GAMES VS SPORTS

I am in love with words.

I am a horrible speller, I have a total disregard for proper punctuation, and I have personally redefined about 15% of the English language to suit my writing/vocal needs.

But I am a compulsive reader - I simply canNOT pass a sign, a newspaper or anything with lettering on it without reading.

It helps that I am a fast reader. I have no idea why - in, fact I have no idea how I learned to read. Everyone denies teaching me, but I began kindergarten and totally stumped the poor teacher by already knowing the alphabet.

I must explain this is back in the dark ages (1961) when children did NOT go to pre-school, watch educational DVDs, and were expected to know both their ABCs and how to operate a computer.

Kindergarten was were children learned their ABCs and simple words. Also teachers could spank you without repercussions, kids flunked classes, and we all played sports.

Back to the main subject.

Which was... yeah, what was it?

Oh, yeah, games.

I don't really like games involving words. I hate Scrabble (I can never pay attention to the higher score placement), I detest crossword puzzles (come on, they come up with words like "kx" which in Kurdish for kangaroo droppings).

I love Big Boogle, but it's only because I am good at it.

And no one will play it with me anymore because I am so good at it.

Which brings me back to sports.

What is the difference between games and sports?

Games are.... well, games. Playing. Keeping track of the score, I guess, but mostly pitting your skills against another, and hopefully having fun while doing it.

Sports are, to quote a book I love, absolute and unreserved fierce concentration on where a particular ball is at that moment in time.

'ELLO, GOVEN'R!

Why are foreign accents so adorable?

British, especially. Probably because I can understand what they are actually saying...

Well, most of the time.

But everything with a French accent sounds romantic - everything Spanish sounds rapid-fire and immensely important like disaster bulletins - Indian (east Indian - the original India) is so... Indian.

I like Japanese because I can imagine subtitles running below whatever is being spoken. Russian sounds cold - I know, I know, it's just a matter of association. And anything spoken in Chinese makes me hungry.

I didn't completely understand other pople finding American accents 'cute' until I lived in a British community, and found my neighbors hanging on my every word. It was extrememly embarrasing at first, but then it was sort of fun.

Because someone from London sounds completely different from a Yorkshire native - or a person from Wales is highly insulted if you mistake them for someone from Bristol.

After a while you pick it up.

But to them, a southern drawl and New Yorker... well, it's all American, right?

I just love it.

GUTEN PUTENSCHNITZEL

A friend's blog asked about Thanksgiving memories, and while I assume she is asking about happy Thanksgiving memories, I began writing about unusual Thanksgiving memories, and then realized I had a perfectly good topic for my own blog.

Sorry, Annette - you just lost a comment but I gained a blog entry.

Thanksgiving of 1981, we were living in Dusseldorf, West Germany (in 1981 there was still a wall in dividing Berlin), I had given birth to our second child the month before (at a British military hospital, which someday will be an extremely long blog entry in its own right) in Munchengladbach (my daughter has to deal with the spelling and how to pronounce that city name for her entire life, don't you feel sorry for her?).

And, as one of few American families in Dusseldorf, and the only active LDS family (although we did have a wonderful family of RLDS that attended regularly), we had become sort of the alternate mission-home to a large amount of full-time American LDS missionaries working in Duesseldorf.

I'd like to think they flocked to our gracious home because of the naturally spiritual and uplifting atmosphere which occured there.

But in reality, it was because 1) we were already LDS , and 2) didn't have to be convinced about not drinking beer (although after drinking German public water, sometimes beer did sound good) and 3) did always have non-alcoholic beverages...

and 4)

(and here is where the drum roll comes in)... We had access to....

AMERICAN FOOD. At least after a two-hour ride to another country where there was the nearest American military commissary.

And wild and exotic things like....

KRAFT MACARONI AND CHEESE

HERSHEY / NESTLE CHOCOLATE CHIPS (German and Swiss Chocolate are entirely different organism from our sweet stuff)

MILK that needs to be refrigerated and does not sit in a carton on your shelf for two months before you use it.

RICE KRISPY TREATS - I can't really remember whether the type of cereal or the marshmallows was impossible to get in West Germany, but man, did the missionaries love 'em.

And since we had an apartment full of Americans almost every night (and afternoon and even sometimes in the morning), it was somehow assumed that we would do the entire Thanksgiving dinner deal.

Okay, right.

HOWEVER - do you know that it is possible to get LIVE turkeys in German, but not possible to get a dead one that's been de-feathered and gutted and all that.

There are no pumpkins or cans of pumpkin stuff that you can make pies from. There are a lot of squashes and things like squashes that you can cook for hours and hours and then smash and mash and add all the seasonings and THEN put it all together in a pie.

Stuffing? Are you kidding? Stove-Top was patented in 1975, but the Germans hadn't caught on to it by 1981. So... stale bread, a lot of herbs, bake that stuff, then stick it in the turkey... once you've de-feathered and gutted the bird.....

'Nuff said. It wasn't easy, it's wasn't very pretty, but it got DONE.

Now, if memory serves correctly, we invited our Scottish neighbor Maggie because she was interested in American customs and wanted to see how we celebrated Thanksgiving. And it didn't hurt the missionaries' time sheets any that she wasn't a member of the church (tick off 'time fellow shipping investigator' for five hours on November 24, 1981).

We ate, and ate, and ate, as only eight American boys aged 19-22 , a nursing mother, a two-year old, an adult who reached 30 just as he was introduced to German cooking on an expense account and a healthy Scotswoman.

And it all was happy and fun... until one of the dear, polite Mormon elders leaned back in his chair, slapped his stomach in contentment, and said, "Man! Am I stuffed!"

"WHAT?!?" cried Maggie.

"I just said that I'm full," replied the surprised elder.

Maggie turned to me and demanded, "Are you going to allow talk like that in your home?!?"

Lesson No. 1 - Different languages, especially languages that are called the SAME, such as English, have different definitions to the exact same word.

"Stuffed" in American English means... well, stuffed.

"Stuffed" in Great Britain English, which is an entirely different language, means "F*****" multiplied by a factor of 10 and somehow involves your mother and the legitimacy of your birth and wearing of army boots.

And "Full" is just as bad, if not worse.

There. That's my most memorable Thanksgiving.

So... how stuffed was your own Thanksgiving?