Christian Ross

It’s official, I’m learning Spanish.

For if no other reason than to be able to interpret the lyrics of the wanna-be-Selena concert that the nice people of the Bahia Mar on South Padre Island decided to throw starting at 11:08pm this Friday evening.

Not that I have a six-month old or anything. Asleep. Since 8:15pm.

I’d like to learn it for several reasons. One, we will all need to know it in the near future. B, It’d be handy to figure out if people are saying dirty things about you without your knowledge. And third, the lyrics to Tejano songs must be the most inspirational ever written. Cause there’s no way anybody enjoys it for the music. Terrible.

I’ve entertained the idea of throwing on some flops, grabbing the camera, and making a show out of it. It’s a pretty safe bet to assume Selena2 isn’t much of a big shot. The 4/25 Bahia Mar show isn’t exactly Red Rocks. The pink hotel as a backdrop is nice stage setting and is great for acoustics, but the army green creek winding through the complex (hopefully not funneling back into the ocean) and the random individual screams from the audience of 8-10 are a give away.

I haven’t heard any words that have tipped her hand yet like Iglesia, Biblio or Jesus but there’s a chance that she could be evangelizing. In the parking lot today, the old BM was filled with multiple Assembly of something church vans. The lobby of said pink hotel was overrun with old hispanic women, all in dresses, and most with some sort of veil that covered part of their head. If I were to guess, I’d say witches. Random, actually. Another moment where a little Spanish would have been handy.

Reason #4 on list of needing to learn Spanish: Early this week I received a phone call from a guy looking for Julio. or Juan. or Paco. No English whatsoever. After about 5 questions I finally got, ‘Se Habla Espanol?’ For those of you less educated in the ways of Spanglish, he needed to know if I would be willing to partake in his little foreign name game. I didn’t. No Habla Espanol. But if I would have known what he was asking for I might have been able to give him directions or something. Or at least tell him to quit calling my phone number in a language that he understood. I used the common American method of communication when someone of another language doesn’t understand, slow down and get louder. But do it in English. Works every time.

Speaking of new languages, I often vowed pre-child that I wouldn’t be joining the ranks of all those people who decided to communicate with their baby in unintelligible ways. Eating words daily.

For some reason having a kid either strengthens your vocabulary or inhibits completely, just depends on how you look at it. I’d like to think mine is growing, I have seemed to been able to make up all kinds of words in the last six months. A few of my favorites in phonetic form:

• ‘tchewse you – somehow when my kid sneezes (usually in pairs), my brain tends to think that ‘tchewse you is an acceptable replacement for excuse you. To test it, I am planning on using it in my next business setting to see how it works.
• bess you – see above
• stinks – now I realize that stinks is not a new word, but I can almost confirm that it isn’t a noun. Which in this case is how it is used. Sometimes when C smells, and even sometimes when he doesn’t, he gets referred to as Stinks. In noun form. Shouldn’t need much explanation on how the name came about.
• pee(t)-boo – this one was a little hard for me phonetically, the first half of the word doesn’t officially end with a strong T, but it does end before the boo. It’s not pee-boo. Though sometimes my laziness takes over and it does become p-boo and boo.

I have also noticed tendencies to shorten or drop words from phrases:
Regularly, the offering of going for a ride in the car (mostly to benefit daddy) is given as ‘wanna go ride daddy’s truck?’ Notice the lack of sentence structure, missing words, and all around bad grammar.

This happens more often than I’d like to admit or possibly remember. Shortened phrases have definitely made it into my vocab. Take bath? Cohen eat? Cohen hungry? You smelly. Get bathtub. And one. Hey ref, call it on both ends. All mini-phrases that he is doing well with.

Side note, nice to hear that JLo has decided to pack it in for the evening. I still hear a crowd out there so I haven’t closed up shop just yet. Waiting to see if Jenny-from-the-block was just the opener. I hope so.

We have been blessed down here with some friendly fellows as common-wall neighbors. Not necessarily friendly with us, but they seem to enjoy each other’s company pretty well. Usually between the hours of midnight and 4am. Swell guys. I’m just glad building 9 of the BM condos wasn’t built with newsprint for walls. Or 2*6 wooden stairs.

Otherwise our time down here has been pretty good. Had some bad wind yesterday until about 3pm when it decided to clear up. I’ve done a little work, and we’ve all had a little time to spend on the beach. Decent trip all around.

SPI is no Hawaii by any means (not that I would know) but it’s close ( in proximity), it’s Texas, it’s pretty inexpensive, and it’s a beach. All good marks. Avoid it during March and you’re pretty much safe.

I guess the Los Tornados or La Tortillas weren’t on the bill for tonight. Bummer. Guess I’ll go give sleep another shot. Uno sheep, dos sheep, tres sheep…