Taking the Air

Took is an odd word. Considering how the word "too" is pronounced, how do we get tuhk for took? Why isn't it tewk? The same goes for look, book,cook, etc. Who decides this stuff anyway? Whenever I get stumped by these great dilemmas of the ages, I go to the source of the English which is, of course, the English. In England they pronounce took, borrowed.

Last night we watched Latin American Idol. The format is the same as the U.S. version. The judges have somewhat different personalities than Randy, Paula and Simon - the guy in the Randy spot, for instance, breaks out laughing whenever a contestant is really bad - but other than that, the show is much the same. I wish I could say my Spanish was good enough to understand everything that was being said, or sung, but it's not. I get about half, which is enough to make the show watchable. I'm not sure I'll be able to say that when American Somoan Idol airs on cable.

And speaking of air, last night during the set your watch by it 5:15 deluge, it occurred to me that the air in Panama smelled, tasted but mostly felt like the air I remembered as a kid growing up in rural New Jersey. It's wet. I don't think there is a rural New Jersey anymore and if there is air, it probably resembles Campbell's soup, the chunky kind, so I can't go back and compare. I spent most of my adult life, well, adult might be a little flattering, breathing what passes for air in Colorado. It's dry, thin stuff. In fact, Colorado air is dry even when it's raining. It lacks a couple of essential ingredients, moisture being the obvious one, enough oxygen being another and something else I can't put my lungs on. Something like effluents probably, but I'm not really sure what effluents are. It's a funny word though. When someone tells you to take a deep breath in Colorado, what they mean is take two, or three. One won't do it. So it was nice last night inhaling the rich, wet, heavily oxygenated Panama air as I sat out on my balcony watching the rain. The cigar I was smoking didn't hurt either. In fact it added something. I'm thinking effluents.