the healing powers of honey boo boo

Is there a condition where one is incapable of learning a new language? Cuz...I think I have it. I'm pretty sure I failed my Italian exam yesterday and it put me in a mood for the rest of the day.

And not a good mood.

I was pretty bummed about how baffling the entire experience was. But I don't want to talk about it.

Have you ever had a moment when you totally doubted your own abilities? It's not even a 'can I do this?' It's a full blown 'I can not do this.'

Yesterday I doubted that I can do it. And yes, I said I didn't want to talk about it but I totally lied.

Last night I asked the man if he thought it was possible to be incapable of learning a new language. I was looking for an answer that involved more of the "not for you, love. You can do anything you set your mind to." And not the answer I got which was "Yep, totally."

I may have watched all the faith I had in myself drain out of me and onto the floor.

So then I moped. And fretted. And wondered how likely it is that I will not be able to pass this class.

Woe is me.

But then we watched some Honey Boo Boo to drown the sorrows because, seriously, watching that show makes me think anything is possible.

And then there was the epiphany.

If a show like Honey Boo Boo can be made then I can learn Italian.

This is just simple logic.

what the acca?

Acca is H in Italian. In case the title was confusing unto you.

This is gonna be quick since I have an Italian test tomorrow and another an exam on Thursday and I AM FREAKING OUT about the entire thing.

This is the problem. I feel old and rusty. My brain has been sitting around, shrinking and growing, dying and regenerating and just plain old being dysfunctional for the past 15 years. And now, all of a sudden, I'm asking it to retain stuff.

Like a whole other language.

It's hard, I'm forgetful and out of intellectual shape. My brain is sore.

So, I've sort of been ignoring the bloggy blog and I think it's because I have so much to say and I don't know where to start. And then there's the whole school thing and the 4 kids thing and the house thing and that bloody awful thing we call the laundry.

The laundry is a sneaky branch of the Satan tree that sneaks up on you and demands to be washed and then mocks you mercilessly as you fold it all for 90 minutes late on a Sunday night because not only do the kids need clean clothes for school but so do I!

You are an evil awful thing, laundry, and I will never defeat you. Can I call Uncle?

I am skipping my institute class right now to babysit this little dude while his madre works up at the temple.

Did you catch that? I threw some Italian in there for you. I hope you're impressed. I know I am.

The temple open house starts today and the bad news is that the temple isn't done. (So much bold and italics, I'm feeling extra dramatic today.) Anyway, I don't care that it isn't done. It will get done and I am excited to see it tonight. We get to sneak in with all the neighbours on this special neighbour sneak peak day.

Anyway, off I go to memorize io's and tu's and lui/lei's and why the heck do Italians need so many rules to speak?

Cielo abbi pieta.

How do you do the little accents on this laptop? Anyone??

22 pounds...down

So it's taken a couple of months but it's finally arrived. Another ten pound weight loss. Actually it's 12 that's gone. I said I would check in every 10 but today marked 22 pounds down and so here I am. Checking in.

It sure is slow going, let me tell you. But it's all going in the right direction so there will be no kicking any gift horses around here.

I did want 30 off by my birthday which is very quickly creeping up on me. It'll be close, I'll try really hard. I promise.

My birthday is only 3 and a half weeks away. I have 8 more pounds to lose by then. It can be done.

There is something that I can't get off my mind though. There is a brother/sister duo in my Italian class that are from Tunisia North Africa. They were saying in our last class that they would take a fishing boat and row to Sicily for the day just for fun. I need to know, why would anyone leave that and come to Canada? Why would you leave the most beautiful place on the planet and come to this cold country THAT ISN'T ITALY!?

Someone ask him and let me know. I would ask him but he might be the most annoying person I have ever encountered and I prefer not to look at him.

Yes, these are the things that I ponder whilst lying awake night after night. Speaking of lying awake, I have lots to tell you on the matter of my personal insomnia. And I will. When I find my inner courageous beast. I think she's hibernating deep within my soul.

Stay tuned.

what is this? a broadway musical?

Part 1

Picture it. If you will. A university theatre with hundreds of seats bolted to the floor. The room is almost full of very young people. I am also in the room. I am not so young but I am younger than the old guy who is clearly ancient so I'm still young...ish. On this day, which was yesterday, I decided to sit up closer to the front because it turns out I'm not as young as I think I am. My eyes don't work like they used to and this professor uses an overhead projector.

Yes, you heard me right. An overhead projector. With transparencies. It's like I stepped back in time. My time. When I actually was young.

If you don't know what this is, google it.

So I sit on the second row. There are 175 young people behind me. With their fresh ears and fresh eyes. We are waiting for the class to start. Most of us are on our smart phones or laptops answering facebook messages and texts and other various important things.

The professor walks in, makes his way down the long stairs to the front, he puts a CD into a CD player. Yes, I said CD and CD player. Stop interrupting.

The William Tell Overture comes blasting out of this tiny machine. It's blaring and I can see clearly that this has bolstered the professor's enthusiasm for what's about to happen next. He begins to talk. He's yelling, actually. He's a yeller, it's how he teaches. He's a passionate man, what can I say? I can see his mouth moving and I do hear every 7th word when he happens to pass in front of me in his crazed pacing. All I can hear for certain, though, is the infernal music. He's throwing his hands around. He's flushed. His body language is telling me that he is a true believer of what he is professing.

He is pacing, pacing, pacing.

All I can think is that if I'm on the second row and I can't hear him then when is one of the young people in the back going to do something about this insanity?

After a moment the professor looks up into the audience, never pausing with his words, and notices that someone has their hand up. He yells out to them, "Yes, I love comments! Go ahead."

The comment maker says something no one can understand due to the racket coming from the CD player.

The professor puts his hand to his ear and yells, "What was that? Speak louder!"

The comment maker repeats herself.

The professor shakes his head, he does not understand, he can not hear. He says, "Let me turn the music off, I can't hear you."

He walks to the other end of the room and turns the music off. He asks the comment maker to repeat herself, again. "What did you say?"

She yells back, "I said....I can't hear you!"

I love this class.

Part 2

Later in the class he sings Doing What Comes Naturally from Annie Get Your Gun.

And asks for audience participation. To which he gets some.

As we leave he presses play on his CD player. And once again the William Tell Overture comes blaring out.

Fade out...


Part 3

Things I learned in University this week:
I can count to 20 in Italian.
I can say the alphabet in Italian.
I can tell you who I am, where I`m from, where I live, and what I do. In Italian.
I can tell you where every single toilet is, but not in Italian, between where I walk in the doors and where my furthest class is. This old lady pees a lot.

chicken nuggets and bruce springsteen

Mi chiamo Catherine. Ciao.

Today I had my first day of university in 18 years.

How crazy is that??

It was no big deal, really. I'm learning Italian so it's only the biggest deal ever.

Last week I was a ball of nerves about the whole darn thing. Every time I thought about it I got the trots.

There was a lot of trotting last week.

To help alleviate some of the trotting nervousness I physically went to the University and found my classes. And then I pulled out my handy iPhone and timed myself getting from one class to the next. The fact that the only two classes I have are separated by a measly 10 minutes left me and my big tushy reeling.

It takes four minutes and 52 seconds to walk from one class to the next.

My big tushy can handle that. There is, however, some sweat involved which, last I heard, was good for big tushies becoming smaller tushies.

I knuckled up, like Rocky, and after class I hit the bookstore to get my text books.

It was Xanax worthy.

And as I was standing in line waiting to pay $275 for two classes worth of text books I had the thought that it is a good thing I do not have a prescription for Xanax or, I think it's safe to say, I'd be a zombie by the end of this ordeal.

I listened to We Take Care of Our Own by the Boss all the way there. By the time I got there I was so pumped up I could have cleaned Rocky's clock.

And then I made chicken nuggets and french fries for dinner.

It's going to be a crazy busy year. Crazy. And busy. And it might just be awesome.

where's catherine?

Yesterday I guest posted over at Mommy's Weird. She's a little off but so am I so we mesh. I first "met" her online when I dissed a radio personality here in Calgary and she agreed all radio personalities have massive egos and are hard to argue with because they think they are so hot.

And then I found out she's a radio personality.

Whoops.

She probably doesn't remember that.......

Anyway, I wrote a post and stuck it on her blog. Go read it.

everywhere a cluck cluck

Recently the man discovered the wonder and amazement that is the iPhone. He loves it as much as I do. In fact, I think it might be safe to say, he loves it more than he loves me.

Or he did, at first. Until he realized, after watching a youtube video about welding really loud in bed one night and it made me so mad I left the room and watched tv until 1 am, that I make a better bed partner in the long run than his silly iPhone.

Anyway, I introduced him to Words With Friends. Which I really like but am not awesome at, despite the fact that I consider myself to be wordsmith of sorts.

Okay, no I don't.

Okay, yes I do.

I was highly addicted to Draw Something once for 42 hours but after I'd drawn a campfire for the 70th bazillion time and the guesser guessed it before I even started I knew the game was stupid and I abandoned 19 games.

If you were one of them then I am deeply apologetic.

Okay, no I'm not.

Words With Friends, however is the one game I have stuck with through thick and thin. And now, the man likes it too. We always have two games going at the same time. Once, when he was getting so whooped by my wordsmithy ways, he resigned. I countered that attack by resigning a game after he scored like 9000 points with one word. He was flabbergasted and I was all "Oh, you don't like how that feels?? Well buster, in this house we don't resign, no matter how bad we're losing. Capiche?"

He saw the error of his ways and instead of resigning he's just stepped up his game. But now he's hard to beat.

Seriously though, how am I supposed to get ahead when I'm dealing with this?



It's like a super lame version of Old MacDonald Had a Farm. And I've been dealing with it for the last four moves.

He thinks he's such hot stuff with that score. But I can't compete when all I see is a cluck cluck here and a cluck cluck there. Here a cluck there a cluck. Everywhere a....

insanity

The best way to predict future behaviour is past behaviour.

Someone said that once. Not sure who. I will insert disclaimer here: it wasn’t me. But I heard it and I remember it and it’s the gosh darn truth.

Someone also said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result every time.

So, now that you have these two tidbits of stellar advice staring up at you let me tell you this about myself. I am insane. And my past behaviour indicates that I will be insane for the rest of my life. For example; and believe me, I have plenty of examples. There are six people in my house. Four of them are children. Which leaves two adults.

Me and the man.

Since there are so many children, on occasion, I feel the urge to go out. Or get out? Or break out? Escape? However you say it, you know what I mean: get some fresh air, see a movie, run some errands, stare at a brick wall.

I’m easy.

Most of the time, when I leave, I have the other adult in charge. And most of the time, when I come home, the kitchen looks like a bomb went off in it. Yes, I said “bomb went off”. It might sound cliché but it isn’t, really. It’s a fair and accurate depiction of what my kitchen looks like upon my arrival home. (And if you are a woman then I believe you know what I’m referring to. And if you don’t then you can just suck it.)

I gave up years ago asking why he didn’t lift a finger to clean the kitchen and it’s because the answers aggravate me. If you don’t want to know the answer you don’t ask the question. Our mothers taught us that, am I right?

Where is this going? Indulge me.

This summer was busy, as are most summers, but this one especially. There were a couple of times I took the four children away from the house for an extended period of time, on my own, for a holiday, leaving the man at home, alone.

Alone, at home. Just him. By himself.

Each time I went away I missed him tremendously. Thinking about him lovingly and longingly. My nerves bouncing around my gut awaiting the moment I walk through the door and fall into his warm embrace. Listening giddily as he whispers in my ear things like “I could hardly breathe while you were gone. You are my heart and soul.” And “You are so beautiful, I missed you so badly I ached inside.” And “When you take the children away from me and leave me in this great big cavernous house all alone to fend for myself, I have all kinds of time to marvel at your amazing skills and talents as the mother of my children.”

I may have an over active imagination. Or I may have spent too much time reading Outlander. Never you mind.

I drive home from these somewhat painful excursions to my love as fast as the law will allow me and come running through the door expecting my visions of grandiose love to become a reality. But instead, I get smacked in the face by my kitchen. A crime scene, so to speak. Where a mass murder of dishes/plates/bowls/utensils has occurred on the counter. The dishwasher having been spared this grotesque nightmare. Salsa moulding in the sink. The casualties are endless.

And so is my dismay.

Because this is how it always is. And past behaviour has shown me that this is how it always will be. But the fact that I envision something entirely different every single time I leave him at home with or without the children only to find that upon my return I can’t speak for hours until the fury within my soul has burned its burn goes to show that I am insane.

Insanity isn’t easy, I’ll have you know. In fact, it’s exhausting.

I am a tired woman.

i'm back, i think.

All right. I'm back. And I's gots all kinds of stuff I wanna say.

Come back tomorrow and maybe I'll say some of it.

Maybe. Or maybe not.

But probably.

We'll see...