I insist you stay with me. I will not go through this alone.
You know that saying "belly up"? It's not really true. So far, not one dead fish has floated to the top of the tank. Today I found another one decaying at the bottom of the tank, it's color leeching out. Bloated white with one dark, staring eye.
I'm creeped out.
I begged the fish owner to please take her fish. She told me to do what I want with them. "They are old," she says. Visions of my future come sweeping over me, my sons wheeling me up to the nursing home admissions desk to check me in for my long stay. "You can do what you want with her. She's old."
Am I a pessimist? One of my sons is three. The other hasn't been born yet. Yeah, I guess I am.
I never used to be, but I think it's the fish. They are turning me into a fatalist.
Don't leave me.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
English, Southern Style
I'm from the South and I love the quirkiness of the culture, although it's certainly not without its trials and tribulations.
When I got married I was on a temporary hiatus from the country, living as a Southern expatriate out in the wooliness of various Southern California cities. I even married "one of them" and brought him back home. (Actually, HE brought ME back home, but that's another story for another day.)
He had to become accustomed to living in the South. First of all, we persuaded him to wear less jewelry so as to appear like a native. Men here do not wear necklaces or earrings typically. My mother went so far to insist that he not tell anyone he was from California which I really thought was overdoing it. However, I did talk him out of purchasing a Dallas Cowboy baseball cap while were waiting around in the Dallas airport. It's one thing for people to know he is from California, but heaven forbid people think I married a TEXAN.
We are both Realtors and doing country real estate is far different than in the city where, first of all, they have ROADS and second, the roads actually have names. Until about 4 years ago most of our roads didn't have any names. Directions generally went like this: "Go north out of town to Clete Huckabee's house and turn right at the corner. Go 1/4 mile to the big oak that marks the section corner, just past which is a burned down trailer next to a logging road. Four wheel drive necessary. Cabin at end of road just across creek bed."
My husband always makes fun of those descriptions and I even caught myself doing it the today. He asked, "Where is Hummingbird Mountain?" The easiest way I knew how was to say, "You know where the old Hallie's place was?" He said no. I persisted. "YOU KNOW... where that old store is with the cages where they kept the wild animals up on the hill. Old Hallie Ormond's place." He looked at me patiently with a long pause and finally said, "You're doing it, you know."
These days most of the roads have names, although many of them don't have signs because people steal them because they are cool or steal them because they don't like the name of the road. And even sometimes calling them roads is a stretch. But we're getting there.
There were also a few language barriers that my husband has had to overcome. I occasionally am required to act as a native translator, although he mostly has the hang of it by now.
PRONUNCIATION: Once we were in our office and a salesman was explaining to us the merits of a very expensive GPS unit we were about to buy and was telling us how we can use it to see the "layers of the soul".
My husband's eyes widened in surprise and bewilderment. "The layers of the soul?"
The salesman, very excited that Rob was getting into the groove of his pitch said, "Yes!"
I passed by, rolling my eyes and said out of the side of my mouth, "Soil, honey, he's saying soil."
I made terrible fun of that whole scene but not a week later I received my karmic payback with an embarrassing language fiasco of my own. I was spending some time with a client who had grown up in the river valley here and he was giving me the rundown of the old dead town that used to be near his property before the railroad was diverted. He said, "When I was a kid, during the war, they had a cannon factory here."
"A cannon factory?"
"Oh yes."
"They made cannons for the war here?"
"Uh, no, you know, like tomatoes and stuff. They canned them here."
Right.
NOMENCLATURE: It is very common for people here to refer to lunch as "dinner" and the evening meal as "supper". It's not that big a deal except when you also use those expressions as measures of time. In the South things are very laid back and people do not set appointments by the clock but rather by what segment of the day they will fall into. For example, "Just come by the house after dinner and I'll sign those papers." It helps to know if dinner is their midday meal or their evening meal!
CONTRADICTORY PHRASEOLOGY: My favorite one that turns Rob completely inside out is the expression "I don't care to." Here is his first encounter with this expression.
ROB: Would you like to go ahead and sign the papers now?
OLD LADY: I don't care to.
ROB: Oh, okay. We can do this later then.
OLD LADY (now agitated): Give me that pen, I told you I don't care to!
Sometimes in the South "I don't care to" means "I don't mind to" NOT "I don't want to".
***
Recently I had a horrible conversation with an attorney from California who indicated that he found Southern culture despicable (while managing to remind me during the time he was berating me that he makes $350 per hour). After getting off the phone I had to roll my eyes at the close-mindedness that will deny him the sweet, honey-butter warmth that is the South and its inhabitants. If you close yourself to it because you think Southernors are uneducated, simple folk you miss out on the magic and subtleties of their humor, generosity and fascinating outlooks on life. The true native Southernors are a dying breed, an endangered species to be cherished while they last (y'all).
When I got married I was on a temporary hiatus from the country, living as a Southern expatriate out in the wooliness of various Southern California cities. I even married "one of them" and brought him back home. (Actually, HE brought ME back home, but that's another story for another day.)
He had to become accustomed to living in the South. First of all, we persuaded him to wear less jewelry so as to appear like a native. Men here do not wear necklaces or earrings typically. My mother went so far to insist that he not tell anyone he was from California which I really thought was overdoing it. However, I did talk him out of purchasing a Dallas Cowboy baseball cap while were waiting around in the Dallas airport. It's one thing for people to know he is from California, but heaven forbid people think I married a TEXAN.
We are both Realtors and doing country real estate is far different than in the city where, first of all, they have ROADS and second, the roads actually have names. Until about 4 years ago most of our roads didn't have any names. Directions generally went like this: "Go north out of town to Clete Huckabee's house and turn right at the corner. Go 1/4 mile to the big oak that marks the section corner, just past which is a burned down trailer next to a logging road. Four wheel drive necessary. Cabin at end of road just across creek bed."
My husband always makes fun of those descriptions and I even caught myself doing it the today. He asked, "Where is Hummingbird Mountain?" The easiest way I knew how was to say, "You know where the old Hallie's place was?" He said no. I persisted. "YOU KNOW... where that old store is with the cages where they kept the wild animals up on the hill. Old Hallie Ormond's place." He looked at me patiently with a long pause and finally said, "You're doing it, you know."
These days most of the roads have names, although many of them don't have signs because people steal them because they are cool or steal them because they don't like the name of the road. And even sometimes calling them roads is a stretch. But we're getting there.
There were also a few language barriers that my husband has had to overcome. I occasionally am required to act as a native translator, although he mostly has the hang of it by now.
PRONUNCIATION: Once we were in our office and a salesman was explaining to us the merits of a very expensive GPS unit we were about to buy and was telling us how we can use it to see the "layers of the soul".
My husband's eyes widened in surprise and bewilderment. "The layers of the soul?"
The salesman, very excited that Rob was getting into the groove of his pitch said, "Yes!"
I passed by, rolling my eyes and said out of the side of my mouth, "Soil, honey, he's saying soil."
I made terrible fun of that whole scene but not a week later I received my karmic payback with an embarrassing language fiasco of my own. I was spending some time with a client who had grown up in the river valley here and he was giving me the rundown of the old dead town that used to be near his property before the railroad was diverted. He said, "When I was a kid, during the war, they had a cannon factory here."
"A cannon factory?"
"Oh yes."
"They made cannons for the war here?"
"Uh, no, you know, like tomatoes and stuff. They canned them here."
Right.
NOMENCLATURE: It is very common for people here to refer to lunch as "dinner" and the evening meal as "supper". It's not that big a deal except when you also use those expressions as measures of time. In the South things are very laid back and people do not set appointments by the clock but rather by what segment of the day they will fall into. For example, "Just come by the house after dinner and I'll sign those papers." It helps to know if dinner is their midday meal or their evening meal!
CONTRADICTORY PHRASEOLOGY: My favorite one that turns Rob completely inside out is the expression "I don't care to." Here is his first encounter with this expression.
ROB: Would you like to go ahead and sign the papers now?
OLD LADY: I don't care to.
ROB: Oh, okay. We can do this later then.
OLD LADY (now agitated): Give me that pen, I told you I don't care to!
Sometimes in the South "I don't care to" means "I don't mind to" NOT "I don't want to".
Recently I had a horrible conversation with an attorney from California who indicated that he found Southern culture despicable (while managing to remind me during the time he was berating me that he makes $350 per hour). After getting off the phone I had to roll my eyes at the close-mindedness that will deny him the sweet, honey-butter warmth that is the South and its inhabitants. If you close yourself to it because you think Southernors are uneducated, simple folk you miss out on the magic and subtleties of their humor, generosity and fascinating outlooks on life. The true native Southernors are a dying breed, an endangered species to be cherished while they last (y'all).
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