Hold my calls

My dad was born in a small village in Portugal and moved to this country when he was a young adult.  While he has worked hard to immerse himself in the American culture, he has continued to honor his Portuguese heritage .  Let me give you an example.  Fourth of July celebrations are about as American as you can get and my dad loves to celebrate this holiday with style.  We're talking BBQ, pool party with hamburgers, hot dogs, apple pie, and tons of fireworks.  Of course, the menu also consists of grilled sardines, pork tenderloin for sandwiches, and vegetable rice that my mom has made as a side dish to go with the corn on the cob, but it's all delicious, so I don't really care how these things made it onto our menu.  I just know they're all delicious and Viva os United States!

Despite him fully embracing American culture, he still has quite a pronounced accent when he speaks.  Now, don't get me wrong, my dad is no slouch and he can read, write, and understand English very well.  That being said, I'm pretty sure he mostly thinks in Portuguese and translates what he wants to say before he says it.  Hence, why he'll say things like, "Close the light" as this is the literal translation for "turn off the light" when going from Portuguese to English.  Now, I could go on for quite a while talking about all of the words that have been bastardized to fit either language, but I won't do that here.  No.  Stop asking.  I said I won't do that here.  No.  Let me get back to my story.

So, as I was saying,...Oh my God!!!  IF I GIVE YOU A COUPLE OF EXAMPLES, WILL YOU PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY, LET ME GET BACK TO MY STORY?!?!  Ok, let me give you an example of some of the bastardized language I mean.  The word for store (like a place to shop) in Portuguese is loja (if you want to know the pronunciation of any of these words, ask Siri, because I'm sure as shit not going to teach you how to speak Portuguese in this post), but for the longest time, I thought the way to say store in Portuguese was eshtoha (pronounced eesh-TOE-ah).  If my grandmother wanted me to get her something from the refrigerator, instead of asking me to go to the frigorifico, she would tell me to "Open the frigideira".  If you're missing how this word came to be, it's because the brand of refrigerator they owned was a Frigidaire.  I had no idea that the word for cellar was not "cella", but actually adega.  Needless to say, one of the first memories I have of going to Portugal, involves no one knowing what the hell I was talking about because I was speaking in tongues and, as I mostly learned the language from my grandparents and father who grew up in small Portuguese villages, I also knew words for things like bed pan and outhouse, but not the actual word for bathroom.  Awkward.

Ok, now, where was I?  Right, my dad and his English.  He can speak fluent English, but thinks in Portuguese.  I know this to be true because there will often be times when he is talking to me in Portuguese and then will turn to my wife, who doesn't speak a word of it, and will continue talking to her, in Portuguese, for several minutes, all while she looks at him blankly and I keep repeating, "Dad.  English.  She doesn't understand you" until he realizes what he's doing and gives himself a good chuckle. While those of us who have spent a lot of time with him have no trouble understanding him, when he speaks to people who aren't used to his accent...well, let's just say it's a good thing my mom has experience working as a translator.

My dad's accent has never really been an issue for me, nor has it ever been an issue for my friends, except for one time.  When I was in college, I had a steady group of friends, from both home and school, that I would regularly talk to and hang out with.  Within this steady group of friends, there were a lot of us with similar names.  For example, my college roommate was Jen, two of my closest friends from home were named Jane and John, and there was another friend named Janna.  Now, to most people reading this, those names are all clearly distinct from one another and wouldn't be that hard to tell apart.  The tricky part is that most of these names don't have a Portuguese counterpart.  Take my name, for example.  Jennifer does not have a counterpart, so when I was growing up, my grandmother (my father's mother) could NEVER get my name right and would often call me, Jan, Janna, Jon, Jackie or some other variation thereof.   I won't fault her, for at least those were close approximations of my actual name, whereas many Portuguese people in the town where I grew up, didn't even try to get my name right and, instead, often called me by my brother's name, Chris.  I never quite knew if it was because of my name, if people couldn't tell us apart, or if I really just made such a terrible first impression that people could only remember my brother's name, but whatevs.  It made it easier to blame stuff on him, so there was that.

So, as I was saying, I had friends named, Jen, Jane, John, and Janna.  I remember walking into my parents house on a gorgeous summer afternoon, looking forward to a fun evening with friends that had yet to be planned, and having a conversation with my father.  Please keep in mind, this happened in the pre-cell phone era.  If you weren't near a phone that was attached to your house, you either needed an answering machine or you were going to miss your calls.  Now, we had an answering machine, but that was a challenge for my parents to use and they don't believe in screening their calls at all, so if they're home, they're answering the phone.  With that in mind, our conversation went something like this:
Dad (and I'm going to spell his response phonetically so that you can appreciate where I'm coming from): "Shan called".
Me (looking at him with the blankest expression I've ever managed): "What?"
Dad: "Shan called"
Me: "Who?"
Dad (growing frustrated): "Shan! Shan called!"
Me (quickly recognizing my hangover is not the reason I'm not understanding him): "Dad, one more time.  Who called for me?"
Dad (throwing his hands in the air in frustration): "Shan called!"
Me: "Dad, was it Jen, Jane, John, or Janna?"
Dad (voice rising, the little veins in his forehead starting to pop up and mumbling things in Portuguese under his breath): "Uh! Shan!  Shen! Shin!  What's the matter with you?!  Shan called!"
Me (recognizing this is not a moment to be a wise ass with my dad): "Ok.  Dad.  Was the person a boy or a girl?"
Dad: "How am I supposed to know?!?!  The phone rang.  I pick it up, said hello, they asked for you.  I said you not home.  I ask who's calling? They say tell her Shan called.  So, you come home and now I'm telling you Shan called!"
Me: "Ok.  Dad.  What did they say?"
Dad: "Oh for Cripe's sake! Give me a break, huh!  I'm not gonna answer the phone no more! If it's important, they call you back!"  At which point he storms out of the room cursing under his breath in Portuguese.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I convinced my family I needed a pager.  Yep.  You read that right.  A pager. Needless to say, I still have no idea who was trying to call me that day or what they wanted.  For all I know, it could have been Publisher's Clearinghouse calling to tell me I had won a million dollars or it could have been Discover card asking for a payment.  It's a mystery for the ages that will only be solved when someone either invents a time machine or teaches Portuguese people how to pronounce names that start with the letter J (that aren't Jesus or his immediate family members).

If you give a dyke a drill

I apologize in advance to the wonderful author, Laura Numeroff, who has supplied hours of entertainment to our daughter, for the following post.

If you give a dyke a drill...

She's going to want to build something.

She'll decide to build a garden.

She'll realize she doesn't really know what she's doing.

She'll ask to search for a DIY video.

When you let her watch the video, she'll realize she's going to need more tools.
She'll ask to go shopping.

     

Since there's a global pandemic, she'll have to shop online.  

She'll ask her wife to help her since her wife is a pro at online shopping. 

Her wife will buy some tools and a few other things for herself.

She'll pay for expedited shipping.

All that online shopping will make them hungry.

The dyke will be tired of constantly cooking because of the pandemic,

so she'll choose to make something quick.

She'll decide they want a really nice salad.

She'll go to the fridge to get ingredients.

The refrigerator will be filled with alcohol, condiments, and butter.

She'll have a few drinks.

She'll get buzzed.

She'll remember she didn't have anything to eat yet.

She'll look in the freezer to see what she has.

It's filled with novelty ice cream.

She'll eat one...or six

She'll feel a little sick.

She'll make a promise to start eating better tomorrow.

She'll decide to build a garden to grow her own food.

And, chances are, when she decides to build a garden,

she's going to want a drill.