Ants, grammar and food......

I just noticed that yesterday's post was number 200...hmmm, that's a lot.

Blah blah blah blah blah, eh?

The lovely Catalan lady came over and helped me with grammar yesterday, and the pronouns are even more complicated than I wrote yesterday. A good deal more complicated, but the good thing is that I understand them better, clearly...now I am down to the memorisation stage, but at least I largely understand what to memorise which is frankly a big step forward....

I was up late last night working on it, and came up with some further questions. I debated waking the man up, but thought that it would be cruel and unusual to wake someone from a sound sleep and force them to think about grammar rules. More like a nightmare. I asked one of the teachers at the language school, and she could sort of answer me, but, like most native speakers of any language, she doesn't know her own grammatical rules well, and floundered before giving me a half answer....I'll think about it and ask again.

I walked the dog in the afternoon yesterday up in the hills again, gosh I love it up there....





I saw that egg up there as well, I have no idea what kind of bird it is, obviously we need a book....

While I was up there I sat on a lovely shady rock with a view of the sea, it was cool, there was a breeze, Chuck was sitting next to me...I looked down and saw a couple of ants. Really really big ants. Hmm I thought, ants.

I looked around at the view for a while...can you see where this is going?

Hmmmm, I thought, there is something itching my side....and my back....

I looked down and there were HUNDREDS of Really Biggggggg Ants...Hundreds.

Well, I stood up fairly fast and ran down the hill a bit, still kinda itchy inside my shirt. Whipped that sucker off pretty darn fast. The girls would have been SO embarrassed, but no way was I doing anything else. I shook it out pretty thoroughly, whipped it over my back a few times, and got dressed again. Chuck is looking at me, kinda perplexed and made a few half-hearted attempts at starting a game with my shirt. These were firmly discouraged.

Ok, all's well...about 3 minutes later I see something moving on my hat brim...you guessed it. Hat off, head upside down being shaken out, um, rather ahhh vigorously.... That cleared the last ones out. Sheesh.

Got a little treat at lunch today...



Yup, that is a chocolate dipped croissant. How good is that. The only thing they could add would be a chocolate filling as well, that would be decadent to the point of nausea.

One of the women at work lent us a tape of the multiplication tables being sung in Catalan...I'm getting good at them. The kids may not know them in English eventually, although they are better at them in English still....it's a pretty cool tape. "quatre per quatre, setze...."

Halo, daily life and pronouns...

For the last few mornings when I have been out walking Chuck, I have heard a cuckoo...which was initially quite exciting, but over time I came to the realisation that a wild cuckoo sounds indeed rather a lot like a cuckoo clock that doesn't stop. Unless they have another call that I don't recognise and which is completely different, this has got to be one of the single most monotonous birds on the planet.

The beach looks glorious today and I so want to go, but I must polish my halo today and get on with a bunch of tasks that are hanging over me, they are getting done, but I can just about feel my brain melting out my ears. These chores require great concentration and are simultaneously boring. Must be a bit like crop dusting. Though the payback for inattention is not quite as drastic.

Here are some silly mundane photos of my home that I took to get a break, and try to stuff my brain back in my ears...

The music I am listening to right now...they are an awesome French Canadian folk group with an amazing get your butt out of the chair and start dancing around like a fool sound. The man likes it less than I do.

The wine that gets delivered:


The last of the blankets for the living room thrown over a chair...it is headed for the wash pretty soon, we don't really need it any more. Maybe it could go on my bed, the duvet is too hot now, but one little blanket is too little, I keep waking up all sweaty.


Our doorstop that we picked up and hauled back in the mountains...a lovely bit of rock, and part of why sculptors have been coming to Catalonia for centuries...you can see that we need to sweep again...too bad, bwa ha ha ha ha


Gotta go buy fruit and veg. Normally I go today, but I had to carve this time out for the halo polishing, we'll just have to wait on the fresh veg...tomorrow's market day, so what the heck.






I have been struggling with Catalan pronouns as well as a break from other things...it wodges and constipates my brain up so thoroughly that it helps...the pronouns in this language are outrageously and offensively complicated. Not only do they have the usual run of them, but they are different for the direct and indirect objects, for reflexive and possessive, this is pretty normal, but also they through in some extras that don't exist in other languages just for the heck of it, and too confuse outsiders like me....I will give some examples so that you also can get a constipated mind...aren't I generous? Though you could easily just skip this section....

For the direct object pronouns...as in Joan saw me, me being the pronoun we have
em/m' (me)
et/t' (you) also it
el/l' (him) also it
la/l' - her
ens - us
us - you
els - them for guys - also it
les - them feminine - also it

these go before the verb generally, and the singular can be altered to the shortened form if the verb starts with a vowel or an h...

still with me?

indirect pronouns

as in, she gave the book to me

here we have em/m' -to me
et/t'- to you
li to him, her or it
ens - to us
us - to you
els - to them

these also go before the verb, and other than the first two don't seem to be abbreviated ever..why I don't know. How you handle a sentence like
I gave it to him I am not sure...

They don't use the first pronoun, it is included in the verb so we have
el dono a li???? it (I) gave to him???/

haven't gotten that far..

Then there are some extras...
en/n' is one...it is used as an article, as in the and a, but also a pronoun, when the quantity is not certain, but is more than zero...this is another form of it
Joan ate bread - En Joan va mengar pa (En=the, Joan is a name, va mengar=ate, pa= bread)
Joan ate it becomes En Joan en va mengar.

Then they also use 'ho' as a pronoun, I think again as a form of it...I haven't got this one at all...

That is only the first two of four chapters, in Catalan from this amazingly good Catalan grammar I have been lent. While this is still pretty darned opaque, there is at least a clear explanation with GOOD EXAMPLES!!!! this is what I needed....Yeah!

*phew*

Off to study more...

*gasp*

Futbol and cars, a post for the guys?

I don't know what is going on with blogger, I have been locked out of my site most of the day, and out of all of your comment boxes...what karmic sin did I commit?

Anyhoooo,



We went to watch a futbol match last night, and I am sorry, I know I was raised in the hard core school of hockey, but these guys are a bunch of whining wimpy children...babies. I mean Holy Jeez. This game SUCKED. They were falling down and taking dives over everything, a big bunch of BABIES. I hate to sound so horribly cliched but I really did feel like standing up and shouting at them all to shake it off and take it like a man...I will admit I was a little surprised at this highly gender biased comment that surged forth in me, but OMG these guys whined and whined and whined.

From the admittedly little 'futbol' I have watched, I am developing the impression that these guys are a bunch of princesses taking a dive at any opportunity in the hopes of getting a whistle.

Meh

Bunch of wimps.



You may notice in the photo that the ref was a woman....she didn't have any linesmen to help. She must have given out about 7 yellow cards, and red carded one of the coaches, possibly two as well as a player. It wasn't a very clean game, and the coach got carded for sexist comments...I clearly heard 'chica' ....girly....then again, how often have you seen a woman's ref given the chance at a man's game, hockey, baseball football or basketball?



Meh

Beth is getting a little haunted by marmots all of a sudden... I seem to be having a synchronistic experience with Southern men....I posted about hanging out with them yesterday, and look who pulled into town!

To some of you this may look like a pretty average vehicle, but let me tell you, it's a whiplash builder here as people turn to stare....

On another topic, the man and I are debating radical surgery on the toasted shoe...A webostomy... I think it will involve the surgical attachment of a strip of webbing to the inside of the strap...hopefully I can do it so that it is reasonably comfortable...Pictures will appear to show the process if I can pull it off.

Cross your fingers for me.

I finally made it up into the mountains....it is so lovely. It takes a bit of doing, Chuck wants to stop and sniff every single plant on the way. Once I get him going it is OK, but getting him moving takes some convincing...

A big bit of good news, they got a computer into younger child's class so that she can do some Catalan work while all the other students are also doing Catalan. As I said before, I am not bitter, so I will resist the temptation to mention that there are only 6 weeks of school left. Better a little late than nothing at all.

One of my adult male students was, I think, trying to say to me that the class was challenging and interesting. He is at a very early stage study. What he did say was that I was very interesting but not easy.

I should hope not!

God only knows what equivalent horrors I have uttered.

Ten things meme

Ten things meme from dorky dad


I am not going to name anyone this time because I have already passed two memes on fairly recently...but your supposed to write ten things about yourself and then name ten bloggers to tag. They are supposed to be true, and that is what I am doing, but DD mixed up truth and lies...so DD is number 2 really true?

1. I was nearly killed in Denver Colorado. It was night. I got on the wrong bus. I got off it when the knife fight started. I was only a few blocks out from my usual route, and a large group of *ahem* young gentlemen started up the street towards me, shouting *um* compliments at me, and carrying unidentifiable objects. I stepped into the street in front of an oncoming car, the only oncoming car. Indeed the only car in sight. I put my hand up in good cop stop-now fashion and got in, hoping that this was not the fire that I was jumping into from the pan. An off duty cab...he turned to me and said incredulously, "What are YOU doing HERE? He drove me to my bike -what a nerd I am, eh?- and then followed me all the way home. My angel. He got a lot of Karma points that night. The next day when I told friends from Denver what had happened, they said that people got killed ON that bus, let alone off it....

2. I travelled around the world by myself, largely by land, flying over the wet bits....and had no problems like above. Except a, hmmmm, overly enthusiastic on-leave US military serviceman in Fiji. I bought myself a wedding ring the next day.

3. I think I have been to 33 countries. Not sure though.

4. I get seasick. A lot.

5. I love to eat cream cheese and salami sandwiches on baguette. Not when I am sea-sick. My kids like to talk about food like that with me when I am sea sick though. Whoever said kids are nice?

6. I stepped on the toe of the Queen of Holland, I think, though it could have been Sweden's Queen, or maybe Norway's. Wasn't Elizabeth, I'd a recognized her. Northern Europe though...she was short and very kind about it....I came through a door too fast...ooops.

7. I want to sail a dhow some day.

8. The first time I read Dracula I was working passage on a freighter on the Gold Coast of Australia going from Cairns up to the Thursday Islands and back. On board was a fellow who did the Times crossword in order, across only. He never needed the down clues, one word after the other with barely a pause, like he was writing a grocery list. He worked there a while as a deck hand then went walk-about a while. Sometimes life is amazing. The cook thought I wanted her job...not. The Captain got me up at night whenever the phosphorescence was good, and I saw a shark's feeding frenzy. Blessedly from on the ship.

9. I spent a week with just me and the kids in inland rural Florida sitting on the porch swapping lies with a a bunch of Southern men. One was from Utah and thought that the problems of the world were because too many women married too late and had too few children. As I was in my mid-thirties at the time with a mere two children both under 8, that conversation took a bit of a gulp for me. Oh, and then there is a certain global overpopulation issue. I did not accept his lift into town. I was a little rude too. Another fellow was a man who had been in the US Marines for 22 years, and had some scary and surprising stories to tell, and used WAY too much water everyday when he was afloat. He made me feel safe at night in the yard with the guy from Utah there. I figured I had the Marines on my side. Again, you never know who your going to meet.

10. One of the greatest things about going cruising is discovering how kind and trusting almost everyone is...for example I cannot count the number of people who gave us the key to their car minutes after meeting us. One time we met up with some Bahamian Sponge fishermen in Nassau who we had gotten to know earlier while we were taking turns having struggles anchoring and dealing with engines, and they had given us a pretty good scare at one point. Two of the guys came by at 7am, with their breakfast...as in they both had a Guinness, one guy was driving the outboard, and the other was standing on the bow holding onto the painter like a cowboy. The just came over to say Hi, but when they found out that it was one kid's birthday, and the other's had been a few days ago, they came back with sponges bigger that the kids heads...beautiful. And they had cleaned them too!

So there you go, 10 things.

If you like the idea of the meme, or just want to talk about ten unrelated things about yourself...let it rip....not tagging anyone this time though...

Science!

This is the roof of a hospital!!!!


The girls and I went onto BCN today and went to a rain forest! We met Neanderthals and explored Newton's physics....Yes ladies and gentlemen, we went to the science museum. It was AMAZING. Little one went into town kicking and screaming and generally being obnoxious about the idea, and half way through declared it the best day of her life. So any of you considering coming to BCN with kids, may want to consider this....though you don't really come to BCN to go to the science museum.

It also had cleaner bathrooms than McDonalds which is generally something of a benchmark for me, and is a freaking miracle in Europe.

They had simulated a rain forest, there was footage of the team in Brazil taking castings of the trees, and then they added plants, animals and water....

There were absolutely brilliant demonstration of most of the basic laws of physics. The kids spun and whirled and waved and twanged their way through all sorts of stuff, and came to interesting questions too.

This is a wiggle-able helix that did a spectacular job of showing how waves of energy travel, but the matter does not....




These impressed the heck out of me...lots of structural engineers in my family...I can talk a good line about compression and tension and stress lines.. These were plastic forms that you could bring weight down on and the material turned colours where the lines of stress are....some are quite beautiful..

Two discs:



A straight beam...the stress lines are clear, and sharp, not too strong, but pretty.

Basic round arch

Gaudi's parabolic arch, almost no visible stress lines, one smooth colour...very strong.

Classic Cathedral...I find the stress lines here stunningly lovely. Invisible beauty in our structures.

This exercise let you pump a foot peddle and it released the bubbles into the water...the bigger the bubble, the faster it went up, so the big ones actually invaded the bubbles above them, and you could see their's shape inside the upper bubble for a few seconds. The other astonishing thing was that BOTH bubbles started to change shape before they came into contact. The upper bubble got a convex inturned bulge on it's underside, as if it were tucking up it's butt to avoid being run into, and the lower bubble elongated and got more pointed at the top...these are bubbles folks, no sentience..I have no idea how this works. An argument could be made in my weak-in-physics mind that the upper one bulged up from the pressure of the fluid being pushed by the upcoming bubble, but why did the bottom bubble change shape?
I took about 15 pictures and never got the bubbles merging then gave up...sorry.

And this is what happens to greedy fish. If you eat too big a fish you see, you cannot spit them out again because the scales won't let you...too much friction. There were three of these, as well as fish that had died because they had eaten fish that were just too heavy, they couldn't swim anymore!



Finally, I know it's a bad sign when the rats abandon ship, but what happens when the statues start to abandon their pedestals?





I missed my Birks every step of the way... I wore the runners that my sister gave me at Christmas. I painted them purple yesterday and the oil paint wasn't dry yet. You could probably trace my route through BCN by the miniscule smears of purple paint I left behind....and my feet hurt. Not too bad, but they ain't Berks.

Meeting, shoes, hassles.

I had the meeting with THAT teacher last night. It was fine. I was very NICE. *gag* I can do it, but sometimes it seems so cynical when you really want to scream, "Why don't you get a job where you can be happy and maybe could actually succeed and get out of my f*cking life!!!!!" But that wouldn't be NICE.

She probably wanted to scream something similar back at me, but was also NICE.

I was interested that she was not intent on telling me what the school would do to prevent something like this happening in the future, nor was she willing to make a school wide comment, but was quite content to lay the blame FIRMLY on the music teacher. Which may or may not be accurate, but wasn't exactly professional or, well, appropriate.

I managed to mention NICELY that she speaks at the speed of an automatic weapon with about as much intonation, and that just maybe that is why my kid cannot understand Catalan yet, and that maybe when my kid doesn't understand her she could try to say it, oh, a different way rather than repeating herself over and over again as she does with me. I mean really folks, I will grant that there are people out there that aren't so good at communicating, and that lack these basic empathy skills, but she is a grade 2 teacher for crying out loud. I mean DUH.

OK, Vented. I did manage to end the meeting with her feeling reasonably content, with me feeling like I had hopefully given her a couple of clues about what may help her communicate. Every time she talks about it though, she lashesfolds her arms tight across her chest and says..."I can't speak English" Like there ends her responsibility.

I was nice partially because it works to get what needs to be done maybe part way done, but, as I explained to my kids who were hoping for bloodshed knowing what I can do when pushed, it is a rare situation when making someone else feel miserable, angry and incompetent actually helps. It usually only makes you feel a certain sadistic pleasure, which, come on admit it, most of us do wish for when someone else frustrates or enrages us enough. It doesn't solve anything or even open a door towards solving anything. There is enough shit in this world without actively contributing.

So I was nice.

I even managed to point out that discussing my child with me in front of the entire assembled parent body was not helpful, although I played the language card, not the fact that it is profoundly unprofessional and inappropriate. And makes me blind with rage. Seems that should have been pointed out at oh, say, .....teacher's college, and maybe at a staff meeting or two?????

She didn't apologize until nearly the end. But I have also managed to get more resources to help the little one to learn Catalan which is good, and they are going to put into place a policy about ensuring that there is always supervision for the children. Have I mentioned that this school is well over 150 years old. Seems that shouldn't still be on the to-do list. But that might sound bitter.

*sigh*

I miss homeschooling in a lot of ways.

Ah well.


I am going to have to do some painting or something to wash the angry bile taste away...maybe a long walk in the mountains at the same time.

Moving right along,

If you notice the picture at the top, and look c.l.o.s.e.l.y. that is a SEA GLASS threshold!!! Whoa, what a cool idea! I love the colour of the door as well. It is a truely lovely little spot. There are so many gorgeous little nooks and pockets here if you keep your eyes open. Here's another that I love...





I haven't quite figured out what it is about it that I love. The colour, yes, and the variety of textures, and the age, and the beauty hiding behind the decrepit and broken and dirty, but that still doesn't quite hit it exactly....though it is getting close.....


.....later.........

See these shoes? These are my favorite shoes. They are very very comfortable. I spent a lot of money on them. Do you see what the dog did to them? I am very very angry at said dog. Very.

He has not been looking repentant enough for MY liking. The kids keep asking if we re going to send him back. No. What do they take me for?
All my other shoes are pretty darned uncomfortable for the amount of walking I do. I am at a loss. This is not exactly the land of the comfortable shoe here. Maybe I can mail order them. In fact, the man and I are both pretty handy with repairs, and I am going to see if we can sew the leather back together. This would of course have been easier if we were on the boat, where we have all the sail repair tools and material, but I'm not bitter at all.

D*mn dog.

The man has to work tomorrow again. Grrrrrr.

Must. get. to. the. mountain.....

....later...........

Ok, I know that the world can get a lot worse than this, but today I have

broke the dogs dish

my heel has split and it hurts to walk

the dog ate my shoe

painted other shoes and they look like shit

mailed a package and had to go to the post office THREE times to get it done

got oil paint on a favorite shirt

changed

got tuna water all over myself

changed

got tuna oil all over myself

changed

now it's raining and I can't go to the mountains

I think I am going to go to bed....

Bitty bits chasing me.

I have a meeting today with THAT teacher. I am so looking forward to this. Not.

Yesterday she managed to leave work early five minutes early at lunchtime, but that left the kids alone and unsupervised in their classroom until ten past when I sent eldest in to get my kid. The music teacher had sent them back to their classroom, and there was no one there.

CharMING.

I have to bring up some of the other issues as well. I have to make this post short so I can make some notes about what I want to get across to this woman. It's making me feel like I have a mental build up...pressure inside.

Blech.

I have been knocking stuff off my list with a vengeance, but it all kind of sucks. I found myself in the grocery store. In my hand was a beautiful piece of watercolour paper. You know what was on it? The grocery list, and some sums for my taxes. It was like a sign that I am not using my precious time and resources well. A call to action.

Maybe tomorrow I'll be caught up enough to deal with it.

The man is in the same boat at work. Too many little bitty bits of unrelated things to do. It is so hard to keep track of them all. So unfocused.

Sour grapes and sour milk.

Grumpy crabby crumpled rumpled messy day. Too many backed up things I have to get to and that I don't have time to get to...

tinc malallit....the Catalan for being grumpy, although slightly ruder. "I have sour milk."

I have a big long interesting post about the good parts of the day that I am trying to get to, and this is all I have time to manage.

_{grumble grumble grumble...}

till later....

Futbol, the last Festa Major report. Wow.

The final post from Festa Major...and I forgot to take the camera...can you believe it, and there was so much that was so photograph worthy...

Ah well,

The afternoon concert for the kids, which I did have a camera for, but there was nothing worth photographing. It was really aimed at much younger kids, and we left after about 15 min. It was a Catalan Wiggles...and just not our speed, so then we were off to the 'futbol' match between our town and somewhere else, I don't know which town, nor where it is...but they badly outplayed us.

The youngest was very excited about this and the man and I trotted off with her, eldest declining this opportunity...we stopped at the little fira that has been going on, a miniature amusement park, you know those kinda scuzzy things they set up in the parking lot of malls...we hadn't gone to it, it was expensive and they are usually dreary, and it is not exactly a great cultural novelty....but we saw someone walking down the street with churros...here I regret not having the camera...they are deep fried white flour sprinkled with sugar...no picture...fortunately though,
Kate at Expat Mama posted about them here complete with a picture....

The first time the girls and I had these, we were all walking down a street in the Barri Gothic in BCN early on, when upon strolling past a store selling them neurons fired madly in the man's head...he remembered them! There is little that he remembers from Spain since he left when he was so young, but these...we bought some and they are as good as they seem. We find them fairly irresistible, especially with the family associations.

Off we went to the 'futbol' match, an exhibition game, it was fun, we lost, the view of the see was SPECTACULAR...again no camera, and it was probably the clearest day we have ever seen here....Ah well, we will go to another game at some point, and I will grab some snaps then.

That, my friends, was the last official event of the Festa Major...I failed to mention that it is in fact a religious event during which the saintly relics get an airing, I am frankly not sure why, but we think the Bishop may have even turned up for some of it...and we all get a four day weekend. The church bells have been ringing for a full 5 minutes now, which probably signals the official end of the event.

We, however, were not ready to let the party stop, and so we went out to dinner at the local bar...having cleaned all day, and partied for DAYS, and still facing our taxes, why not.

The little one's day was complete when they started up the Liverpool - Chelsie match. Though we didn't get to finish it. A surprising level of indifference to the game amongst the locals. I guess it just isn't the same unless it's Barca playing.

Here's a view of the moon coming up over the sea from our terrace just as the church bells stopped ringing....I like how you can see the moonlight on the water. We once worked our way through a tricky bit of navigation by sailing up the moonbeam's path.



Back to real life tomorrow...

hmmmmm

Rain, gegants and cleaning

It rained.

There was no parade. Oh well. There was however a breakfast for the gegant clubs which we went to. Unfortunately we couldn't eat, as we aren't part of the club, maybe we should join next year. In fact I think I will...there is also a choir here I wouldn't mind joining. Not that I am a brilliant singer, but then in most choirs you don't need to be.

So we went up to the local gymnasium and saw some more gegants ....unfortunately many towns hadn't brought theirs because of the rain, but here's some photos of what we saw.....

These two seem pretty funny to me, you may notice that her nipple is showing, that is pretty normal, sometimes they have both breasts open as well. I am not sure why, but going topless here is much more acceptable so it isn't as big a deal as N. Am.'s tend to think.

These two look medieval to me...

Greek Athena smaller than the Roman type? Or maybe she is a Valkyrie?

I think he is supposed to be a typical Catalan peasant...

Now you would think that after the weekend that we have been having we would have settled down and relaxed, but NO!

The house had gotten to the level of squalor where children's aid may take the kids....we sweep up regularly and all, but that deeper down dirt doesn't get touched. Until today.

We emptied the cupboards and sorted and cleaned and moved the beds and swept and mopped, the man cleaned every drawer and cupboard and nook and cranny in the kitchen...I got down on my hands and knees with a bucket and a rag and did the bathroom....really the best way I have ever found to get it COMPLETELY clean. I was disgusted by the joint, as was the man, and with this suddenly free rainy day it was the perfect moment...no one likes to do it, but I'll be damned if I am doing it alone, so we all pitched in and it is MUCH better. Perfect? NO. Much better and that's good enough for me.

It is now 4:25, I am going to make the kids cocoa and popcorn when the floor dries, then the man is going to walk the dog and I will take the children to the kids show that is on at 5:00, his choice, then there is a soccer match at 6pm, followed by dinner, put the kids to bed, and then we have to do our taxes. I know we're late, but with telephone banking we can pay them instantly and they don't really mind when the form gets there, it is just the cash. We will sleep the sleep of the virtuous as well as the partied out tonight.

Tomorrow, work and school and tons of grocery shopping...

Maybe we'll rest on Thursday night....