A polylingual trio at B & N

I'm always intrigued and attentive to foreign languages spoken in the workplace, particularly within a book store like Barnes & Noble. Saturday night was an enlightening interaction with a trio of middle aged women speaking in a tongue that sounded like Arabic of Turkish (have no idea what the language sounds like in Turkey, just guessing). I asked in a jocund, satiric sentence: "Do you ladies understand what you're saying to each other?"

They were amused and when on to tell me "Hebrew". Naturally, a further query ensued: "Did you live in Israel?" All had, some years ago. As you can deduce, they all spoke English, but it did not stop there. One woman was from Morocco and spoke Spanish, French, and Arabic, too. Another, born close to France, spoke, you guessed it, French, Spanish, a smattering of Arabic and probably a few others. She introduced me to her erudite and engaging husband, Maurice, who provided me with a few lessons on French ... "ans" or years is pronounce "ohn" with a long "o" rather than "ahn" with a more "a" sound. It was a delight to try to understand the couple when they spoke to one another. He greet me with a phrase "je dois souvien" ... "Enchantez-vous". What I could learn if I spent some time in French immersion.

Well, that's about it kiddo (straight "o" sound). Had to get that experience out before it faded in the neuronal webbing of my depleting brain cells. Oh, one other thing. Margaret Beard's sermon on Sunday, 11.16.08 was about gardens. She started with a story to the kids, "The Secret Garden", then went on to use the metaphor of a growing a vegetable garden to one of a spiritual garden amongst the congregation. Several metaphors that stood out for me were:


"We are the plants and the gardeners in our spirit garden."

and

"Our sprinkler system (or watering cans) must reach out."


There was a work day at the church on Saturday a.m. and we dug a drainage ditch for water to flow next to the steps to the kitchen, and placed rocks (we had a huge pile of them in the corner of the church parking lot) to hold back the soil. The plan is now to create a "rockery" where herbal plants can reside and send out their soil-holding roots. I brought Dancer with me and she had a ball. Took the plastic cord that I now use to restrain her wandering and she continued finding places to wrap it around becoming trip and then looking pitiful. One hilarious encounter involved a woman and her two black (totally) dogs. On either side of a fence it appeared that Dancer wanted to play; however, once inside the fence, the dogs chased her and she ran right back to the fence and literally dove under the fence (a narrow opening, but this dog can really flatten out her body). Back on Kemp Street, Lexi and Dancer bared their teeth at each other -- Mom said that it was to establish dominance -- and I had to take my dog back to the car. It was an exciting day for her. She rarely gets to ride in the car but she's getting used to it.

Adieu ma jeune fille merveilleuse (sic), bonne chance et je t'aime beaucoup.
ton pere