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Saturday, September 17, 2016

The 5-day Intensive Spanish Class

My husband has always wanted to have more command of the Spanish language. He goes on bouts of studying on his own, pouring over text books, dictionaries, and listening to CD's on headphones while he mutters his responses to himself.  He used to communicate with people working in his store, and now his main reason is to be able to speak fluently to our son-in-law, who is from Honduras. When he found out about Lake Tahoe Community College's Intensive Spanish Summer Institute, (ISSI), I knew he was going to sign up for it. What I didn't expect was that I would join him. I envisioned myself gardening or writing, or maybe even painting, which I never seem to get around to, keeping myself busy at home. He went in to chat in Spanish with the program's director, Susan O'Connor to help her decide what level he should sign up for. She boosted him right in to Intermediate level ll. I hadn't realized there were so many levels, and wasn't really planning on signing up, but the more she talked about it, it sounded like fun, although time-consuming, and besides, we usually do things together. I boasted to her about the Spanish I had learned in the "clinica de los ojos" at Kaiser. I knew all the letters on the eye chart in Spanish, and could communicate pretty well with the patients till the interpreter arrived for their appointment. The most beginning class was called "Low Beginning", and I thought that I could skip that with all my "knowledge" that I had acquired in the school of life. We both enrolled and became college students again! We walked out to our car making up a silly fight song for the school's team, the Coyotes.

Within a month till the class started, my decision of skipping the basic course started to worry me, since I realized that, having studied French in high school, there would no doubt be verbs and tenses to memorize. Doug was madly studying night and day, and I had an aversion to even trying. Finally, I realized that I must change my class to Low Beginning, which had sounded to me as if I had never ever communicated with a Spanish speaking person, which is pretty hard to get away with in California. After I changed my class, I felt better. No pressure. Yet another reason not to study before class.

We had signed up for an extra class, called, "The Difficult Trip", and were each sent a packet of fake documents: ID's, customs forms, play pesos, and traveler's checks. Poring over each piece of information, we filled everything out in advance for the 4th night of class, when the entire lobby of the school would be transformed into a Mexican airport, complete with customs, car rental and baggage check.

Yet another packet came telling us where our homeroom for language and grammar instruction would be, a map of the campus, and all the optional mini courses or breakout sessions that were offered each day. This award-winning course is in it's 23rd year, is always in the first week of August, and folks (especially Spanish speakers) from the community of South Lake Tahoe and beyond come to share their knowledge in classes in everything from Don Juan, to the Incas, and even Salsa dancing. We chose carefully to take a few of the extra classes together, so that we could see each other at some point during the day.

On the first day, we showed up for school at 7:30 like good little boys and girls, and were happy to see snacks and coffee provided and lots of folks with badges there to point us in the right direction. Much of the college itself is arranged in a sort of cloverleaf, with many of the buildings attached by hallways presumably to make it easier to navigate to class when it's snowing outside. They're working on heated pathways to the outer buildings for the winter too.

When we went to the introductory assembly, outside, we were surprised to see how many grey heads there were in the audience. Many of these "life-time learners" had come each of the 23 years and were already speaking Spanish with each other. There was no shortage of younger people too, some wanting to get a jump on their Spanish in their first year of college, and lots of educators, wanting to be able to communicate better with their ESL students. Yes, we were in a group of folks who were excited about life, and wanted to keep on learning new things....and at least for the older ones, they say that learning something new is good for the brain.

So there we were, students on our first day of school, and yes with a little bit of anxiety of the unknown. We each went our separate ways, to our grammar and vocabulary classes. My teacher, Profesora Carol, had a nice smile and was happy to be there. The other students were friendly as we introduced ourselves to each other, already using our new language. "Como se llama usted?" "Me llamo Patricia", I answered, rolling my R.

Mi Profesora, Carol, threw us in to the deep end (gently), in the afternoon, to have us conjugate present tense verbs ending in er, ar, and ir. To our surprise, we were  catching on, working from our workbook in pairs. Doug had a little bit of review in his class, but I'm sure he was way ahead of us newbies. When it came to choosing the "breakout sessions, Doug and I had different tastes. He preferred to push himself with lots of conversation classes, and I chose to learn about the art of Frida Kahlo,
Frida Kahlo class 







The perfect chile, stuffed and ready to cook.


...or how to make chiles rellenos, using the proper type of chiles, dark green poblanos and Mexican cheese, (and of course, she let us eat them).







Look at that Huge Paella pan!

I especially loved the class on how to make Spanish Paella, made outdoors as is the tradition. Our energetic chef gave us an animated demonstration, telling us as she cooked, that "you can make a paella from whatever you have on hand. If you only have chicken then that's okay. If you're on the coast, you would most likely add el pescadore (fish), or camarones (shrimp), also, many times chorizo is included." She showed us the special huge, flat paella pan she used, passed around the saffron for us to smell, and tantalized all of us with the wonderful aromas. The cooking classes were so well organized with young people from the college helping out with the prep work and serving us.


We did agree on the Sing the Songs of Cuba and Latin America class, where Marco Pereda sang and played his guitar while we sang along. "Cielito Lindo" was one of our favorites. Some day, I'll be able to insert a video of him singing.

I hope you will all want to find out more about this award winning course. Go to www.ltcc.edu/issi. You'll find out how to know about everything from Spanish Swear Words and Street Slang to an Environmental Series about Baja California.

Pero (but) you still have to hear about the evening that most students look forward to in this course. It's the Difficult Trip.
I must tell you, that I was nervous, being in the "lower beginning" class. We were offered to be guided to our first destination and I ran for that line. We were lead personally by Henry Wilds, who invented this crazy "trip". He first took us to El Banco, where we stood in line to change our fake Travelers Checks in to play Pesos. I learned from the people in front of me that I should say: "Puedo tener pesos para mis cheques de viajero, por favor?"
Then I was sent off to fend for myself. We all had to go to a list of places in the lobby/aeropuerto and have things checked off. I chose to go to customs first. The first thing I'm asked is my name. I can handle that. "Why are you traveling?" ....... How much money do you have? I'm nervous, can't find the papers he asks for and can't figure out how many pesos I've cashed my travelers checks in for.... after all I've just learned the word for a hundred, "cien" that morning. I start to perspire. My face is flushed.

There's a commotion behind me. I turn to find my husband, Doug, arguing with a (fake) policeman. He's saying something about not needing a passport, and would the cop take some dinero?
I'm thinking that perhaps he's having too much fun and I'm too worked up and serious.

Doug has moved on to my spot at customs and also tries to bribe the officer into letting him in without a passport. I'm moved over to baggage. As I'm finishing up my encounter, I see my husband telling the "baggage" person that she "should lift his bag very carefully because it has grenades and rifles in it. But don't worry. It's for my work."  The woman looks over at me and says, "Su esposo?" I say, "No, I've never seen him." She looks at a note that has been passed to her from customs about this man. She flips a coin to make a decision. He's a lucky guy. He doesn't have to go to (fake) jail.

I went to the Pharmacia to get pretend pills (Skittles) for a headache (Tengo un dolor de la cabeza). Doug told the pharmacist that his headache was from too much Tequila, and he needs opiates for it. He asked to have it without a prescription, and finally, the amused pharmacist gives it to him literally, "under the table". (More Skittles, of course.)

We met again at the makeshift restaurante, where we could gather our thoughts and buy a yummy tostada for $2.00 with real money. Then we were approached by a waiter and handed a menu that had everything on it as if it were a real Mexican restaurante. This was one of the places to be checked off our list. It turns out that you can order anything you want, but all you'll really get is a dish of chocolate or vanilla ice cream. Doug spoke to the waiter in his best Spanish and ordered half the menu. I just ordered chiles rellenos.  "Chocolate, por favor."

The evening was coming to an end, but we hadn't gone to the mercados upstairs. We each went our separate ways and I learned to negotiate and barter with the merchants. I'd say "cuanto cuesta?" when I was interested in say, a scarf. "Cincuenta pesos,", she'd say. We were all encouraged to bargain, so I said, "Puedo darle veinte." (I can give you 20) She came back with "treinte" (30), and we smiled and agreed. I gave her 30 of my play pesos, but I didn't actually get the scarf. She signed my card to say I had gone through this exercise.
After a couple of more transactions, my card was all signed, and I met Doug in the lobby. Proud of our accomplishment, finishing the Difficult Trip, we walked out to the parking lot. "I bought you a gift!", he said, as he dashingly pulled a fancy fan from his pocket and opened it.  Aww, I thought...but.... "How did you do that? Nothing was really for sale."
"I paid for it with the play money." he said.
"But nothing was really for sale! We were just learning to barter and then they would sign us off. You have to return it. It belongs to one of the real vendors."
Doug looked sad, but said he would do it in the morning.

We both must have thought our car was in a different spot, since I was going right and I saw Doug veering left. Then I saw something move behind him. "Bear!!", I called in a whisper. It was dusk, and a bear had gotten in to a dumpster. Doug moved quickly toward me and the car.
It was the first bear we had seen this season.

"We're in a Prius", he said, "It doesn't make much noise. Keep the lights off and go past him and we can see him up close!" I had second thoughts, but did it anyway. Thank God, the bear, rather large, darted away from his foraging long enough for us to pass, and then went back to his business.

The next day, the last day of classes, I had to tell my conversation teacher about Doug and his antics. She paid me a nice favor in reaching in to her briefcase and bringing out a lovely black fan to replace the one I had made him return. Thinking it was all funny, she had me repeat my story to my class.

Later that day, Doug and I met for lunch, and on our way we met "mi professora." I winked at her and presented "mi esposa". She said, "You! He causes me problems all the time!" It turns out that Professora Maria was Doug's "homeroom" teacher.

Well, the good ending to all this, is that we decided that we should make plans to go to Spain to try to really be immersed in the Spanish language. Our hope is to include part of the Camino Santiago de Compostela, the 500 mile pilgrimage that folks make that ends in North Western Spain, with the cathedral that houses the tomb of St. James, a disciple of Jesus. Our plan is to hop on and hop off, (no, not on a Red Bus, but from our rental car), taking in a few miles at a time, and ending, God willing, with a grand finale of a few miles at the end.

Folks might look at us strangely with our light packs, and going the opposite direction back to the car.....but from what I hear, this is called, "the Harbo way."



Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Company in the Pool

Today I was a "golf widow", I suppose, since my husband went off to play a round and get some exercise. I decided that my exercise would be in the pool outside our condo in Tahoe. Not a soul was around, and I set myself up on a lounge chair with my supplies, a big hat, sunglasses, and my library book that I had 20 pages left to read. It was windy, about 61 degrees, but sunny, so I still felt warm enough. The idea was to lay in the sun for awhile before getting in the pool because the wind probably wouldn't let me afterward.

The book finished, I prolonged my lounge time by finishing a crossword puzzle I found in my pool bag. My mind tried to talk me out of even getting wet, but I pictured Doug coming home after walking the course and I'd feel bad if I hadn't done.... something. I spotted some flotsam floating around on the surface of the pool, so that gave me a sense of purpose. I could pump iron with my foam dumbbells AND clean the pool to make it nice for others.

As I climbed down the steps into the water, I spotted a pretty cream-colored maple leaf floating at the other end of the pool. As I made my toward it, I captured quite a few pine needles that had blown in, carefully rescued a bee that seemed grateful, since after I flicked him out he flew off in a second. I went backwards toward the maple leaf, kicking my way there, but when I reached the opposite end it was no where to be seen. Hmm. Oh well. It was time to move around a little, I used my Aquabells to do push-ups in the water, and then some shoot-throughs and some jumping jacks. I began to twirl around in the water, (my favorite), when I spotted the maple leaf floating right near my shoulder.

Rather than toss it out of the pool, I decided to look at it more closely. It was totally dry on top and it didn't have a stem. It also had a passenger.....a tiny reddish brown spider was holding completely still on the leaf. I was looking so closely that my breath hit it, and it moved a few steps in shock. "Don't go! Be my company", I pleaded, realizing that I was talking to a spider. He stayed, and happily rode along on his leaf, which  was collecting yellow pollen on its edges. I should take a picture of this, I thought, and planned to get out soon and dry myself off enough to handle my iPhone. I did a sort of bicycle move heading toward the other end, and I think because of the pumping up and down I did behind my back with the aquabells, I moved faster, and the leaf was propelled along side me. It actually passed me, so I tried to do the same movement in the opposite direction to make it follow me again. It didn't. It reached the wall, and turned left, the spider getting the ride of his life as it twirled along the edge. Finally it turned toward me, as I kept up my plunging movement. I thought I had better get out and get that picture while it was so close to the edge, since I was composing a story in my head, and what good is a story without a photo?  As I headed for the stairs to climb out, the creamy colored leaf kept moving in my direction, along the edge of the pool.

And then, to my surprise, SWOOSH! leaf and passenger were sucked in to the pool's drain on the side. It hadn't dawned on me. So no picture....but still a story.

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Mrs Magoo, post-op

It was time for cataract surgery....I had been mistaking things for other objects, or my vision was so fuzzy I couldn't make them out. My husband accused me of being like Mr. Magoo, only a feminine version, we called "Mrs. Magoo", who saw life through such cloudy vision, it caused me to endanger my and others' situations.

Fireworks, as seen through a cataract
I had one more Magoo-ish incident before the surgery. When Doug was driving us down from Tahoe so I could have surgery the next day in Oakland Kaiser, my vision was worse than ever. I confessed to him that I couldn't see the big green highway signs until they came up in my passenger side window. "Another reason that I'm driving and you're having the surgery, right?", he said. So true.

When I had the measurements done on my eyes, it was said that I would benefit from going with a "Toric" lens in my eye, one that could be turned on an axis and cancel out the "steepness" of my cornea, which caused an astigmatism. I had to pay extra for this lens, but it still wasn't the most costly one. It was the one I needed, letting me see more crisply at distance and maybe for the computer. My rapidly progressing cataract was so bothersome to me because it had only been 8 or so months since I had seen clearly, so I went for it. The nurses in the OR praised me for paying extra for the "Gucci" lens.

Before the surgery, I was reading a book...."All the Things We Cannot See", by Anthony Doerr, which seems appropriate, right? I loved it so much that I read it with a magnifying glass, with good light, while tilting my head to see if I could go around my cloudy lens. Sometimes it seemed to work. The book was due before I finished it, so I returned it to the South Lake Tahoe library before we traveled to the Bay Area for the surgery. When I got back, my vision was so bright, that I could read the print without glasses or contacts....and I thought this surgery was mostly for distance vision! The Toric lens, (which isn't for everyone's eye), has me seeing the computer and not so fine print (as long as I hold it pretty far), without glasses!

The only downside, that is downright depressing, is that I can see more wrinkles. It seems as if I have aged 10 years over night....of course that's only my opinion, since everyone else has been looking at me like this all along! No wonder I had been receiving more comments, like "Well, if you were my mother, I would suggest that you make this decision....after all...at YOUR age...." Gosh. It's time to start testing wrinkle creams. My doctor laughed and told me that most people just discover that their homes aren't as tidy. They see dust bunnies that they didn't realize were there. Well there's that too.....

I've been testing my vision All The Time. In the shower, I can now tell the difference between the shampoo and conditioner bottles, which most folks have a hard time with after they turn about 42, which is normal, but annoying. Have you ever applied lotion to your hair in an hotel? Not easy to get out.

"Now I can read that sign over there!" "Look over there at the robin flying with it's straw for it's nest in it's mouth!"
But, when covering my "new eye", the cloudiness of the right eye is more pronounced; I was told that that might be the case.

As if on cue, I received a notice from the DMV to renew my driver's license. I worried and stewed about the vision test I'd have to perform. Testing my vision on each eye on street signs didn't give me much confidence. I decided to go for it and walked into the Department of Motor Vehicles for my test. I figured that if I failed, I could get an extension till I had surgery on the other eye.
I sat in the waiting area, which faced the eye charts, trying not to look like I was attempting to memorize the lines.
In an abnormally short amount of time, my number was called, and I smiled and purposefully didn't offer any information about my level of confidence of my vision.
First, the man pointed and said, "Now, with both eyes read the 3rd line on chart C". I aced that of course.  "Now cover your left eye and tell me the 2nd line on chart A". I took a breath and murmured, "Hmm, not quite as clear", ....as I tried to focus. I said, "CFDBE". "Good!", he said, to my surprise!
I breezed through the left eye, of course, and was delighted to be granted my driver's license renewal.
It turns out that I may have been testing my vision on smaller letters at the DMV by sitting farther away from the chart and I'm embarrassed to say that I wasted the minutes I tried to memorize the chart.

A few weeks later, I'm still testing the parameters of my vision. I can see the newspaper crossword as long as it's a little far away from my usual reading distance, and I'm so glad to see the swallows flying in the distance...and that's with my right eye still seeing a little cloudy. One day....another day, I'll sign up for a new adventure with cataract surgery on my right eye. No worries.

Lily Lake after surgery

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Mrs. Magoo

When coming through the gate of the community pool at our mobile park in Palm Springs, I leaned my head to my husband and whispered, "Who are those people on the other side? Anyone we know? "
He looked incredulously at me and said, "Oh my gosh! You're becoming like Mrs Magoo!"
He was right, but I said, "Well I don't want to offend someone by not speaking to them, and I can't quite make them out."

Many younger readers may not recognize the reference to a bald, myopic cartoon character called Mr Magoo, played with the voice of Jim Backus (who may or may not be remembered more as Thurston Howell III, the millionaire on Gilligan's Island). Mr Magoo mistakes everything for something else, and often puts himself in dangerous situations.

Another day, when we proceeded to the far side of the pool, I said to a friend lounging there, "Hi Lisa, Where's Cathy today?" As soon as I had those words out of my mouth, I saw Cathy's belongings on the lounge next to Lisa's. With the sun shining in my eyes, I followed a voice that was about 10 feet away in the pool. Cathy was bobbing around on a noodle, calling out "Here I am Patty! Not going blind, are you?"  I mumbled something about the glare of the sun....

One of the worst things that has happened is when I picked up my son at the airport, I almost ran through a stop sign. I really didn't see it, but I accredited it to being excited to see him. I decided to let him drive me around. I notoriously find it hard to be a passenger, but he drove very nicely.

While driving recently on the freeway toward Yuma, Arizona, Doug was driving, since I banned myself from being behind the wheel. He steered valiantly, I might say, through a sand storm, white knuckles and all.

I said, "This is amazing! I'm going to take a picture of this so I can show the doctor how I really see." So, I took the photo with my iPhone, and when done, I saw Doug look toward me to see what I was doing. When he turned his head away from the road, I instantly worried that I had distracted him from driving. I whipped around to look at the road, and saw us rapidly gaining on a black car that seemed to have stopped ahead of us! I braced myself, pointed, and said "Car!!", as my life did the proverbial passing before my eyes.  .....We came upon the said stopped car, and to my amazement, ran over it, as I realized that all it was was a rectangular patch of tar in the road! Doug said, "You're really going to have to trust my vision over yours!" Still my heart was racing and my arms were tingling as I realized we were still alive.

Only yesterday, my husband was driving us around town, and I saw a young child's electric wheelchair strapped to the back of a truck. I thought, "Oh, that poor child. We should pray for the family. It must be really hard for them." When we pulled up alongside, I saw that it was a gardening truck with a fancy lawnmower strapped to the back of it! Once again the subject of Mrs. Magoo was brought up.

Having worked in an eye clinic for 17 years, I heard many complaints from patients about not being able to drive at night because of the glare of car lights with halos around them. Then there is the story of the sun causing another type of glare, or haze, that I can also attest to.....not to mention not being able to read the crossword puzzle clues without squinting, or with extra light. That is a real pain to me.....since I always look forward to doing a crossword after breakfast. Right now it's not so relaxing. So all of this adds up to cataracts. I'm scheduled to have the worst eye operated on this month, and I have confidence that I'll have my good distance vision back afterward.

All of this is normal, you know, "At your age", I've been told too many times recently. Cataracts happen to almost everyone if they live long enough. That's what I used to tell the patients, and now, here I am, one myself.