A story for your amusement!

Mi esposa de hijo esta embarrasada. Roughly translated, we are becoming grandparents. Matt & Jenny are pregnant. She is due 10/13/07. Here is the story of how Matt broke the news.

To start the story, I must first provide several key pieces of background information.

I have a reputation for allowing my enthusiasm for Spanish to out-strip my ability to speak it. Cultural jeopardy is just one of the results of my botched Spanish. At Christmas I wanted to ask Lola, Jenny's non-English speaking grandmother, if she was keeping warm during the winter months. I even rehearsed my Spanish with Jenny before addressing Lola. The gasp of the 85 year-old woman and her saucer-sized eyes did not escape my keen senses. Instantly I had a clue my Spanish might be suspect. The gasp, the hoots, and the laughter of everyone all preceded my learning that I had actually asked Lola if she was remaining "amorous" this winter. I am suspicious that our Jenny Goodman may have set me up. She claims complete innocence, but I am not convinced. We all have had many good laughs. I don't think that one will ever be forgotten.

The first class of our Spanish II course in February we had to introduce ourselves and reveal our motivation for taking the class. My reason was to avoid the embarrassment of the "amorous" story. Our professor then spoke about a caution new-comers to Spanish needed to observe. She warned us about false-cognates. These are words that sound like their English counterparts, but are not. She turned to me and asked, "Jon, how would you say you were embarrassed in Spanish?" I answered by saying that even though I didn't know the right word, I would spanglish-ize the word and say "Estoy embarrasado." She affirmed my effort, but told me that while a correct sentence, I was actually saying I was pregnant. Everybody again laughed at my expense.

Now to the story. Sunday before Valentine’s Day, I called both Matt and his father-in-law, Mark. I wanted the three of us to surprise our wives with dinner someplace. We all live about 1-2 hours from Madison, so we planned to meet there. Since Mark was most familiar with Madison, he chose a new, very nice, Spanish restaurant called Abuelo's. So for the next few days I was rehearsing my Spanish so that I could converse with our waiter and order fluently. I even made flash cards with appropriate phrases.

We all met at Abuelo’s. I started out right away with my Spanish, but soon discovered our waiter did not speak it. So I took my flashcards and held them up so that he could read the English version of my Spanish efforts. All six of us had a good laugh.

During the waves of laughter, Matt scribbled something on a scrap of paper and handed it to me. He then said in a stage whisper, "Dad I bet you would like to say you're ‘embarrassed’ in Spanish. Go ahead, I wrote the word for you." Of course, I was too smart to be tricked again. I made a big deal about knowing what "embarrasada" meant. But then he said, "Dad, look at the word. Think about what it means!" As soon as Mark and Monse, who are fluent in Spanish, heard me say the word, they knew, but it took me a moment longer. Finally, the meaning dawned on me (I think I was the last one to figure it out.) Our whole table went crazy. Oh by the way.....the name of the restaurant means grandfather’s.

The final installment of this tale took place the a few days later at work. Bursting with the desire to tell everybody, I came into work on Friday. Standing in the shop were 5-6 of our Hispanic employees who always enjoy my efforts at Spanish. I gathered them around me and proceeded to inform them that my mother-in-law was pregnant and I was somehow responsible. Once again laughter exploded at my expense. But, we worked through the language problem and finally figured out what I wanted to say. The phrase at the beginning of this letter was the product of our collaboration.


JG

The birthday prince and his princess!

I believe we make a very regal couple. What do you, our royal subjects think?