Last night we had a bit of a celebratory feast, to honor the fact that Ted had finished writing the last chapter of the book. We had some ribs leftover from the weekend, as well as some salads and wine (cheap kangaroo juice yellowtail merlot )
Michaela though looked pretty tired as she was trying to eat.
I said to Ted: She needs a N – A – P.
Abigail (excited): That spells nap!
Ted: Our days of secrets are over.
Me: Aber auf Deutsch…
Abigail: Sprechen Deutsch!
We all laughed.
Ted: Aber kannst du Deutsch lesen? Ich glaube nicht!
Abigail: babbling something she thinks sounds like German (Sprechen Deutsch and Ja are her only vocabulary)
We laughed again.
We tried a fruit salad made with golden raspberries, newly discovered in our garden – thanks to Ted’s brother .
Ted tried one.
I watched his face.
Me: You are…..unimpressed…
Ted: They taste different.
Me: They have hints of banana…. (I began, quoting the description on the web site I had read )
Me…along with oak and tannins…
Ted: I don’t think you should finish that glass of wine.
For dessert, yet a treat again (For you or for me? Ted asked), more chocolate of course, chocolate-covered ginger and chocolate -covered malt balls.
“This will be my first chocolate….” Abigail held onto the end of her words with a dramatic tease …
“….for today!”
“These are marbles” she said, describing the chocolate balls.
Me: Malt balls.
Abigail: Golf balls?
Chocolate golf balls, anyone?
4 responses so far ↓
1 Katherine // Sep 24, 2003 at 10:26 pm
I didn’t know you and Ted spoke German! Hmmm. Trying to translate…”But can you *something* German? I don’t *something*.” Hmmm. Not too clear.
Ah, Google has a translation page. I get it now, but I still don’t understand what reading has to do with it. Oh, he was speaking to Abigail…but still. Anyway, where did you and Ted learn German? Ok, this is a totally incoherent post but I’m doing it anyway.
2 Ted Leung // Sep 25, 2003 at 1:13 am
Hi Katherine,
The relationship to reading is that we switched to German after Abigail demonstrated that she could comprehend spelled out words in English (reading)…
Julie can speak for her German, but I learned mine in high school
3 enoch // Sep 25, 2003 at 4:59 am
i know nothing of german, but i do sprechen enology, and julie should definitely finish that yellowtail merlot. their shiraz finished just outside their top 10 for an under $20 tasting by the NYT f&w guys 😉 cheap doesn’t mean bad! (more expensive often means better, though)
i dunno what secret language we’ll use with natalie, since tania’s trying to teach her mandarin, i like cantonsese more… maybe spanish? but tania’s not too good there…
4 Julie // Sep 25, 2003 at 7:42 am
Oops – sorry for the confusion. Or perhaps I should say Entschuldigen Sie mir bitte (please excuse me, sorry)!
I tried different ways of typing out this conversation; probably should have included more context. I grew up learning a little German at home (it was my family’s secret language, my grandmother came over here from Germany) and also studied in high school and college. I’d like to teach the kids – as their two big heritages are Chinese and German and I have a better chance with the German than I do the Cantonese although I am pretty rusty with the “Deutsch”….Abigail has heard a little – she can say “sprechen Deutsch” (speak German) but not much else…a dangerous phrase, I’m afraid….I tried teaching them a bit before we went to Europe last year and now and then I try to speak it or get German books or tapes from the library.
I think it’s cool that Ted also studied German and so we can speak it together. French and Spanish are more popular – hard to find others who chose to learn German, and I’m not sure it’s even a choice at many high schools any more (it’s not offered any more at my alma mater but I could take Mandarin there instead now…)
Good to know that yellowtail is a good choice. I guess I’m just suspicious of stuff that doesn’t cost too much – bad experiences in the past – but we’ve liked both the merlot and chardonnay. Don’t know if I feel up to trying any more shiraz though. :)Thanks, Enoch.