Christmas Quotes - 2009 edition

Just a few... more may well appear.


Nolan (sitting on the couch near Mommy and Sharon): "I like hanging out with old ladies."

Ethan: "We're the shortest people in the sta- ... country."

Carolyn (after falling prey to Jason's X-Pilot skill): "I made a snow effigy of Jason and thrust two spears through it and knocked off its head."

Mommy: "Now Trevor, don't wash the dishes that are in the frying pan. Just wash the rest of the dishes."
Trevor: "Okay, I'll put all the dishes in the frying pan."

Mommy: "If you guys are going to wear wrinkled clothing, I don't want to go out in public with you."
Four kids simultaneously gasp a horrified, betrayed response: "WHAT?!"

Carolyn: "Doth thou want to do that?"
Kendra: "Dost. That should be dost." [pronounces dahst]
Derek: "Dost! HA! HA! HA!" [slaps couch arm between each laugh]
Sharon: "Isn't it supposed to be 'dost'?" [pronounces dust]
Kendra: "Derek, don't laugh like that again, it's ridiculous."
Derek: "It's ridiculous, or it makes you feel ridiculous?"

Carolyn: "Half a penny for your thoughts."
Kendra: "I don't sell my thoughts."
Carolyn: "Well, that's all right, I'll take them for free. Or if you really want to tell me that much, you can pay me."

Five Things, for my mother

Well, my darling mother tagged me in one of those "Pass around the fun till we all get dizzy and fall down" chain-blog things. I love my mother - that is, I have a proper fear of her power over Will status - so of course I'll do it. But I'll skip the tagging.

So... just look at the topic! This should be easy!

Five Things I Love:

1) Learning a new language

2) Listening to my brothers and sisters laugh at the movie we're watching

3) Driving on super snowy roads

4) Ironing

5) Eating grapefruit and artichokes (You have to do it first, to understand.)


Just the first five that popped into my head.

My Cousin and The Queen

This is just to brag on my incredible cousin Chris, who is off studying music in England, and keeps bumping into famous people like the Queen.

Veteran's Day Service

He bows to the Queen right at 4:52.

Now, if the Queen were on Facebook, I think this....umm... interaction would entitle not only Chris to be her "friend", but also accord the same privilege to the rest of us.

But regardless of Facebook, I'm awfully proud of cousin and would think the Queen honored to meet him.

Does this look familiar?

I wrote this down but I can't remember if I copied it from a book, or made it up?

In a galaxy far, far away, the French didn't have any wine. So they had to come up with something else. It turned out to be a bubbly chocolate drink.

Either way... I want some!

Twelve without trying

Sometimes small simple blessings are what you need, and make such a lovely day.

A very productive ten hours of work.

Time to get home and take a whole hour-long walk before dark!

No deer dashing in front of me in the dusk!

Two very successful phone calls.

Our sink handle got fixed. I almost don't know what to do with myself anymore, not having to use the old broken one like a lever.

Corkscrews! They actually work!

Food at home, no cooking required.

Lovely cold fall weather.

Writing a long email in French.

French café music.

No dishes to do!!

And finally, very materialistic, but none the less delightful - the shocking realization that there's plenty of money.

God is good. I don't understand everything He does, but He is good.

Help me decide?

I need some excitement in my life. Can y'all help me pick a new language to learn?

No pressure. You won't affect the serious projects of Chinese and Arabic. This one is just for fun. And there so many to pick from, it's very difficult to decide.

*Finnish
*Welsh
*Dutch
*Afrikaans
*some other African language (hmm, I don't know many by name... Swahili, Ffoldi, Bantu...?)
*Italian or Portuguese
*a native American language
*Sanskrit
*Hindi

I'll warn you that I'm leaning towards Welsh, but always open to suggestions.

Five-Sentence Stories with a Moral

Once upon a time there lived a princess in a far-away land. Because the land was so very far away, the king knew it would take long enough for his daughter's Prince Charming to show up, let alone slay the dragon, and so he suggested to the princess that she take care of the dragon herself. She liked the idea very much and immediately befriended the dragon, built a home for it and visited it every day. Finally the prince arrived and slew the dragon - seeing as how he had not been informed to proceed otherwise. The distraught princess refused to marry the man who had slain her friend, which left her father with no heir to the throne, which upon the king's death did force the far-away land to become a republic.

Moral of the story: Be careful how you use idiomatic expressions.

One way to describe Stillwater, OK

Background: Two weeks ago, Ardith and Justin and Jason and I went down to Oklahoma for our cousin Andrew's wedding.

====================================================

Stillwater is one of those cities on the Oklahoma plain that is surprisingly obscure till you get there, and then it is surprisingly full of surprises.

Travelers approaching from the north have first to cross the great Kansas prairie. It is land where there is nothing except for - nothing. The great disappearing stretches of fields, to eyes from the Northern farmlands at least, are mostly flat but not quite flat. In other words, not even remotely resembling the ideally gently rolling fields of Iowa.

Coming from the north as described above, the most frequently traveled route (otherwise known as the McDonald's-monopolized tollway) pretends it is passing west of Stillwater, before turning sharply due east, straight into town.

The western boundary of Stillwater is marked by the Blood Lake. It is a blue lake so tinted with red that it would almost look purple, if it did. Some say it took its name from the sacrifices made to the dragon of the lake. Others assert that this is but an old tale begun by the fantasy-minded and slightly inventive brother of certain travelers. These asserters declare that the red dirt of the Oklahoma plains is what gives the lake its reddish hue. And yet it must be asked how the Oklahoma dirt became red in the first place, a question which quite frankly suggests yet bloodier histories for Oklahoma.

On the east, Stillwater is bounded by a vegetable delivery point. After nightfall, the vegetables delivered must be particularly dried and of a particularly grassy or weedy origin. It is advisable not to use vegetable delivery points as places in which to turn around after dark, if you are a traveler fortunate enough to drive too far through town.

To the south of Stillwater lie nameless and unexplored lands. Rumor has it this area contains a terrible fatal triangle, within whose inexactly determined points and angles, all travelers disappear forever - hence none dare name or explore it. Rumor also has it, much less interestingly, that certain travelers from the north may just not yet have ventured south of town, hence the namelessness and inexploration.

In the town of Stillwater itself, there is a system of roads with intriguing names such as "Hall of Fame", "Duck Street" - a particularly great favorite, and most especially, the notorious "Mac------ Road". It is notorious for disappearing, especially by the magic of one fine cousin of certain travelers. By merely speaking its name within a list of directions, he has the power to wipe it off the face of the map. The counter-spell, naturally, being Google Maps.

So much for Stillwater and its surroundings. Now to see what adventures might befall our fine fair travelers, in this fine fair town... or perhaps more to the point, now to see if the fine fair traveler narrating their story can ever get around to finishing the story.

Back to writing

Necessity may well be the mother of re-inventing the wheel. To save two particular eyes from excessive exposure to computer screens while composing the next blog post (not this one), I am back to the good old-fashioned method of composition. It's nearly been forgotten in our computer age. It's called writing. You know, manual writing. Using your hand to move a pen across paper.

Also, I hate to sound anti-technology, but I can't help wondering if writers that had to write instead of type were better writers for it. No copy, paste, insert, backspace. Sure, drafts can be scribbled out on paper; but then, what if your one sheet of paper is your ONE SHOT? Then you'd better get it right the first time - either know exactly how you're going to do it, or have a brilliant brain that assembles everything as you go.

Think Outside the Swingset Assembly Box

I just want to say that it's a great honor to be a part of my family. What other family (most credit to my dad) has such splendid ideas as this:

1) Build a swingset with utility poles!
2) Build an enormous nifty scaffold and winching system to haul up each utility pole!

Here is the story of the first pole, all credit to my darling mother:

The Great Iowa Utility Pole Adventure

I'm sure everyone's seen it already on Mommy's blog, but I am putting it on my sidebar so it can be found and enjoyed later.)

What is France?

I wonder at what age children become aware of the existence of other countries?

Occurred to me when, while looking at a sketch of Paris, I was joined by a three-year-old. I told him it was a picture of France, which is another country. I'm pretty sure he did not entirely grasp the concept.

"Fuzzy" studies indeed!

Much as I hate to ever pick on people, I really think this outrage calls for a post.

It was a great weekend with Ardith and some of her LeTourneau pals - and Justin, of course. However, most of them had majored in a nice hard B.S., even my little brother. And we all know - at least, Mr. Vengeful Cynic knows - that everything besides a B.S. is "fuzzy".

Well, I beg to differ. Some of the humanities may be fuzzy, but foreign languages definitely are not. I mean to prove they should be ranked along with math and science. In fact, I'm really shocked that Spanish or Russian or Chinese (especially Chinese...) would not be a B.S.

But plunging into that really calls for a good night's sleep.

Some 1700 miles later...

... back home.

Seeing as it's 8:30 PM, let's leave any detailed trip accounts for the future, except for the following couple points which I would like to make:

1) South Carolina wins the award for Most Unnavigable State. Particularly since their street names - when posted - are frequently found in small letters on a little post at the opposite side of the six-lane road from you.

2) It's great fun to have friends with whom everyday chatting can be defined as "discussing theological, hermenutical, or philosophical issues".

The tale....

Nobody has to read this... you'll probably be bored to tears.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

It all begins on a Sunday drive home from church, the third time passing a particularly pungent piece of roadkill. Sharon comments to Stacey, "You know, skunks don't really smell that bad. They smell kind of sweet, actually."

Stacey just rolls her eyes and laughs and mentally notes reason #53 on her list 'Why my housemate is Weird.'

*~*~*

One peaceful June evening, when Sharon was getting ready for bed and Stacey was out taking in the evening air...

Sharon's windows happen to look out over the south lawn, and she happened to look out them. And she stopped to watch something galumphing like a little black cheetah along the lawn. It was a decent distance from the house and definitely traveling parallel to it, but it also had definite white blurs on it... Sharon felt it would be prudent to go out and warn Stacey.

Goes out, looks around ...

"What are you looking for, Sharon?"

"Well, I thought I saw a skunk..."

Stacey suddenly grabs Sharon and yanks her toward the door. "Aaauugh! It's running right at us!"

Once safely inside the screen door, they peer out to see nothing... Stacey is kind of bummed, as she wanted to get a picture, and soon afterward goes scouting out with her camera. Sharon is kind of bummed, as the close brush with adventure has so rapidly passed; but she doesn't feel any personal need for documentary footage. The photographer successfully gets a couple distant shots of something skunky skulking in the woods near their back porch.

*~*~*

Days go by. There is little sign of a skunk, except for one late-night sighting under a visitor's car. Sharon unluckily comments that she is curious to know what it feels like to get sprayed, and immediately gets a good chewing out for "wanting to get sprayed". A conclusion that deeply pains her linguistic sensitivities, as that is not what she said at all.

*~*~*

It's Sunday again. The girls are coming home from church, walking along the chicken coop to their stoop and door at the back. As they round the corner, Sharon asks Stacey something, and starts getting annoyed when Stacey comes up with an out-of-the-blue, totally irrelevant response. Until it suddenly registers as very extremely relevant.

"A skunk and two babies just went under our porch!"

Keep those Sunday heels from clomping, quietly unlock the door and whisk it open - and tumble inside gasping and laughing from panic! That's what you should do when you have to walk right over skunks.

Well, since having skunks under the porch was looking extremely impractical for everyday exits and entrances, Sharon immediately hunted for a likely window - the one farthest from the door, of course, perfect - and whipped out the screen to create an instant escape route.

Between smart people who used the window, and hapless guests or disinclined individuals who didn't, no one managed to get sprayed.

*~*~*

The next morning... Sharon wakes up to the beautiful 5 a.m. dimness, fresh morning air breezing through her windows. She turns off the alarm, stands up to stretch, ... stands ... stands ... oh my goodness. She's not moving. Did she stop breathing? Or is she breathing harder? Something's terribly wrong.

Come to think of it, maybe it's that thick musky odor floating in through the window...

There are really no words to describe such a scent. Even if there were, who would really want to think of them? You would try not to breathe it, then find yourself inhaling deeply as you tried to verify that it really wasn't that bad and wouldn't make you keel over and die... Then there was the problem of where exactly it was coming from, and how to effectively block any further vapors - besides all the ones undoubtedly seeping through the walls. After scouting out the hall and the rest of the house, Sharon finally concluded that the skunk must have sprayed directly outside her bedroom windows. The only thing she could really do was close her windows to keep more out, close her door to keep it out of the rest of the house, and get busy with fans and Glade.

She was terribly scared that the Smell had stuck to her (and of all the friends and co-workers she might scare off), as she kept hitting unnerving pockets of it here and there. ... even in her car on the way to work. (To get to her car, she definitely exited by way of the window... wild spiders could not have chased her to the door.) But it seemed to vaporize away, except she had never tried so hard to not open her purse or to not even look at it, all day.

*~*~*

At lunchtime, after calls to the landlady and several discussions with the Sherriff's office, she happened upon a helpful guy from the nearest Critter Control, an hour away.

"Do you handle skunks?" (biting her lip for the "anything, but not skunks" reply)

"Well - I try not to... " (deep disappointment gushes up!)

"... I try to just trap them, not actually handle them." (insert much-needed laughter)

It was going to run $170 just for a visit, but Mr. C.C. asked if the smell was really bad. Well yes, it was really pretty awful. Well, he said, skunks don't like the smell themselves, so more than likely if the mom sprayed right near her own home, she would move the babies somewhere else.

Here was some encouraging news! Except Sharon still felt remarkably disinclined to go home. But there are things in life that must be faced, even skunky rooms.

*~*~*

She went home to a nearly de-scented house - inexplicably but miraculously. Stacey seemed to be alive and well. Sharon found she could even sit at her computer - in her room - and work. It was like waking up from a coma to a whole new, sunshiny world.

*~*~*

Moving on did take time. There were still whiffs of skunk around the porch, around the corner of the house. There were also far too many skunk jokes floating around. People wondering what skunk meat tasted like, or asking Sharon if that skunk photo was one of her friends, or subjecting her to interchanges like the following one online:

Sharon: (by 8:30 PM) I'm going to bed at 9:30!
Friend: (by 9:15) Aww, don't you want to go outside and chase some skunks?
Sharon: (at 9:38) There will be NO skunk jokes! Understood??
Friend: (at 9:41) Young lady, it's 9:41. Shouldn't you be in bed?

*~*~*

It's a weekday afternoon. Sharon is driving home from work. She passes some roadkill.

She sniffs, groans, gags, and turns away.

(Turns to the road, not off it, mother.)

The scent of a good tale...

Ha ha ha! Bet you didn't know I was into puns. Especially once you know that this tale will be about skunks.

Well, I'm not into puns, just threw that one up to laugh at.

So do you want to hear my skunk story? The w-h-o-l-e story? Nobody's heard the whole story yet. (Nope, it doesn't end with "Sharon gets sprayed!", stop getting so excited.)

What is a Linguistic Detective?

A Linguistic Detective is a fancy name I just made up for a Translator.

Because, you see, translation is not at all about how much of the mystery you know. It's about how good you are at finding clues and using them to solve the mystery.

That is... it's not about how much vocabulary you know. It's about figuring out ways to find the the vocabulary you need, and especially, it's about making sure the vocabulary is the right lingo for whatever topic you're translating - so that you solve the mystery correctly.

Well, enough of that, just wanted you to know I'm having heaps of fun!

I hate spring

I don't know if I can sleep tonight... In the past 24 hours, I have thrown (literally, with my bare hands) 4 spiders off the premises - at least, off the indoors premises.

There are all kinds of spiders in the world of languages ---

The French spider is quite elegantly long-legged:

araignée (ah-re-nyay)

The German spider is as close as you can get to a cute little round one:

Spinne (shpin-nuh)

And the Spanish spider just sounds like a mean attack spider:

araña (ah-rah-nyuh)

I do hope that none of those spontaneous impressions came across as linguistically discriminatory.

The long winding road to Translation

Well well well, this poor blog has been neglected long enough.

In the interest of pointing my blog back toward its name, I thought I would share with you how my career in translation has taken off clear into space.

Actually, in all seriousness, I would like to encourage anyone out there who picked up an extra language or two, and wants to use it, just not necessarily as a UN interpreter or a Spanish teacher. Knowing a foreign language is one of those soft fuzzy skills that, once people find out you have it, they say, "You speak -----? That's cool!" And then they seem to forget about it. But don't worry, they haven't forgotten. You just have to Wait.

For the longest time at DePuy, there was No Hint of anyone wanting anything concerning French, German, Spanish.

One day, I was having lunch with some friends at work. We happened to start discussing our educational backgrounds, and they found out my degree was in foreign languages.

Another seven or eight months... at least... are you asking me to actually remember spans of time between momentous events?

One of those lunch friends called me up to ask me to translate "or" into French, for a document. That was short and sweet.

Another five-ish months...

The friend called me up again to see if I would be interested in helping translate some material for a company website into French? Having it reviewed afterward by an overseas contact fluent in French, of course.

Another couple months...

Before we actually got that that project started, the friend asked if I would translate a one-page email announcement going out to several company sites around the world?

The overseas contact liked my work! Of course, the translation needed a little tweaking.

Now starting on the website material, I feel it's safe to say: Sometimes you just have to wait. And keep your eyes open for what God will suddenly drop smack in your road!

Long Blonde Life, from 3 May 2009

Don't try this at home: show your younger sister how to use the headlights on the new car in broad daylight - or you may forget, leave them on, and you know what'll happen when she tries to start the car the next day, which happens to be Sunday, when she needs to drive herself to church...

On the other hand, this is a great way to do a clean re-charge of the car battery.

Biggest announcement of all time!!!

My family hardly ever calls me. If they do, it is because:

1) They have big plans for me (to accomplish for them)
2) They have super-big news to share

So when Daddy called to see if I was free on Saturday, I knew I'd be doing something... yes! Pick up Jason's new car which just happened to be in Indiana!

When Ardith called me last night... first I didn't recognize the area code, because people from Cedar Rapids just never call me. When she told me who she was, I was ticked pink and immediately keyed up for something - whatever could be momentous enough to call me for...

Pretty much just the most radical news ever for the Hoyt Family! The first child is engaged!