Ginormous

I was watching my daughter Florencia at her gymnastics class when I heard this mom talking to a few others. She was describing some kind of thermos and said the following:

- There are some of them that are ginormous; some others aren't, but these here are ginormous...

And she kept going on and on, using the word 'ginormous' on almost every sentence.

What the heck is 'ginormous'? I know of 'gigantic' and 'enormous', but do we really need a new word to say 'big'? How about 'huge'?

Sigh. I've been here for seven and a half years now, and I know that I will never master this language. But stop coming up with nonsensical words! You're just making it more difficult for me...

Or should I say 'impodifficult'?

Estaba mirando a mi hija Florencia en su clase de gimnasia cuando escuché a esta mamá charlando con otras. Estaba describiendo un termo o algo así y dijo lo siguiente:

- Algunos de estos son ginormes; otros no, pero estos de aquí son ginormes...

Y siguió dale que dale, usando la palabra 'ginorme' en casi cada oración.

Qué diantres es 'ginorme'? Yo conozco 'gigante' y 'enorme'; hace falta inventar una palabra nueva para decir 'grande'? Que tal 'grandote'?

Por supuesto, la conversación fue en inglés, así que la palabra usada fue 'ginormous' ('gigantic' + 'enormous'). Hace siete años y medio que estoy aquí, y yo ya sé que nunca voy a entender este idioma del todo. Pero dejen de inventar palabras sin sentido! Me hacen las cosas más difíciles a mí...

O debería decir 'impodifíciles'?

Technorati Tags: Canadian slang

WW#20 - Gardening with Mom (and Dad)

More WW posts from Bunny Trails, Napaboaniya and Frigga

wordless Wednesday

How I met my honey

It's hard to believe it, but it was in 1987 (21 years ago). I was 20, and I was living just outside Buenos Aires. I had joined a choir conducted by Roberto Luvini, that was based in Vicente López (a nearby city). We would rehearse on Wednesday and Sunday nights, from 8:30 to 10:30 PM (well, we're Argentines, we're night people).

One day, my friend Juan Pablo came with a girl whom he introduced. Her name was Gabriela; he had met her aunt while he was working (he used to sell insurance policies then). There was a piano in the living room, so JP asked about it. Gaby's aunt said that it belonged to her niece, and that Gaby was not only an accomplished piano teacher, but also a fine singer, so Juan Pablo invited her to join our choir.

Gaby is the first from the left, I'm the one holding his belly (we were already married when this picture was taken)

Gabriela was a little shy, but she had a great voice, so Roberto welcomed her and asked her to join the soprano section. I took some interest in her, because I could see she was a kind and sensitive person. We became friends almost instantly, and I was one of the few who noticed that she wasn't feeling too welcomed by the rest of the 'girls'. I remember that we had a group session in which we addressed this 'clique' problem. Gaby cried, the other girls cried, it was a big mess. But I remember I spoke in her defence that day.

The months passed, and we got closer. Still, I soon started dating another girl in the choir. Well, Gaby was my friend...

My brother came back from the USA to get married in September of 1988, and me and my choir sang in the wedding. In what would become an incredible coincidence, Gaby was the one chosen to sing Gounod's Ave Maria that day. She sang at my brother's wedding exactly two years before we started dating! It's so odd to watch her singing in the wedding video...

As I said, it wasn't after two years later that we started dating (I wrote about it already). Since we were such good friends, there was no need to get to know each other in depth. It's like we knew we were made for each other, and we got married within a year and a half. It's been 16 years last Thursday.

Like in almost every case, I got to meet my honey by pure coincidence (and a nosey aunt). I thank God every day for that.

Es difícil de creer, pero fue en 1987 (hace 21 años). Yo tenía 20, y vivía en las afueras de Buenos Aires. Había entrado en un coro que era conducido por Roberto Luvini, y estaba basado en Vicente López (una ciudad cercana). Ensayábamos los miércoles y domingos de 8:30 a 10:30 PM (hey, somos argentinos, vivimos de noche).

Un día, mi amigo Juan Pablo trajo una chica a la que nos presentó. Su nombre era Gabriela; el había conocido a su tía mientras trabajaba (el vendía pólizas de seguros entonces). Había un piano en la casa, por lo que JP preguntó. La tía de Gaby le contó que pertenecía a su sobrina, que no sólo era una muy buena profesora de piano sino que también una gran cantante, por lo que Juan Pablo la invitó a unirse al coro.

Our first 'official' picture together (Necochea, October 1990)

Gabriela era un poquito tímida, pero tenía una hermosa voz, por lo que Roberto la invitó a unirse a la sección de sopranos. A mí me cayó bien de entrada, porque pude ver lo atenta y sensible que era. Nos hicimos amigos casi inmediatamente, y yo fue uno de los pocos que notó que ella no se sentía muy bien acogida por el resto de las 'chicas'. Recuerdo que tuvimos una especie de sesión grupal, en la que discutimos este problema de que las chicas fueran un grupo tan cerrado. Gaby lloró, las chicas lloraron, fue un desastre. Yo recuerdo que hablé en su defensa ese día.

Los meses pasaron y cada vez éramos mejores amigos. Sin embargo, yo comencé a salir con otra chica del coro. Bueno, Gaby era mi amiga...

Mi hermano volvió de USA para casarse en Septiembre de 1988, y yo canté en la ceremonia religiosa junto con mi coro. En lo que se constituiría en una coincidencia increíble, Gaby fue la elegida para cantar el "Ave Maria" de Gounod ese día. Cantó en la boda de mi hermano exactamente dos años antes de que nosotros comenzáramos a salir juntos! Es tan extraño verla cantar en el video del casamiento...

Como dije, no fue sino hasta que pasaron dos años que comenzamos a noviar (ya escribí sobre el tema). Como éramos tan buen amigos, hubo poca necesidad de conocernos más a fondo. Sabíamos que estábamos hechos el uno para el otro, así que nos casamos apenas un año y medio después. De esto ya ha hecho 16 años el jueves pasado.

Como en la mayoría de los casos, conocí a mi amor por pura coincidencia (y una tía metida). Se lo agradezco a Dios cada día.

Technorati Tags: How I met my honey

Where were you? - #04

Welcome to yet another edition of my 'Where were you' game! I hope you're enjoying this as much as I am. I had fun coming up with the 'Geek edition' questions from last week. Let's see what do you think about this week's theme...

 

Where Were You - The Short-Term Memory Edition

 

Where were you...

 

1) ...last Saturday (26/Apr/2008)?:

Well, it was quite the busy day for me! I got up really early in the morning, took Juan to his Karate all-day camp, and then went to my soccer team's fundraiser barbecue.

I stayed there until 11:30 AM; then I drove back home and picked up the rest of the kids. Dropped the girls off at our friend's house and left to Toronto with Santi. We had two tickets to the Toronto FC game, that a friend had given us on Friday (he couldn't go). The seats were spectacular and the game was great. We had a blast (I will write more about this, maybe tomorrow)

  

The game ended at around 5:30 PM. It took me about 45 minutes to get out of there, but I was back in Waterloo by 7:30. I went over my friend Isabel's place to pick up the girls, and then took the three guys home. Went out again to pick up Juan from the karate camp at 9:00 PM, and then went out once again to join Gaby at her Tango show, where I stayed with her until 1:00 AM.

On Sunday, there was no God who could get me out of bed before noon. I missed church, and that was the fifth week in a row, but the first in which I could have been there... I feel bad about it, but I was exhausted!

2) ...ten days ago (19/Apr/2008)?:

I arrived back from San Diego at 6:45 AM that day. I took some pictures from the plane, as I always do...

 

The limo picked me up and deposited me at home at around 8:00 AM. I dropped my suitcase there, grabbed the car and left right away; I had to go to the neighbouring Bechtel Park to pick up my team's soccer gear, which I did. I came back at about 9:00 AM and went straight to bed, where I stayed until noon. I don't remember exactly what we did afterwards, but I do know that we went out for a ride, and that I helped the kids with their homework...

 

3) ...a month ago (29/Mar/2008)?:

I was in San Diego (my first trip). I worked from 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM. It was just three of us for the weekend. We went back to the hotel and we rested until around 6:30 PM, when we went out for dinner at a very expensive Japanese restaurant (as in 'the most expensive dinner I have ever had') in the Gas Lamp district. After that, we went to San Diego's Hard Rock Café and we partied until very late. I wasn't feeling well, though (my legs were killing me!), so I headed back to the hotel at around 2:00 AM. The next day was the first and only one in both trips to San Diego that I didn't have to go to work!

 

Image from www.evs123.com

 

So... where were you?

 

 

Technorati Tags: Where were you

 

My favourite video ever

There's a show I love to watch, and I do every time I find it on TV, and that's "Whose line is it anyway?" (either the excellent original British version or the American hosted by Drew Carey).

 

The idea of the show is simple: you have four actors (comedians, mostly) who will improvise scenes or songs based on random topics or as per the audience's requests. The results are always funny, but sometimes they're just hilarious.

 

Take this episode for example, where the guest was none other than Richard Simmons (the fitness guru)... It doesn't matter how many times I've watched it, it still makes me laugh like crazy.

 

Technorati Tags: Whose line,funny videos

Weekly Winners #12 - Apr/20 to Apr/26

My week started early last Sunday!

I got a call at 6:00 AM from Florencia at Brisas FM in Mar del Plata, Argentina.

They interviewed for about 20 minutes and I told them about my "Coming to Canada" story:

Here it is, once again (in case you understand Spanish)

boomp3.com

On Monday, I remembered Argentine superheroes:

And on Tuesday, I invited people to play my third "Where were you" game:

We went back on time (and to the zoo in Buenos Aires) on Wednesday:

Hard to believe this cute little kid is the same guy I took to a soccer game just today!

On Thursday, I finally finished my story about Juan's birth (for Lotus' Birth Stories Carnival)

Now Florencia is asking when am I going to write hers...

Finally, on Friday night, we went to the East Africa Cafe in Kitchener, and enjoyed

fantastic Eritrean and Ethiopian dishes like this one:

It was sooooo good!

And here's the "yapa" (the freebie):

Remember my post about the "Quinceañera" party, a couple of weeks ago?

Well, here's a video I just found, that pretty much illustrates my point about Juan being the heart of the party.

It must have been taken by Santi, and I didn't even know I had it until right now...

Bad quality video, but worth watching! :-)

Have a great week!!!

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Always willing to try new stuff

Me and Gaby went out last night, joining our church's "Friday Nighters" club for dinner at the East African Cafe in downtown Kitchener.

Cellphone quality pictures, sorry...

This place serves a limited menu of about 10 Ethiopian or Eritrean dishes, with names that might not mean anything to most of us, like "misir brsin", "kamlie" or "fit fit", mostly vegetarian dishes that would be beautifully presented in a big rounded plate, along with a pancake-like bread called "injera", which is mostly made of keff flour. The ingredients included lentiles, yellow peas, kale, onion, pepper and other vegetables. Meat was reduced to lamb and some ground beef.

The food was excellent! And the prices, ridiculously low ($10.00 per plate, which would feed...4 people!). And most importantly, we had a great time...

Look how beautifully presented the food was!

I had never had either Ethiopian or Eritrean food before, but I will surely look forward to repeating this experience in the future.

Gaby y yo salimos anoche, y fuimos a cenar junto al grupo de nuestra iglesia llamado "Friday Nighters" al East African Cafe en el centro de Kitchener.

Este lugar ofrece un menú limitado de 10 platos ya sean de Etiopía o Eritrea, con nombres que tal vez no nos digan nada, como "misir brsin", "kamlie" o "fit fit", platos mayormente vegetarianos que fueron presentados de manera muy bella en unos platos redondos bien grandes, junto con un pan con consistencia de 'panqueque mojado' llamado "injera", que está hecho de harina de keff. Los ingredientes incluyeron lentejas, arvejas amarillas, acelga, cebolla, morrones (ají morrón) y otros vegetales. La carne estaba reducida al cordero y algo de carne vacuna picada.

There's Gaby in action

La comida fue excelente! Y los precios, ridículamente bajos ($10.00 por plato, que era suficiente comida como para... 4 personas!). Y lo más importante de todo, la pasamos muy bien...

Nunca había comido platos etíopes o eritreos antes, pero pueden apostar que voy a volver a ir en el futuro.

Technorati Tags: Ethiopian food,Eritrea

Friday's feast #19

Appetizer - Name something you would categorized as weird

The behaviour of some people you care about, when things go well for you. In most cases, it's a badly dissimulated envy; but in other cases I would even say it's anger. They actually want you to fail, or at least not to be very successful, so they can feel better about themselves ("See? I told you they weren't going to make it"). I will never understand why people can be so miserable.

There was a time when I even entertained the idea that we might be to blame for some of those reactions we observed. I know better now.

Soup - What colour is the last piece of food you ate?

Yellow, as in French fries from Burger King. I took Gaby and the kids there after we picked up Gaby from the place where she teaches Spanish. It was late (9 PM), but we hadn't had dinner yet, and what the heck, it was our anniversary. We're still going out for dinner tomorrow, but this one we shared with the kids. And believe it or not, I picked a special place: we sat exactly on the same bench in which Gaby and the kids waited for me while I was having my first job interview in Waterloo, on March 30th, 2001.

Salad - On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how much do you enjoy being alone?

I would say "7", but careful here. I consider myself a loner, even though I enjoy being with my family tremendously. But I spent a lot of time on the road, and I kind of enjoy it sometimes. I'm not a fan of not having anybody around or anybody to talk to between 5:00 PM and 2:30 AM (see Dessert) when I'm in a hotel; but I do try to get the best of it. If the hotel has a swimming pool, I will go swimming for a good hour, hour and a half. It there's a Jacuzzi, I will spend another hour there; same goes for the gym. I like going out for dinner even if it's by myself. For me, there's nothing worse than being home alone for dinner.

Main Course - Fill in the blank: I will __________ vote for _________ in ________.

I will not vote for president in USA. Simply because I'm Canadian! :-)

Dessert - Describe your sleeping habits

Bad. Very, very bad. I barely sleep. I've been always like this. I remember that when I was a teenager, many times I actually stayed up all night and went straight to school (it would be mostly on Sunday nights, who knows why). I will never go to bed before 2:00, 2:30 AM (see Salad), and even then I will sleep while listening to the radio (AM radio) or some music with my headphones. It's like I cannot sleep if the room is quiet.

When I'm in a hotel room, I leave the TV on all night (volume is low, though, so I don't bother the neighbours). I don't understand how can I function with 5 hours of sleep every day (because I get up at 7:00 or 7:30 AM), especially considering that I suffer from obstructive sleep apnœa.

But as I said, I've been always like that, my father was like that, and I'm sure that at least my oldest brother is like that. And I also know that my wife hates it, my sister-in-law hates it and my stepmother probably did too, even though she can't hear well! :-)

See more posts here: Friday's Feast official home.

Friday's feast

Sixteen

It's my 16th wedding anniversary today. According to Wikipedia, I should either buy her Tungsten or silver hollowware.

Decisions, decisions... :-)

Seriously speaking, the fact that she lasted more than two weeks with me is something I still can't understand. If you add the time since we started dating, we've been together for almost 18 years now, and we couldn't be happier. Every day is better than the previous. I would dare to say that this is probably one of the best times in our lives together.

When I think of all the things she does for me, the kids, the house, our family... and she's still finds time to do things she loves, and she does them extremely well (she teaches cooking, cake decoration and Spanish at different Community Centres, and she's still being asked to come back to the local TV station for her cooking segment). On top of all that, she's the best mother, a great wife, and a beautiful person. Gaby is my hero.

Yes. She's definitely a keeper.

Happy Anniversary, "Poli". I love you.

There's a Miguel Cantilo song (practically unknown), which is my favourite, and it's for you. I don't think you have ever heard me sing this one, but I know it from memory...

Hoy es mi decimosexto aniversario de casados. De acuerdo con Wikipedia (la versión inglesa, porque en la versión española no hay nada), a Gaby debería comprarle Tungsteno (wolframio) o cacerolitas de plata.

Decisiones, decisiones... :-)

Hablando seriamente, el hecho de que Gaby haya durado más dos semanas a mi lado es algo que escapa a mi entendimiento. Si uno agrega el tiempo que pasó desde que comenzamos a salir juntos, son casi 18 años ya, y no podríamos estar más felices. Cada día es mejor que el anterior. Hasta diría que éste es probablemente uno de nuestros mejores momentos como pareja.

Cuando pienso en todas las cosas que ella hace por mí, los chicos, la casa, nuestras familias... y todavía se hace tiempo para hacer cosas que a ella le gustan y las hace de manera excelente (ella enseña cocina, decoración de tortas o español en distintos centros comunitarios, y también la siguen llamando para volver al programa de TV local en el que tiene su segmento de cocina). Por sobre todo eso, ella es la mejor madre del mundo, una gran esposa, y una hermosa persona. Gaby es mi heroína.

Sí. Definitivamente, "con esta señorita me caso yo".

Feliz Aniversario, "Poli". Te amo.

Aquí tenés una casi desconocida canción de Miguel Cantilo que es mi favorita, y que seguramente jamás me has escuchado cantar, pero me sé de memoria...

boomp3.com

Technorati Tags: wedding anniversaries,love