August, Already?

 Yes, we all still live. No, I will not say anything about the shitshow that is now our country, because there are far better voices out there worth listening to, and hey, brain aneurysm survivor here. I'll let the people who don't have a clip in their brain produce the words about this shitshow. 

 I have always thought of the little clip in my brain as Clippy.  Clippy has been quietly hanging out in my brain for nearly two decades now, but yeah, after that experience one tends to get way more protective about one's stress and all that. 

I may choose to occasionally blog about happy clappy shit, but that's not because I've tuned out. It's because I want to sleep at night and stick around to watch my newest grandchild grow, and hopefully see the first two through to college graduations. 

I'm not disconnected from our national disaster at all, I am tuned in but I don't have the bandwidth to write about it. I still have that pesky day job. 

Anyway, we shall stipulate that everything is awful and nobody really knows what will happen next, and all we can do is what we can do, and find our joy and sanity however we can. 

So, other than the shitshow:

The Prince is officially walking and climbing and determined to maim himself in his adventuring. His first word was "gato" because he's obsessed with their black cat.  He's not being raised to speak only Spanish, so it's it's interesting that he went for "gato" before "cat." His dad's bilingual, but I don't think he's seriously working on teaching him Spanish, it's just naturally thrown into the word mix he's learning. He's a Florida kid, he'll speak Spanglish. 

One of my closest work friends is Puerto Rican by birth, grew up in NYC and came to FL after years in the Bronx, and when I reported that The Prince's first word was gato she was tickled. Her adult kids were raised bilingual, but the grandchildren are learning Spanish in school. She said she looked at their Spanish schoolwork and said, "Nobody talks like that." 

Which is what I've concluded about language education in our schools. In most places it simply sucks. You can get straight As and be unable to converse with anybody. I joke that I can meet The Prince at his level, we can name things like gatos and perros, and maybe foods and colors. In a year or so he will leave me behind and can teach ME. 

I took Spanish (and briefly French) in HS and college. Here's a crazy story: I "tested out" of my last semester of Spanish to finish my BA by taking a written test, and scored at "native proficiency." I CANNOT FUCKING SPEAK SPANISH. I can sometimes get the gist of the conversation around Spanish speakers, but couldn't assemble words into comprehensible sentences for a million dollars. Yet a respectable state university said I did just fine on a written multiple choice test! As I recall, it was structured like the SAT, there would be a written paragraph on a topic followed by questions, and we had to select the multiple choice answers. So yeah, I could take a written test like a native, but couldn't order lunch. That's hilarious and also awful. 

The Prince is already demonstrating his smarts, because at 14 months he understands pretending. My daughter reported that she was trying to get him to settle down to sleep, and he was jumping around like a little maniac. She ordered him to settle down to go to sleep, and he flopped on his belly and began loud FAKE SNORING!! He cracked himself up after a few seconds and resumed jumping around, but yeah. This baby is already a comedian at not quite 15 months. He also shakes his finger for "no-no" though he doesn't actually think it applies to HIM. He's already quite a kid.

The older granddaughters are starting 10th, 8th, and 5th grades. And I'm thrilled to report, "WE GOT US A KNITTER!!" WHOOP-WHOOP!!

The 5th grader reached out via text a week or so ago to ask how to calculate how much yarn to buy for a project. I found and sent a couple of online calculators to get her started. Apparently she's making an afghan for a friend, and they're planning together, while the friend will buy the yarn. So far she's the only crafter of the 3. The eldest is the writer, the Kid is the triple threat athlete, musician and math whiz, but the youngest girl, who is also academically gifted, is a yarnivore. 

Why yes, I do have a fine crop of grandchildren, and I am highly motivateed to be around to watch how they turn out.