Tuesday, January 17, 2017

On my walk with Lance today I tried talking to my next door neighbor. She was bouncing a baby in her arms while standing in her driveway when I stopped to say in English,

"Hi, I live next door!"

And then in Spanish I added "Yo me llamo Cara!"

She nodded politely and said nothing in English or Spanish.

Monday, January 16, 2017

While peering up at the orange tree Jenny discovered a dead possum on the power line in our backyard. I made a call and two hours later a man from the electric company was standing in our backyard staring up at the possum with us.

At first he only said,

"Ain't nobody gonna touch that."

Then he explained that removing the possum would blow a fuse and probably cause it to explode. And then he left. And the possum is still there.

Sunday, January 15, 2017

Our old neighbor from Julian St. sent a frantic email asking us to come help her catch a sparrow that was loose in her house. Thankfully, she opened a window and "strongly encouraged it to fly out" so we didn't have to think of a reason why we weren't coming right over. We're not bird people.

Saturday, January 14, 2017

I like to keep in practice playing my ukulele in case an unexpected guest arrives, sees it in the corner of the room and asks,

"Hey is that a ukulele? Can you play it?"

Then I can reply "Yes!"

The problem is nearly all beginner ukulele songs are sing-alongs. The player strums a few easy chords while he or someone else sings.

But since I can't sing that leaves me with two choices. One is to learn an unique chord progression that sounds pretty good on its own or, I can ask the person standing in the middle of the living room waiting to hear me play if he or she feels like singing.

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

We picked as much fruit as we could reach off the orange tree growing into our backyard. We wanted to save them from the hard freeze that was coming. We even stood on a ladder and used a fruit picker basket. But I guess picking them was more fun because now I don't want to eat all of them.