Posted by sigismund on October 23, 2011, at 17:01:40
In reply to Re: how many days until Christmas? » sigismund, posted by floatingbridge on October 23, 2011, at 15:52:32
What I want is a VERY slow release form of cocaine, such as is found in the leaf which you chew.
Or perhaps it would not be beyond the ability of modern science to create one.
If all else failed you could eat it.
Really, by any objective standard, I am a worry, but be buggered if I know how to compress it into a half hour conversation with a doctor.
As I was leaving Senegal I had this interesting experience. I was going in and out of the safety of the Pullman Tarrango where I could do internet banking, and I had to fight my way through, and I end up chatting with this young man, and since I had a whole day to put it, we spent some time together after I had watered down any expectations he had to a reasonable level. After some beers and a Senegalese lunch, he took me to what must have been the family compound of some relatives, hoicks this couch over a barrier, and told me to make myself comfortable while he prepared some Senegalese tea, which is made with gunpoweder green tea, very strong, with mint and sugar. And then he picked up a cat which was lying there and carried it off by the tail. When he came back I said with a laugh 'Was that cat dead?' and he said 'It has been there since this morning'. So he made the tea and we talked more and in the process of this I find out that he spoke ten languages. He at first dismissed this by saying that four of them were internal languages, but when you added it up you did get to ten. He was even talking about the use of the subjunctive in Spanish vs English. Incorrectly I thought, when it came to English, but I hardly know what the subjunctive is....he had to tell me and I may not have understood correctly. Under the shade of a beautiful black sapote tree.
So that is what I imagine the Spanish thinking between their Hola and my Buenas Dias.....monolingual idiot. They may not even think it, but I do. Australia is not the easiest place in which to learn other languages.
I am 59 in a couple of weeks. Do you know of any good antidepressants that don't ruin sleep? it's hard, isn't it, this business of being alive. Australia annoys the sh*t out of me but at least I won't have to drink so much.
Granada is nice enough for me to have explored much of it on foot. I think I will come back here, in the off season if there is one. It is surprisingly hot, even now. But my impression is that the world seems tired, just like me. The Senegalese on the streets here sell all kinds of useless crap, but as soon as the rain comes they are in front of various kinds of umbrellas saying 'Paraguas, paraguas', like the call of some lovely animal. Nice to see them selling something useful after the fake watches and sunglasses.
poster:sigismund
thread:1000534
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20111012/msgs/1000618.html