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California shootings
I just heard about the California shootings--by reading the online Costa Rican newspaper crhoy.com. I had just read a story about President Solis breaking his diet--he's already eaten the first tamal of the holiday season!--when I saw an article titled: "Hay muertos, no sabemos cuantos," en California. Huh? Deaths in California? I was really, ( Read more... ) -
Conversation earlier today
Me: I'm going to assume that there is a very large squirrel up in that tree with a very bad case of dandruff.
Rita: It's snowing?
Me: No, there's a very large squirrel with dandruff.
Rita: It's not even the middle of November and it's snowing.
Me: SQUIRREL! -
Miss Cleo
Miss Cleo, our 18-year-old cat, appears to have had another stroke last night. She's been declining for about a week, and this morning was substantially worse, unable to control her back legs at all. She stares at the food and water bowl like she's trying to remember what they're for. Her feet and tail are cold, indicating that circulation is ( Read more... ) -
Conundra for the ages
1. Why are elderly/ill cats apparently unable to take one step further into a litter box to avoid peeing over the side ( Read more... ) -
Butterfly cats and volcanos
I just discovered a new Spanish term for a calico or tortoiseshell cat: "una gata mariposa", a butterfly cat. I knew that tortoiseshell cats were called gatas tortugas--turtle cats--but gata mariposa is even better. (Gata rather than gato because almost all torties and calicos are female ( Read more... ) -
Another Spanish challenge story -- Space
El planeta fue hermoso. Su sol fue amarillo y exactamente la distancia correcta desde la planeta. Hubo agua líquida, una atmosfera rica en el oxígeno, y plantas verdes con la clorofila. Apareció perfecta ( Read more... ) -
Zombis en español
Me gusta comer los cerebros. ¿Eso me hace una mala persona ( Read more... ) -
Artificial stupidity?
I've been getting scam messages that purport to be from Delta informing me of a ticket purchase that I didn't make, with a nice attachment to open to print my ticket. Obviously I'm supposed to open the attachment, either to get the free ticket or to find out where to report that I didn't actually buy it. This is a well-known scam, apparently, and ( Read more... ) -
El León, La Bruja, y El Rompero
I just finished reading my first full novel in Spanish, "El León, La Bruja, y El Rompero" by C.S. Lewis (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, of course). The grammar was pretty easy, the vocabulary not too bad thanks to a Spanish-English dictionary on my Kindle. It helped a lot that I already knew the plot ( Read more... ) -
Dutch for English speakers at DuoLingo
This is primarily for therealjae: Duolingo.com announced today that their Dutch for English speakers course has entered beta. I suspect that you wouldn't get much use out of it, but they're also looking for bilingual speakers to look for mistakes and make corrections ( Read more... )