’m going to bed now to have the sweet dreams you know I will have. Well I don’t really know you know but…


Voldemort. That’s good, that’s really good.