Friday, March 14, 2008

Could I be any more embarassed?

In case you needed a laugh today (and I needed some humbling . . . ), here's two recent incidents from my life:

On Wednesday I was talking with my house helper and she mentioned that she was only two and a half years younger than me, since she has already celebrated her birthday this year. It came to me in a flash . . . oh no, her birthday! I totally forgot her birthday! "Was it yesterday?" I asked, knowing that it was on a Tuesday. No, in fact, it was last week Tuesday . . . the day that John and I were gone all day! So not only did I ask her to work about 14 hours on her birthday, she spent her birthday supervising children (a first for her) and English-speaking children at that! Oh dear, I felt so badly. So at my insistence, we have now designated next Tuesday as her birthday and we'll have a special lunch and a birthday cake. SO sorry, Lou!

The other incident occurred in the same conversation, if you can believe it. Lou was asking me about some deeper questions and as I talked with her I kept on referencing Paul's writings in the Bible. The only problem was, I kept pronouncing his name "bwoh-lwoh" instead of "bow-lwoh", calling him "pineapple" instead of "Paul"! Ooops. So, let's see, how many years have I been speaking this language??! There's always more to learn!

4 comments:

Jennifer said...

I think you language stories are some of the funniest ones you share. :)

I can't wait to meet Baby Wind #3!

Kevin and Becky said...

Love it! Thanks for broadcasting your follies online.

Anonymous said...

You gotta love the language here. It makes me cringe to think of all the ways I've butchered it!

We used to have a classmate from New Zealand whose name was Paul, and we would call him pineapple just to mess with him! They DO sound so alike!

Looking forward to hearing about baby #3.
Love,
Brigitte

Anonymous said...

I think the fact that Lou was willing to work so hard on her birthday is a true testimony of her commitment to your family. I hope the birthday lunch is a fun one!

I also often call Paul a Pineapple! It's very confusing for newbies who have no clue who I am referring to.