New year, same old apologies...

1/1/11 was a funny day for me.  Well, not initially.  You see our Hogmanay celebrations were very good indeed.  I even won the 'best dressed man' award at a pajama party (skilful use of a Ferguson tie and an Ekky Thump hat).  In fact it was all so good that I didn't get to sleep till 2:30... and then my youngest awoke at 4:30 for half an hour of intense negotiations, followed by a too-short 3 hour nap.

So I was a little tired starting this new year.  I'm never quite at my best in the morning and so I met the day particularly grumpily.

I couldn't shake my mood till I became aware of something idiotic.  For some unknown reason, I'd not noticed a little error in my last blog post of 2010.  I'll call it a typo, though I made the same error twice (including the title!).  You see the Scottish toast is spelt, Slainte Mhath... I even linked to a definition page with the correct spelling.  I dropped the 'T' in Mhath - I fear I may be called Mr Weddle in future!

This error made me laugh a lot, though not as much as Mrs T.  You see, I'd avoided asking her to proof read the offending blog post because Lynn had 'edited' a previous draft to a point that I became overly huffy as I no longer recognised as my own.

So I start the New Year with an apology.  I sincerely apologise for my errors and my grumpiness of 2010.  To try to make amends, my New Year's resolutions are to be more open to seek help and to try to laugh a little more.  ;-)

Slainte Mhah

Christmas is nearly completed.  I can tell it's nearly over because we are slowly but surely regaining our house.  The wrapping paper, cardboard boxes and curled ribbons are in the recycling bin.  The toys are slowly being put away and finally I can see the living room rug once more.  We've nearly run out of batteries and both my youngest & I have a lovely common cold that we'll generously share.

However, there's still random lego pieces waiting to remind you that it's not yet safe to tread barefoot in our house.  And there's still the scary-huge, Ferguson-recipe Christmas cake to remind you that there's still a mountain of edible ways to throw caution to the wind. If that cake had any more brandy, then instead of sitting in our Craig's List bargain cake stand, it would need a trifle bowl.

So it must be time to get ready for Hogmanay.  We have 4 friends scheduled to visit and so our house will double in occupants for the first week of 2011.  But it's worse, all of the visitors are ladies - so the inherent male dominance of the Tweddle household will be destroyed as well.

In LA we have a long Hogmanay celebration, with the UK being 8 hours ahead, we'll start by skyping relatives at 4pm.  Then we've friends and family on the east coast of USA to cheer on.  And finally we'll have our own midnight start to the new year.

For the 2009 Hogmanay, we'd been in the country for under 3 months and our belongings from the UK had arrived just days before.  For 2010, we had just bought our own tumble-down home, but still only had visas and I wasn't allowed to work or have a social security number.  This year, I will start with a work permit, a social security number and a stack of projects and commitments to work my way through.  With the date starting at 1/1/11 it feels like this year will be a new beginning - an American beginning.

In Scotland, we'd raise a glass and say 'Slainte Mhah'.  Pronounced something like 'Slan-jay Vah', it doesn't sound anything like it writes - a bit like me.  So I've just spent the last few moments searching for a link to where you can hear it said - I point you to 2 minutes 22 seconds into this video - (I hope you like rock).

English Development II

My education in speaking Americanese, or more precisely Los Angelene, appears to be progressing more subtly these days.  Usually I'm understood.  Even though I don't think I'm speaking any differently, I manage to get the coffee I ordered and make appointments with relative ease.  Now, it's the nuances that catch me out.

Holidays.  In the UK, holiday means the same as vacation; though vacation would be some some kind of experience that 'Johnny Foreigner' takes part in.  The UK has bank holidays, Christmas holidays and doesn't differentiate the family summer holidays.  The word 'holidays' here however, exclusively refers to the scheduling of festivals and celebrations to induce the public sharing of insanity.  Bah Humbug! We had the same insanity sharing in the UK but, as with most things, the scale and depth are more extreme here.

Midday.  My latest find is that midday isn't considered as specific as noon is here.  Both are 12 o'clock back in the UK, and in Australia apparently, but here midday is a more fluid period in the middle of the day. Mind you, I don't think we use the word noon very often in the UK.  I think of noon as being like high noon and so I would expect to bring my duelling pistols to a meeting at high noon...  This is the wild west after all.

Just recently I found myself struggling to understand what was being said in a TV program. The accent and slang were sometimes unfathomable to me and yet the TV show was a Scottish reality TV program (this link is not for kids).  I suddenly started to understand how difficult some people find it to understand me.  Lynn and I are no strangers to not being understood.  In some of the posher areas of England it seems quite acceptable / common for people to feign that they can't understand a single word that is said with a Scottish accent.  My favorite retort was always, "I can understand you, so one of us must be stupid."  As I watched the TV, I realised that I was now residing on the stupid end of that comment...

I'm expecting that as I start to consider thinking, about maybe possibly, tentatively, looking for w*rk, that I'll start to discover a new set of new words that confuse and befuddle.  Till then, Toodle Pip!