Citizen's Arrest Not long ago, a truck driver with a national hauling license was given a ticket because the police officer claimed that the driver’s English wasn’t up to snuff. The driver had long ago passed the test to qualify for a national license (which requires an English proficiency test) but evidently this one cop couldn’t or simply didn’t want to understand the guy’s English. I think the article said the fine was $500. Hopefully that makes you say, “huh?” in one way or another. It’s one person who claims not to understand another. How is this based on the law? Those of us who have traveled or taught English or simply made an effort to have acquaintances that don’t look like the cast of 90210 or Friends are used to English varieties. We’d all understand this driver and if it took a repeated utterance or two, well so be it. I have a native speaking friend who talks like he has Junior Mints squirreled away in his cheeks. I’m lucky if I understand him after three takes. Anyway, not long after I read about this poor driver, I was coming back from Mexico waiting in line at the Homeland Security, which was much more efficient back in the day when we just called it immigration. The guy in front of me, although he seemed well-traveled, obviously had no prior exposure to a native Texan. The officer said (exactly, I’m not joking): “You ain’t brining no food or meat in with ya, are ya?” And literally every syllable was pushed through his nose without moving his lips. So, that’s the Homeland Security officer, if he were a puppeteer practicing for a ventriloquist act. The guy ahead of me asked him to repeat the phrase, and the officer did. One more time and the northerner got it and the officer waved him on, which may or may not have included a good ole boy nod. So, let’s get this straight here: A truck driver who is communicating with his brethren via CB, but happens to do so with a non-native accent receives a ticket for 500 bucks. However, the guy who is protecting our (ahem) “homeland” can slaughter his mother tongue as he greets everyone in an official capacity, in a position that is meant to evoke a sense of protection and a certain level of, let’s say, schoolin’. I work with first semester English language learners who, at the very least, have mastered double negatives. This guy was like Gomer Pyle after a bad acid trip. So, I’ve decided to make my own citations, which I will issue in the form of a citizen’s arrest the next time I am faced with one of these Jeff Foxworthy-loving characters. It will look something like this: Name: Date: Offense: Public display of dumbassery And that last bit will already be filled in because everyone will essentially have committed the same offense. The next person to receive the citation will be a girl working at the Lewisville, Texas Target store. I experienced her a few days later. I had been talking on the phone as I approached the check-out, so I told my friend I would call her back. The girl working the register, now that I mention it, was the exact same girl I was talking about before, minus the straw in her mouth. I do remember a great deal of hair twirling, though. So, she began a conversation that went like this: Girl: Who was that? Me: Excuse me? Girl: Who was that you were talkin’ to? Was it your husband? Me: [contorted, confused face; taken aback] Um, no, actually it was Dick Cheney. I gave him my cell phone number and he won’t stop calling me. Girl: [lowered brow of concern] Aw, man. That sucks. Yes, it really did suck. That’s something we could all agree upon. It sucks that a young adult actually believed me when I told her that I was talking to the Vice President of the United States of America and that he called me way too much. Then I got to thinking that Dick Cheney’s diction is not winning any prizes either, so that would probably be a frustrating phone call filled with, “Excuse me Mr. Vice President, I didn’t get that last part.” And he definitely strikes me as the kind of guy who doesn’t like to repeat himself.

poor art

I recently discovered a pastry item that is more or less what I’ve always called a cream puff. Or maybe it’s an éclair. I don’t know, but eating it reminded me of the frozen box of pastries my mom used to buy, where they’d enjoy a few good hours in the freezer next to the pizza, pocket sandwiches, and peas before being gobbled up by Kim and me (although I’m sure I could kill a box without any help. Those were the days when I was, according to my father, a tough cookie, and needed cream filling to maintain my superhuman strength.)

This morning I was eating one of these pastries (flakey dough filled with light and glorious cream, covered generously with a haphazard plop of chocolate) while reading Semantic Representation, which has been in a file labeled "Haj Stuff" for quite a while now. Biting into a glob of cream and frantically maneuvering in order to keep the thing from dribbling onto the keyboard, I read the following sentence:

John doesn’t beat his wife because he loves her.

followed by:

John told Harry that his wife was pretty.

While we can’t deny that John has some issues, the reality is that these sentences affect me as a teacher and a learner. Regarding this guy named John, in the first sentence we can think of a couple scenarios which would be obvious to native English speakers, even those strung out on refined sugars. Either John is an asshole, or John is a decent fellow. And in the second sentence, we as native speakers know that John is either proud of his wife (whom he may or may not beat) or that he is fond of someone else’s.

Interestingly, if you show these sentences to an English learner (my sample size being those who have entered my office in the past couple of days), they will say, in all certaintly, that John is a man who definitely does not beat his wife, but he does have designs on the wife of Harry.

Two cream puffs later, I considered these sentences in Spanish (=me as learner). To me, they’re equally ambiguous. However, when I showed the Spanish versions to monolingual Spanish speakers, they all separately agreed – all three of them – that John does not beat his wife, and he thinks Harry’s wife is pretty.

“But, could it be this….”

“No, maestra,” they insisted.

“But, could it be that, although he doesn’t beat his wife because he loves her, he might beat her for a different reason? Maybe she doesn’t dance well?”

No response.

So, this pastry is sold just down the street from my house and I love it very much.
Not the street. Or the house. It’s the pastry that I love.

The eclipse on Feb. 20. There's only so much you can do with a low-end camera, but I'm still pretty sure you can see someone's face up there -- it's either gloating or smirking.

Everyone needs a hug. While waiting in line for hours to see Ashes and Snow in the zocalo, a group of people came with signs that said "Free Hugs." I love the guy on the top left. It looks like he's been needing a hug for a long time. Such a beautiful day.

When I say that I was sick for nearly two months, I don't think it's possible to really appreciate the magnitute of the statement. I wasn't bleeding out the eyeballs, but I really could barely breathe, which meant that I couldn't sleep. And since I live far away from anyone who could shower me with attention and saltine crackers, I'm subjecting all who reads this to my tale of woe. As with all asthmatics, it's a mack-truck-on-the-chest sort of feeling, this time compounded by bus exhaust and the evening steam from tamale carts. Talking was a chore and laughing was out of the question. I managed to go to a doctor here, doctor being a title which should be in quotation marks, but I don't want to be disrespectful because he was a nice guy. But, this nice guy felt the need to give me 13 different meds in a span of 3 weeks. In the beginning, I accepted his advice and swallowed about 5 pills a day out of sheer desperation. Then I decided I didn't want to end up like River Pheonix in the Viper Room, and I chunked it all in the garbage in hopes of strengthening my lungs through the power of mental persuasion. My students had some amazing advice. "The best cure for asthma is to drink your own pee," one said. "But, only in the morning." Another told me to find a rare mouse (the kind that doesn't eat garbage, she said), drop the poor creature in a pot of boiling water, and drink the broth. Over and over again I was told that my asthma was due to drinking cold liquid. "Cold liquid? You mean, water?" I queried. "Yes, water, juice, anything cold." "But, what about that cold beer that you're drinking right now? Is it going to give you asthma?" "Well, no. Beer's different." Turns out cold liquid takes the rap for many health problems. One student told me that her aunt died from drinking cold water with lemon juice in the mornings. It gave her cancer, the doctor said. Who am I to argue? I'm definitely not a doctor. But I'm also not into drinking my own urine. In the end, I went to a doctor who gave me steroids so strong I could have won the Tour de France. Now I'm breathing like a champ. I'm considering the possibility that part of my asthma problems were from the fact that I didn't drink enough wine over the holidays. I've switched to room temperature red wine, just to be safe.