Curried Advil Soup/Since Rufus has been so loving today, I thought I would post a more flattering shot. (In honest-speak, that translates to "a blurry shot in which his stomach is not featured too heavily".)
What a beautiful day in Toronto! It is sunny but not too hot (I can't stand the hot weather -- Vancouver and England are more my scene because I adore the rain) and the frantic Torontonians seem to be moving at a slower pace than usual today. I also ACTUALLY went to the gym today for the first time since 1982. (That might be a slight exaggeration -- I think it was some time in June.) Based on my impressive athletic diligence, the cost of the membership generally averages out to about $120.00 per visit. Excellent. Or should I say..."Ausgezeichnet." Did I spell that right? I hope so. It's the only German word I know, so I'm parading it around recklessly. One of my friends just moved to Berlin, so I sent him an "Ausgezeichnet" as well. Wait! I also know "Hauptbahnhof" and...um..."Eins".
I used to speak French, Spanish and Italian (I even TAUGHT Italian at one point) and now I barely speak English. The other three languages have just evaporated from my brain. It's very depressing. I'm hoping that all the Stargatonians (that's a new one!) from other countries will send me the odd SIMPLE comment in another language so that M. and I can waste more time translating them and learning a little something in the process.
One of my goals in life is to speak four languages well enough to have a conversation in that language with someone over the age of three. My mother lives in Italy and during one of my visits (before I took Italian lessons) this tiny little boy came up to me and started speaking. I couldn't understand a word he said and it actually made me feel like this toddler was cooler and smarter than I was...which was most likely true, but the point is: I want to be able to travel and communicate with people properly, not to feel like I am terrified of butchering their language. Living in Montreal for three years really helped with my French, but it's still not great and I get very shy about actually using it.
Thanks again for all the comments. I just have to say that the picture of the other orange and white catzilla "living in New York" IS Rufus. Now it's all coming together: He eats a generous portion of his weight control, so-pricey-it-must-be-made-of-gold cat food at The Loft, makes sure I've gone to sleep, sneaks out with his silent declawed paws, hops on the red eye flight to New York, eats another several bowls of food at his alternate American home, drags his over-stuffed cat body onto another flight home, tiptoes back in and ends up on my bed where I last saw him. As he so frequently does, he gives me an unmotivated bite (to distract me from his mysterious absence during the night and from the dark furry circles under his eyes) and begs for food. And so the cycle continues. Just think...all I had to do to catch him red-pawed was start a blog!
Um...I'm an ulcer rebel, by the way. I had two real coffees today and one decaf. And yesterday I had a beer. I'm doing brilliantly. I might as well go home and make a curried Advil soup. The thing is...it's still an improvement! That's not a very good sign, is it...
k.
posted by katehewlett at 5:23 PM
44 Comments:
Das Bild von Rufus ist echt süß! Wie alle anderen Stargate Fans freu ich mich auch auf 'McKay and Mrs. Miller'. Viele Grüße aus dem verregneten Deutschland!
Awww, look at how cute he is. Honestly, there aren't many things that are better than a fluffy, overweight cat purring loudly next to you. Especially when you don't have anything to do except curl up, drink coffee and watch the rain:)
And I know how you feel about languages. I've never been very good at them, and I've envied people who can, not only learn many languages, but *remember* them, which is key. I took Spanish all through high school and all I've got left is a couple of throw away sentences that, more often than not, have an English word that's slipped in there too. *sigh*
Well, good luck on the gym thing (I never really got the hang of that), and the ulcer thing (cause that is not at all of the good), and I hope you enjoy the rest of your beautiful Torontonian day.
I have managed, in my short 21 years of life, to learn and forget no less than 3 languages (hebrew, yiddish, and the requisite Canadian french). Now all I can do is count and ask for the bathroom (and even that I don't do with any grammatical correctness). After 8 years of hebrew immersion classes, I forgot it all within a year. I have a friend taking one hebrew class at York who knew more than me by the end of the first week. You on the other hand are probably exagerating and speak fairly well if not fluently.
I knew it had to be something like that. No wonder he doesn't answer to "King"; I'll try Rufus and see where I get with him.
I don't speak English, I speak Southern. Think Jeff Foxworthy meets Brett Butler (comedian, not sports person). So, I figure I'm bilingual. There's English and Southern.
*grins* The only thing I can remember from high school Spanish was "Yo tengo un dolor de cabeza" and that means "I have a headache." Oh! and "Igualmente" which I used to say to the girl behind me when we had introductions since we shared the name Jessica. Shortcuts are bliss, especially when the teacher can't fuss at you. After all, he taught it to us.
I have no idea what you said in German, though. Failed that class pretty quick. And am very jealous you speak (spoke) Italian, even just a little.
I'll trade places. You come to Atlanta and I'll take your cool weather. I promise we'll trade back...eventually. Just so stinkin' hot right now.
Very flattering picture of Rufus! But be careful that he doesn't realize you know his secret life - he may try to get his kitty revenge on you.
I think it's great you are working on learning different languages. Just remeber to watch out for 'American'...we kind of corrupt a lot of beautiful words.
Please be careful with the ulcer. Not fun in any form. All of us would hate to find out your health went downhill. We like you too much!
I envy your weather. I'd even go so far as to say I covet it. The southern US is not my ideal climate.
I like your goal of being bascially fluent in four languages. I'm going to have to learn (at least) three languages for grad school, and I came up with the clever idea to help along the learning process by posting entries in each language. I'll get around to starting that any minute now. (In my defense, one of the three is Irish Gaelic which I once saw described as a language for which spelling and pronunciation appears to have been decided upon by two separate committees, divided by some deep fundamental differences.)
A good German word: schadenfreude. Not a bad song, either.
Jup you spelled the german words right *thumbs up* ("Ausgezeichnet" is btw the word Mr. Burns from The Simpsons always says in the dubbed version... I think the english word he says is "exellent" ..not quite sure about that and I'm to lazy to look it up^^ ask your brother *lol*)
oh I could give ya many german words...
Einen simplem Post willst du? Ich versuche mein bestes, aber ich schreibe normalerweise immer sher komiziert. Eine sehr schöne Eigenschaft der deutschen Sprache... ok manchmal^^ Zumindest kann man neue Wörter kreiren indem man zwi bereitsexistierende Wörter nimmt und sie zu einem zusammenschließ. Da gibt es ein nettes Zitat dazu: "German is basically a Lego language -- just take word blocks [...] and smash them together"
A nice word is also "Springteufel" (Jack in the Box).
I actally admire everybody who learn languages exspecially hard ones like french or german.
If have any question about german I'd like to help (if I can). Sometimes it doesn't even make sense to natives^^
I always use this online dic if I need words. could have a look around and search for funny/cool words yourself
oh my sister loves "Weltherrschaft" because it's so much cooler to say (like Pinky&Brain) to say "wir werden die Weltherrschaft an uns reißen" then "we will took over the world".. pff... that's not that impressive ;)
Ah, nadie ha escrito nada en Español. Yo fuí a Toronto en 1990. Ese año fue un verano muy caluroso! Yo esperaba el frío canadiense, y nada. Mucho calor! Me gustaría mucho volver a Canada, es un país muy bonito.
There ya go, some Spanish! I'm really enjoying your blog!
I really dont know how anyone can live without coffee... the stuff is wonderful!
And as far as the fat cats go.. they are the coolist! I had one... his name was Scodos (which is the Biblical Greek for Darkness... I didn't name him.) The poor thing ended up with diabetes. Since we didnt catch it in time, he ended up with Liver failure and had to be put to sleep.
Speaking of Greek... I actually know some (but not much) Antient Greek. I would for a sentence, but there are some crazy verb and noun forms that makes it difficult.
But it's cool that you know French! and Italian! And speaking of German.. there is one web site I found that had these cats chanting in German. I have no clue what they are saying.
A friend of mine went on one of those mission trips to Mexico, to help build houses, after about a year of Spanish class. She liked talking to the six year olds, because their vocabulary was about on par with hers.
It was finally sunny here in NY after three days of rain. Huzzah!
Wish I could help you with the language thing, but my Spanish only amounts to "chicle in la boca" and "cierra la boca" -- neither of which are particularly useful. Other than American English, all I've got is conversational Mandarin if you want to learn that. Eh, can't read it though. Best of luck with your language learning, though! There are lots of Gaters who are multilingual who will be able to help, I'm sure.
Aw! Such a sweetie with the pink nose and pink toes.
I swear BobaCatt sneaks out at night and goes to the deli. We've figured that he and our other cat Zuckuss gang up and one steers the car while the other one works the gas and brakes.
It's the only explanation since occasionally we'll find random things in the house that neither of us purchased.
Sorry to be writing in your journal without introducing myself. I'm Elona *waves hi*. Can't help you with the languages. I learned Russian but forgot all but curses and speak halting Klingon.
There's a wide variety of languages spoken around my house—enough that I sometimes have a hard time remembering whether the word I'm using is the right one for the language I'm going for.
My ex is fluent in German, my daughter in Spanish, her girlfriend speaks Japanese, and once upon a time I was pretty good with French. The result is a polyglot's nightmare. *g*
wubell, ubi cuban spubeak ubin thubis wubone, thubat ubi luberned frubom zuboom...
andway isthay unway, athay iway earnedlay umsay-airway elseway.
i can remember little things like je parle un peu francais, but it is not true any more! i cant sprechen sie deutsch any more either. a broken brain is like that. :(
but whatever they called that language on zoom and pig latin? THOSE i can handle. :)
ufusray isway eryvay ettypray.
I couldn't disagree more. I like it hot and humid. Unfortunately in Connecticut it's only that way for about 3 months a year. I'd move down south, but hurricanes scare me.
"Curried Advil soup"
Um, eeew. Don't sweat it, 3 coffees is nothing. Not compared to the hardcore addicts.
Well my favourite french sentence in year 8 and 9 mandatory language classes was je ne sais pas as I used it frequently :)
hello!
since languages are welcome, here it goes:
french first : bonjour mademoiselle. votre blog est génial et j'espère qu'on continuera à avoir des nouvelles de votre vie au loft régulièrement, c'est un vrai plaisir de vous lire.
portuguese now (ok, i'll only try): bom dia menina. o seu blog è fantastico and espero que a gente ficara com notìcias suas de vêz em quanto, è un verdadeiro prazer ler os seus posts.
i could try german but it's far away now (i'm so sorry of that, since i think it's the best language in the world and no, i'm not german but french!)
keep posting, it's a delight! *hugs to you, R and M*
Hello !!!
Encore un message en français pour que vous puissiez vous amusez à traduire !
C'est également un de mes rêves de parler plusieurs langues et je crois que je suis en bonne voie pour l'anglais (deux semaines à Oxford cet été, épisodes de Stargate en VO !). Mais bon il me manque encore la pratique quotidienne ! C'est pour ça qu'un autre séjour à l'étranger va s'imposer...mais bon les études d'abord (ah le droit quand tu nous tiens !):P ! Je comprends aussi l'allemand, un peu le russe et le patois vendéen ! lol !
Si tu veux parler en français en direct avec quelqu'un tu peux aller voir mon blog ! J'ai également une adresse MSN pour les conversations en direct !
So now in english : Enjoy the translation !
(the translation is on my blog, don't cheat just check ! )
Hi !! You want fan from all over the world to speak their language ? Welcome in hell^^
Donc bonjour. Eh oui, je suis française, et malheureusement pour vous j'écris dans ma propre langue, enfin, j'espére que vous comprenez. Ainsi donc vous parlez quatre langues ? Je suis très impressionnée ! Je ne parle qu'un peu l'anglais et très peu l'espagnol et...le chinois. Triste, n'est ce pas ?
Au passage, j'adore votre blog, varié, très drôle...vous pourriez en faire une série télé !!
Bonne continuations, mes encouragements pour vos interdictions "café/Advil/chocolat" ! Et euh...FFFDH POWAAAA !!
Vlu
You love foreign languages? Oh I like that, as I'm very fond of languages myself. Not that I speak so many (only German, English, a bit French and a bit Danish), but I love to discuss languages, where they originate from and the etymology of certain words, where the similarities between languages are, idioms and sayings - I think that's pretty interesting. :)
Seeing the word "Ausgezeichnet" in your blog made me smile - and don't worry, you spelt it correctly. You asked for a sentence in another language - I saw that you have quite a few fans from Germany who wrote something already! :)
Here's another one, I try to keep it simple. ;)
Danke, dass du diesen Blog schreibst, und dass du uns so viele interessante Dinge aus deinem Leben erzählst! Ich wünsche dir und deinen Freunden viel Glück und Erfolg - ihr seid echt eine lustige Bande! Und Rufus ist einfach nur süß!
I will repeat the last sentence in English: Rufus is simply sweet! A really cute cat!
So your friend moved to Berlin? Lovely city, my second favourite city in Germany (Hamburg is my fav). The atmosphere there is great. This city is scarred and yet very beautiful and alive, full of memories and history, but modern and open too. I don't live that far away from Berlin, so I go there sometimes and I always have a good time there.
"Hauptbahnhof", hehe... Looking for more German words? Did David Hewlett tell you about the "awesome postcards"? "Awesome" is "großartig" in German. :)
So you have an ulcer? That's why you're not allowed chocolate and coffee then? That's bad, hope you're better soon!
Have nice day! We have lots of rain here. Lots and lots of rain. Maybe you should visit your friend in Berlin. :)
Bye, A.
I know small amounts of German, Indonesian, Spanish, Swahili and Esperanto, but not enough to be of any use.
Although, should you ever wish to abuse your boss or otherwise complain about work in a fluent stream of Indonesian, I can totally help you out.
Aw he's adorable!!
I'm afraid I can't help you with languages. I'm barely bilingual myself (Scots, English and a smattering of German)!
Hi Kate :)
That's a cool picture of Rufus.
I don't think he looks overweight at all. I think he's the perfect catshape. Once I figure out how to link to pictures here, I'll get some pictures up of my kitties.
You also reminded me that I should probably go to the gym also, since I am paying for it and haven't been in ages. I should probably get something more for more for my money except the membership card.
And now for the language part.
I speak Dutch (obviously,since I'm from the Netherlands) English. And my German is well enough to have a conversation with someone else.
I'm trying to learn to speak French again,wich will come in handy when I visit my friends in Montreal again.
This next bit will be in Dutch.
Happy translating.
Als je van regen houdt,zou je nu in Nederland moeten zijn. De maand augustus is de natste maand ooit.
Tot nu toe heeft het elke dag geregend.
That's it for now.
If you like to know if you got the translation right or if you would like more Dutch to translate, let me know.
Greetings,
Chantal.
Who's a cute little fluffy--well, maybe not little, but definitly cute! Wonderful picture of your cat.
As for languages...you're not alone. I took two years of French..barely remember it (I remember more Latin, which I only took one year). Thanks to all the anime I watch, I can say a few phrases in Japanese...but on the whole, I'm afraid I'm stuck speaking English.
(Which, of course brings to mind the old language joke? Do you know it? "If a person who speaks two languages is bilingual, and a person who speaks three is trilingual, what do you call a person who speaks one language? An American!" Hahaha! ...yeah, I know, it's not funny because it's true.)
Oh cool! Another Dutch person commenting. You know what, I'll continue what Chantal started:
Door een lekkage regende het bij ons gisteren in de woonkamer... Ik kan je garanderen dat zelfs een regen liefhebber als ik dat niet kon waarderen!
So you would like to learn languages? What about a quick first lesson in Hungarian? ;)
Usually the first thing my friends learn is "a férfiak disznók" which means "men are pigs". People kinda like how it sounds I guess ;) They also like to learn "az ajtók záródnak", which comes from the Budapest subway, meaning "the doors are closing". Also, Stargate is "Csillagkapu" (so you can tell David you know something about SG that he more than likely doesn't;)).
Hi is "szia" which pretty much sounds like "see ya", so Americans can think that everyone here speaks English... not.
What else, that could be useful? Oh yes, "kávé" means coffee ;)
Sorry, don't speak any other langs apart from English and that's just barely ;)
Tried French and German, couldn't pick it up at all. Glad to hear you like England, you really didn't want to be here when we had that heat wave the other month if you like the rain. The roads were melting it was that hot.
Red
Hallo! Ich sehe, dass die Anderen gerade auf Franzoesisch, Deutsch und Nederlands geschrieben haben.
Ich bin Englaenderin, aber auch Lehrerin fuer Franzoesisch und Deutsch.
Here are a few "handy" German phrases for you if you ever visit your friend in Berlin:
- Meine Katze ist dick (aber suess).
- Stargate Fans sind die Besten!
- Leider darf ich kein Kaffee trinken.
- Vielleicht ist es Ihnen noch nicht aufgefallen, aber ich bin ein sehr arroganter Mensch, der gerne mal davon ausgeht, dass alle seine Pläne funktionieren!
(Sorry, couldn't resist the last one. If you understand it and get the joke, then kudos to you!)
Alors, tu (est-ce que je peux utiliser "tu"?) parles le francais? C'est bien ca, parce-ce que je connais plein de gens qui habitent (ou habitaient) en France (ou Quebec) et parlent qu'une seule mot en Francais... "bonjour".
È meraviglioso leggere il vostro blog. Così gatto bello! Ho dimenticato il tedesco, ma il miei marito ed io parlano italiano accanto all'inglese.
Cute pic of Rufus! He looks like he's enjoying the high life :)
I used to frequent the gym, but only for classes. I hate the threadmill and doing anything else. I swim if I want to exercise but that's about it!
Ooh, at least you can speak other languages! I've learnt a couple but unless I use them, they all evaporate.
As they say in German,
Tchuess!
I, too, would love to be able to travel without butchering other people's languages. Between myself and my husband, we have Spanish fluency (mine, rapidly deteriorating), and basic reading skills in Arabic and Russian (his). He also speaks a darling mix of Yankee and Southern, whereas my first language is Texan. Like Southern, it is definitely more than a dialect. We also speak legalese, such as it is. ;-)
I love your blog - it's fun to read about life in the great frozen north (anything north of Oklahoma). :) Thanks for posting so often!
I have some kind of fascination for foreign languages too. Most people say I'm lucky to be French because I'm familiar with all the grammatical stuff in some languages. Thus, it's been easier for me to learn languages like German or Russian. :)
Anyway, enough talking about me... The pic of Rufus is great. It's always a pleasure to read your posts; thank you so much for updating your blog so often!
The heatwave we had in the UK last month was the best summer weather we've had in years. It's now back to the traditional rain/flash floods, the grass is green again rather than yellow and there's still a hosepipe ban...so pretty much as it should be once more.
Good on you on the language thing. I spent 5 years taking German at school and I can just about muster up an introduction and count to ten, which will obviously prove useful...oh and I also know that durchfall is German for having the squirts...equally useful.
The only usual modern language I know is Norwegian (Ancient Greek and Latin probably don't count!)
Hei hvordan går det?
is useful
and all important
Jeg vil gjerne ha et glass øl.
or
Jeg vil gjerne ha en kopp kaffe
for when you don't have the ulcer!
J'habite Montréal et la température est superbe aujourd'hui. Comme toute bonne Montréalaise, je parle le français et l'anglais en plus d'une troisième langue. Il se trouve que mes parents sont chinois, alors j'apprends cette langue aussi. Par contre, je n'ai pas le clavier d'ordinateur qu'il faut pour écrire quelque chose dans cette langue. J'ai aussi appris l'espagnol au secondaire, mais j'ai tout oublié. C'est des choses qui arrivent, eh?
C'est quand même drôle que je n'aie pas encore laisser de commentaire dans le blog de votre frère, alors que c'est par là que j'ai trouvé le vôtre.
Sur ce, je vous souhaite une bonne journée.
C.
Learned some very important phrases on a trip to Austria (bahnhof was one of the them but the little pic of a train was a dead give away)
Parkplatz, "ein bier bitte" and meerschweinchen (guinea pig) No wait, the meerschweinchen was later on a friends blog. *shrug*
In Irish I can say "failte" (welcome) and "Slainte" (literally health, and what one says when lifting a pint of Guiness)
Hmmm, sensing a theme here...
Oh My God! i've just read the comment of dd and she wrote also at midnight...
You'll think that all the frenchs live the night now.... But actually it's because we are on holydays!! (which finish in few days)
Personnaly, I don't really like cats; because all my neighbours' cat comme in my house... and I don't really like animals...
And I don't like rain either... except when it's hot. Try to make camping(i don't know if it's an english word) under the rain: it's the hell!!!!
well i'll go to bed.
Did I already say that in another comment?? sorry I don't remember!! It's my age.. no i'm not so old!!!
bye
Liloow
Hoces jos jedan na bosanskom? Evo ti malo komentara.
I started learning English in the second grade, but I have to admit nothing helped me as much as Cartoon Network did. As far as learning new languages goes, watching TV or reading newspapers in that language works best for me. Of course, there's nothing as good as living in that country :) I spent three months in Germany nine years ago and I was almost fluent... then I left and forgot everything ^_^
If you know Italian, Romanian should be quite easy :)
And now my Romanian bit:
Poate intr-o zi o sa veniti si la noi. Tu si Rufus :)
I'd say that coffee is worth the pain of an ulcer. Then again I've never had an ulcer so I am probably talking out of my ass.
Portuguese...
Estou um pouco atrasada, mas queria adicionar um comentário em Português. Português é a língua oficial do Brasil, aonde eu nasci. Também falo inglês fluente e entendo grande parte do Espanhol, Francês e Italiano.
Você é super engraçada e divertida!
Hey Kate -
You need to come to St. Louis to meet my A&P teacher and have him take you off all the meds your doctor probably put you on for the evil ulcer. :) (The ironic part is that my teacher, Dr. Keith Duguid, is originally from Canada!)
He understands all about the evils of ulcers & such - we just went over this in December. (Another student at my school, in the Medical Assistant program, was takling about how her dr said she wasn't producing enough stomach acid, but still put her on antacids, and said to not eat any acidic foods at all! A classmate and I both told her, "You need to go talk to Dr. Duguid!")
And, if you come to St. Louis, you can come get a massage as I will be a nationally certified therpist within a couple of months here! :)
I speak German, but it's very rusty as I haven't had much chance to practice it in the 10+ years since I left CMSU. I was a German major there, but left after becoming very disenfranchised w/ the school. :p
Rufus can't nearly be as bad as LC - he's a foot high, (about 15 CM?) at the shoulder and from the tip of his tail the to the tip of his nose he's close to a meter in length! He weighed like 23.7 pounds the last time I had him at the vet. :)
How is Martha doing post surgery and how is Rufus with his touchy stomach?
Good luck with the search for a new apartment - I find myself looking to do the very same thing now, because hauling a 37 pound massage table up and down the steps of my current apartment is just not really wise! (I also want a place where the roof doesn't leak too! :p)
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