Erik’s Blog

Nora has understood the “first I talk, then you talk, then I talk again” format of human conversation for several months now. But it wasn’t until just recently that she’s begun forming clear sentences with what are clearly words. Unfortunately none of the words she speaks are in either of the two languages I understand. As you might imagine, it can be very frustrating for both sides of the conversation. It is clear, however, that she is trying to express some concept through speech. And, because the words seem so much like words, only in a foreign language, sometimes I get asked on the street by people that know my origins if she’s speaking English. Perhaps the set of sounds she’s making is what spoken English sounds like to a non-English-speaker?
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Today, Nora and her mother were playing the cutest game, with Nora, who already understands about telephones, “dialing” the phone and handing it to her mother, who would pretend to talk for a bit and then hand it back. I said, “Keep doing that, I’m going to get the camera!” And when I got back, they were still at it. Adorable footage captured. Yay.

But what no one was expecting was what came next!
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Like the “Stuff I Thunk” series, the “Stuff I Seen” series relays information from my brain into my blog, only the SIS series is narrowed down to thoughts provoked by stimulus from my visual cortex. Let us begin, shall we?
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We had some pretty huge storms last week. The day after one of them, I took a walk and found some poor raindrop-bruised poppies and some bees buzzing around them. Poppy petals are pretty paper-thin normally, but these look particularly fragile.
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Without a doubt, one of the strangest dishes in Spanish cuisine has got to be chiperones en su tinta (squid in its ink). That’s the dish they’re referring to when they say that Spaniards are the only people that will eat completely pitch black food. The sauce is actually tomato sauce, but with just a little bit of ink, it turns jet black. Last weekend, my mother-in-law made some chiperones en su tinta for us to bring back with us, and today we had it for lunch. It’s really very delicious if you can get past the superficial psychological color barrier. Normally the squid are about fist-sized and filled with ground beef, but occasionally a little baby one will get into the mix and remind you just what you’re eating. Today, as I was soaking up the excess sauce with my bread, I noticed a little straggler was left behind and I took his picture. I’ve decided to name him Inky.
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For a brief window in the afternoon last Sunday, the sky opened up and revealed a lovely blue color between the towering cumulonimbi before quickly going back to the London mist we were smothered in for all of March.
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