Twin Talk

Animal Sounds

Sorry about the food in the mouth and the drool on the chin. This is Zeke hanging out with Dad at 7 AM on Saturday morning. This is what we do for fun.

Ezra and Zadie: Pioneer Chic

Karine has been bugging me to release this somewhat embarrassing little nugget to the general public. Here it is:

I generally mispronounce the word chic. I pronounce it like you would the word for a small chicken. Whatever. I don't think it's a sign of illiteracy or poor breeding or anything. It's a pretty silly word to begin with. French.

I spend a lot of time describing objects for my new job. Like this bar stool, here. I wrote the description. I try to reduce an object to its essential essence. And then name that essence in celebration so that someone somewhere might want to buy it. I did this with some ping-pong balls last week.

When we were in the hospital with the twins, someone asked, as we knew they would, how we came up with the names Ezra and Zadie. I boiled the names down to their essential essence right quick. They're pioneer chic, I said. Except I mispronounced chic.

Public Service Announcement

We had a post up earlier today that had a picture of the two of us wearing helmets. Then all hell broke lose. We had to take the post down. This evening we received a comment from our dear friends Tommy and Casey:

What happened to the helmets? I've been working on a witty comment all day.

Sorry Casey,

We took the helmet post down because that post was attacked by a left wing whack-job. We're going to moderate our comments from now on to prevent jerk faces from using our blog as a platform for propaganda.

I was into it for a while. But we're not playing anymore.

We still welcome comments from friends old and new. But FYI, comments on the following subjects will not be posted:

-the coup
-the thing that was not a coup
-which people someone thinks Jesus wants to suffer
-how fat I am
-comments containing the following phrases:
"ethically retarded"
"capitalist pigs"
"corrupt duopoly"
"stupefied and propaganda-addled North Americanos"

And finally, if you feel the need to state explicitly that you are not wishing us death, your comment will probably not be posted.

Thanks!

Tom, Karine, Zeke, and Ruby

PS


By the by:

The offending poster I declare a left wing whack-job not because he / she supports the Zelaya government. There is nothing wacky about that. Its a perfectly legitimate point of view, one held by the US president I helped vote into office. Some of my colleagues and students support Zelaya. My next door neighbor, nicest guy you'd ever want to meet, supports Zelaya. No, the offending poster is a whack job because he / she posted separate entries under different names. Some of the names were female and some of them were male. That's just plain weird.

Also, because the offending poster believes that his or her political perspective affords him or her the right to spew vile and hateful language at other human beings.

Hey! We're on TV!

Back to the grill

My personal relationship with the word grill spans over 25 years. It is a conceptual-lexical understanding developed on two continents. Maybe three. Many of the experiences which shaped my understanding of the word on the North American continent steered me in the direction of fairly pedestrian usages. The grill is the thing that my dad uses to cook steaks. The grill between the bug spattered headlights of the brown Buick is ugly, like the rest of the car.

An event occurred in Lucerne, Switzerland in the early 1990’s which expanded my understanding of the word. The particular direction of denotative expansion is demonstrably germane to the current whirlwind of controversy whipping around my usage of the word grill in the “Dmitri Shostakovich: Part Time Fireman” piece.

Grill Tease

The problem word is grill. Or rather, its usage in yesterday’s post, “Dmitri Shostakovich: Part-time Fireman.” I started thinking yesterday afternoon, while watering the lawn in the fading sunlight, about yesterday’s problematic usage of the word grill. I think somebody somewhere should be saying to themselves: when you water the lawn in the fading afternoon sunlight you should think about watering the lawn in the fading afternoon sunlight. Well, I was happy to be there with the sun dipping beneath the concrete wall casting long shadows from the back of the yard to the front. I am always happy to be there in the late afternoon sun standing in my underwear using my thumb to focus the spray of water from thirsty plant to thirsty plant. I said to myself, oh, this is nice. Then I thought about my problematic usage of the word grill and decided I might as well say something about David Foster Wallace.

Was grill the most problematic word from yesterday’s potentially multi-problematic post? There are certainly other candidates. Fecund. Not a big fan of that word. I tossed it in there on a whim and dared myself to leave it in. The word means productive, but it communicates more essentially, I believe, a writer’s earnest desire to be perceived as smart, lexically advanced, a real wordsmith. If I were a casual reader of “Dmitri Shostakovich: Part-time Fireman” instead of the author I would have jumped ship at fecund. For real.

What exactly is a high quality Russian, by the by? How does one differentiate between a high quality Russian and a Russian of, say, medium quality? If a Russian is of unquestionably high quality, who is it who wouldn’t dare question the quality of the Russian, and who is qualified to qualify this Russian’s quality as unquestionably high? It would have to be a real connoisseur of Russians. And what the hell is that? Does it even exist? Probably not.

Before I get to the nitty-gritty about the word grill as used or abused in yesterday’s post, let me first say a few words about David Foster Wallace.

Somebody somewhere said that Wallace was a once in a century talent. We’ve had ourselves a country now for two centuries and change, which means as a nation we’ve only had two of these guys. Mark Twain, I’m guessing, would be the handicapper’s favorite for our first century’s once a century. That puts David Foster Wallace in some heavy duty company. And the rest: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ernest Hemmingway, E.B White, Don DeLillo, Toni Morrison, -- all of them great writers, smart, lexically adventurous wordsmiths. Well, they’re nice, but they aren’t Mark Twain. And they are not David Foster Wallace.

Holy armpits! That’s a very serious endorsement from someone somewhere. What do I think? I’m 230 pages into my first David Foster Wallace experience, Infinite Jest. I think somebody somewhere might be right.

Meatspace and Transhumanism

I had the distinct pleasure of reading the following sentence today:

“Only the most outrageous West Coast transhumanists actually believe they can cast off the mortal realm of this meatspace for the immortal realm of the virtual.”

Meatspace. Transhumanist.

I found these beauties buried in a long article on health care reform in Harper’s. You can read the sentence in context here: Sick in the Head. I would like to thank the author, Luke Mitchell, for choosing these words. I think they are awesome and I am going to try to use them each at least once a day.

Meatspace: Space that contains actual physically tangible objects. The opposite of cyberspace.

“It was so nice to be in Omaha at Christmastime. It was great to see all my old friends in meatspace once again.”

“I love keeping in touch on Facebook, but its great to hangout in meatspace too. Like at a restaurant or something."

Transhumanist: You can find an actual definition here. I’m going to use this one as an epithet. Something to call twenty-first century techno-hippies. Think patchouli, iPods, yoga, organic gardening, Apple laptops, meditation, and positive thinking. These people are transhumanists.

“Um, Is Rachel going to go to the Lamb of God concert with us? Their new album, Wrath, comes out on February 24th. Its gonna be sweet.”

“No, she’s too much of a transhumanist for that. She’s going to, like, be in her garden, thinking about her organic tomatoes. Then she’s going to blog about it.”

“Transhumanists are so lame. I never see her in meatspace any more. Only on, like, Skype.”

Holiday Mustache, Communication Problems

I started growing my second annual holiday mustache about two weeks ago. Karine says that she doesn't like it, but I am almost positive that she really finds it wildly attractive. I think it is one of her favorite things about the holidays: scented candles, Celine Dion Christmas songs, and my mustache. I wanted to surprise Karine by having it professionally trimmed while she was at her baby shower last night. This is where I ran into a few problems with communication.

Our Spanish is really getting quite good. I was not worried at all about going to the mall and getting a shave and a haircut at Donald's Barber Shop. Donald's is a great place. All the barbers there have awesome haircuts and mustaches. They are impeccably coiffed. I think maybe the first thing they do every morning is give each other haircuts and mustache trims.

Honduras is a country the takes mustaches very, very seriously. So being a mustache trimmer in Honduras is sort of a high pressure job. The fantastic mustache to the left belongs to current Honduran President Mel Zelaya. Imagine what would happen to the Honduran economy of it were improperly trimmed. Mistakes like that rarely happen. Barbers here handle each mustache with care. I knew I was in good hands, so after my barber finished with my haircut I was ready for the shave and trim. All I had to do was ask.

I remembered that the verb for shave is afeitarse. I knew I had to say something like "¿Le afeitado..." But for some strange reason I blanked on the Spanish word for face. I scrambled as the barber started to clean up and get ready for his next customer. Luckily, I remembered the word for a white faced monkey: mono cara blanca. I had it! All I had to do was plug the word for face into my sentence.

I guess I put the sentence together a little to quickly because what came out of my mouth was this: "¿Le afeitado mi mono?" Mono is not the word for face. It is the word for monkey. I had politely asked my barber to shave my monkey. He didn't miss a beat. He leaned the chair back and we were off.

It was sitting in this position, with a straight razor at my throat, that I realized my mistake. Hey, I think I just asked this guy to shave my monkey... Yup, I did. What do I do now? Obviously, everyone in this barber shop just heard me ask this guy to shave my monkey. Should I say something like, "Hey, I realize that a second ago I asked you to shave my monkey...yeah, I really meant face...yeah, that was pretty funny..." I decided not to dig myself any deeper into the miscommunication hole. I just sat there like a dumb gringo as he meticulously sculpted my mustache. I paid my seven bucks when he was finished and went on my way.

I am very,very happy with what the barber did to my mustache. Karine tells me to "shave that disgusting thing off" every time I mention it. But I am almost positive that that it just her way of showing support for the holiday mustache.

Good Job, Anderson Cooper

Anderson and the team at CNN did a bang up job covering the presidential election.

We just wanted to say that.

ichat

iDo. iChat. withMyFriendsInMinnesota!

It took us over a year to figure out, but it turns out that there's yet another advantage to owning a Mac. I believe that all newer macbooks come with a built in video camera. Not too useful unless you use it for chatting with people online. A little over a week ago, we realized that there's this program called iChat and we can do live video chatting (and also voice and text) with any other mac users without downloading any special programs! (You don't even need to pay for the .mac subscription)

I was able to curl up with my Saturday morning coffee and watch my friends Ann and Megan enjoy their coffee and catch up about our weeks. No weird delays, no charge, and we could see each other. Pretty cool.

So, this is a call to any of our friends and family back home. If you have an AIM (The AOL instant messaging service) account, I believe this is compatible with ichat as well. This may be really old news to those people who have been video chatting and using all those programs for years, but it's kind of a new and exciting thing to me. (I'm sometimes a little slow to catch on to those technological advancements) If you'd like to try out the video chat with us sometime, drop us a note in the comments and we'll email you to get it all hooked up!

Tom accidently eats cow stomach.

We were trapped in Chicago. We had six hours to kill after checking our bags and we decided to return to the city for a little Polish sight seeing. Chicago is a great city for Polish-Americans. We took the train to the Polish Museum of America. There was a very friendly man working there and it had a nice little gift shop. We got a cute new Christmas ornament!


After that we went to an adorable little Polish restaurant in the neighborhood. We walked in and everyone was speaking Polish. They had Polish newspapers on the counter. It was really neat. The menu was even in Polish. I had Pierogis, a traditional Slavic dumpling dish. Tom ordered something called flaczki. We ate our meal while we listened to the locals converse in Polish. After we paid the bill the waitress informed us that flaczki is a Polish delicacy: cow stomach soup. Yummy!

How many people does it take...

We've been out and about a lot lately. We're nailing down the final details on moving into our house. Last night, we were involved in an 11 person "meeting". This meeting involved, us, the former tenant, his assistant who also used to live in the house, our landlord in Costa Rica, the acting landlord, (who happens to be the secretary to Dole's general manager), the movers that the former tenant hired, our real estate agent, our real estate agent's friend who is a painter, and the president of the largest bank in Honduras.

Basically, everybody owed everybody money -k and t owe the 1st month rent, when they pay, the landlord can reimburse the former tenant, who can then pay his movers to get the furniture out, and pay his former secretary so that she can get out of the sketchy area she is currently living in. Unfortunately, our money is still tied up in our US bank account and in US dollars. Since all these people need money to pay people now, we needed to locate the former tenant's aunt- who just happens to be the president of the largest bank in Honduras. So we all piled in the car and went to the bank after business hours. After greeting her personal bodyguard on the way in we were escorted to her office by armed guards. She graciously agreed to honor our checks and cash them for the people who needed our money. We will be opening a bank account there in the next few days.

In addition, we asked that the house get a fresh coat of paint before we move in. This of course involves several more mini-meetings. We are happy to know that our house will now receive a fresh coat of pretty pink paint. (The pictures from the previous entry show a washed out color. The house was actually painted blue just last summer, but they used cheap Mexican paint. It all washed off during rainy season, leaving a stonewashed look.) We voted for the more expensive Sherwin Williams brand this time. It will be pink and white for years!

When all was said and done, I think that everyone got what they needed. We'll get the keys to our place on Saturday, but our stuff is still trying to break out of customs. Hopefully by the middle of next week, it will be on it's way to our house!

Long entry- kind of confusing- but really, we're learning that the old "how many people does it take to screw in a lightbulb" deal is right on. To get things done here, plan on twice as much time as you would expect, and 4 times as many people!

Oh- we got a refrigerator and stove (only 2 years old) and a washer and dryer! I feel like I'm really moving up in the world! (This transaction was made between us and the former tenant. It only involved 6 people)

Lip pointing and other gestures

Here in Honduras, there are a few ways you can communicate without speaking.
While shopping at the supermarket last night, Tom was carrying his bag past the armed supermarket guard, and he said a few words to Tom. Not sure what he said, Tom asked him to clarify. The guard simply pointed his lips towards the bag. Turns out the guard just wanted to check the bag and receipt on the way out. He didn't even need to lift his hand to point (which supposedly can be considered rude). Instead, he just pointed his lips in the direction of the bag. We've heard rumors that lip pointing was prevalent here, but this was our first encounter with it. How exciting!

Another favorite communication trick is the Honduran Hand Gesture. When executed properly, one appears to be screwing in an imaginary fat lightbulb. The hand twists while the fingers are fanned down and inward. This "handy" gesture can say so many things. A person with his mouth full of a tasty baleada might use his hand to say "What are you doing?" "Where are you going?" "What do you mean?- clarify!" "What do you want?" "Why are you doing that?" and countless other phrases!


Tom is pictured here lip pointing towards a small package of rez cubes- we think this is the same thing as beef bullion. At least, that's what we decided to use it for!

On having a maid...

We had our first day of school today. That was great- more about our school days in a different entry.
But today a funny thing happened. Every day, while we're at work, a maid comes into our guesthouse and washes our coffeepot and any little dishes we've left in the sink, straightens things up around the house, neatly arranges pillows on our couch, makes our beds, and organizes our food area. She also cleans the bathroom and brings fresh towels every day. Today, I had to run home after school to pick up a checkbook. To my dismay, I noticed that our toilet was backed up in an unpleasant way and smelled gross. Since I only had a couple minutes, I couldn't do anything about it and left the room quickly and went back to my classroom.


Upon arriving home tonight, we had new sheets on the bed, our dishes were again washed, fresh towels hanging in the bathroom, and everything looked a little sparkly. The toilet had been unclogged and was not smelly anymore.

After dinner tonight, Tom and I were reviewing our latest vocabulary words. We've written them in Spanish on a post-it note on our refrigerator. The words are el jabon (the soap) and el olor (the smell). These words had come up when I was looking for laundry detergent over the weekend, and the smell when our security guard asked us to microwave his yummy smelling soup for him.


It was only when we noticed that we have 3 kinds of dish soap and 5 bars of soap (courtesy of our maid) in the bathroom that it occurred to us that perhaps our maid thought we were leaving her a note about our problems in our best gringo spanish. "The soap!" "The smell!" She took care of both of them for us!



Oh- Gringos in Hondo!