Thursday, May 26, 2005

Beacon and cheese square

My spouse as you may or may not have figured out, is Serge. That's right, we have the marriage licence to prove it. Ours has been a long if not overly stable relationship that began nearly 12 years ago. While my disposition is often described as sunny and cheerful (a ruse, I assure you) Serge is often looked on as a cynical, sarcastic and even offensive man. This is part of his eventual charm once you get to know him, though that could take a while since his particular blend of Frenglish is often cryptic and biting. I'll show you what I mean. Here is a letter he sent me when I was in California and he stayed home in 2004. (I just went and looked in his email sent file and there were plenty of biting emails tee-hee but then I fell upon this one, and it's so unique.)


Slitly concerned. Posted by Hello

If you click on the photo I took of the email ( Oh, why don't you just paste the text into the box you might be thinking, well that wouldn't work. I swear I tried two things and spent 90 seconds trying. Thus I decided to take a picture of it on the screen. Clever huh?) you will see the flourish of Serge's communication skills. Aside from the obvious questions like " what are oacks?" and in what language can we use past, present and future in the same sentence as in " If there is a bag when I walked the dog I will probably call the police" (No, I still don't know what that means either) one has to be charmed at the effort, the apt mood description and the loving touch at the end when his finger was froosen. At least I was. And yesterday when I caught up with him in the evening, I told him about Sara getting into the garden and I asked him how she could get into the garden in the first place and he said "I don't know" but not just any "I don't know" (master of nuanced language that he is, no really) no, this "I don't know" was rife with implication and I understood at once that he meant that it had happened to him too when he let the dog out and was just as perplexed as I was (and am) about it. Incidentally, one of the lettuces is dead now, I replanted it, but then a cat came through and dug it up again (in the aftermath of defecation I imagine) so now it is dried up and dead. Luckily, it looks like that's the only casualty so far.

The sun is shielded again today and a passing morning shower watered all the lush spring growth. People have some beautiful flower gardens in the neighborhood and the tulips are incredible this year, big splashy colors up and down the streets orange, yellow, red pow, pow, pow! The post is a bit late today due to my early morning class (which to my incredible delight was at the weather center for Environment Canada - can't wait for a tour!) but I have a bit of time now until I teach the kids after school.

Finally, I just love this quote from a book I'm reading (from the huge new national library here) by Edward Hoegland:

Yoga for some is primarily athletic, for some contemplative, for others therapeutic. But light takes only a second to bounce from the moon to here.

So much to think about with two sentences. One day I want to be a real writer like that.

5 comments:

r said...

Rick, I vote for Charming for this one. Oh gosh. You don't want to lose something like that.

It made me smile.

tornwordo said...

Yes it is charming, but did you see at the end there when he said, you have been away long enough so that I can miss you? He couldn't wait to get rid of me, and so he was also saying, I haven't missed you at all until now. Slightly biting, if one chose to focus on that aspect.

tornwordo said...

Is it bad form to post a comment on your own blog?

r said...

I don't think it's bad form... it just continues the conversation.

Anonymous said...

What it could be useful for?