Snowy Trifles

With the first snow of the year, I’m once again feeling all relieved and shit that our boy Rocco decided to move indoors. Yes, even on those mornings when he wakes me before four by jumping onto the bed, landing on my belly with all of his pre-dawn 500 pounds. (Cats – heavier than mastadons when they want to be) He's an abundantly effective alarm clock is what he is.

Meanwhile, Coco is sitting at the front window, waiting for her buddy Ghost Cat to show up for brekkie. Unlike porch cats of years past, Ghost Cat doesn’t necessarily leave his fortress of solitude, wherever that might be, in nasty weather. It’s 14º out, there’s 8.5” of fresh snow on the ground. Though I dug out much of the porch, the steps are still buried and there are no little paw prints to be found. I’d stay put too.

Following his wise example, I’ll get my exercise in on Jen’s treadmill, catch up on long overdue correspondence, pay bills, knit and start the sketches for my next big painting. And stay off the internet so that I actually accomplish all this shit.
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Have you seen this vid. Ten Responses to the Phrase 'Man Up.' 
All 10 are temendous but, this morning, number eight stands up big and loud – it’s one of my bigger pet peeves.

8) Boy babies get blue socks. Girl babies get pink socks. What about purple? What about orange, yellow, chartreuse, cerulean, black, tie-dyed, buffalo plaid, rainbow…

LOVE it! Can we all mebbe ID our kids as just wonderful tiny beings, as wee miracles and not slam gender on them the moment they exit the womb? Can we let them breathe for a bit and not lay bullshit societal restrictions on them just yet? Hmmmmm?

In any case, the vid is of a performance by Guante. You might be wondering, who’s that?

Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre is a hip hop artist, two-time National Poetry Slam champion, activist, educator and writer based in Minneapolis. (source)

Fabulous, fabulous piece. I wish I could hear his cadence, his tone and accent.

And, somehow, Guante’s rap puts Sherman Alexie in mind. In One Stick Song, a collection of poems and short prose, he wrote that:

Poetry = Anger x Imagination

Alexie was the World Heavyweight Champion Poet (of the Taos Poetry Circus) three years running. Wish I’d been in the audience for even just one of those bouts.
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Words to remember.

In German, the word for deaf is taub not Taube (pigeon) or Trauben (grapes). Those being errors which I've made before. *DOH*

Coupla sentences that I gotta keep at the forefront of mein tête:

Ich bin taub. Bitte langsam sprechen und ich werde versuchen, deine Lippen zu lesen
I’m deaf. Please speak slowly and I will attempt to read your lips.

Can I lipread German? Maybe. Possibly. Beats the fuck outta me.

Back up phrase:

Es tut mir leid, ich weiß nicht viel Deutsch. Können Sie in Englisch sprechen?
I'm sorry, I don't know much German. Can you speak in English?

If that don’t work, I pull out the old deafie faithful:

Kannst du mir zeigen, worüber du sprichst?
Can you show me what you're talking about?

Yup, late next month I’m heading back to Berlin. I’ll be visiting my cousin Della and her fab font creating husband Martin Wenzel.

Bast only knows if those phrases are grammatically correct. Syntactically speaking – I suck in, pretty much, any/every language