Una mujer, over there
(In Madrid, to be exact)
I don't really understand blogs. I am a very old young person.
My only other foray into blogging was a false start--
http://allaboutmymadrid
Here in Madrid, in the kitchen of my of my Ecuadorian friend of Lebanese parentage, there is a product with a label written in English-esque Spanish:– Bio-Vegetal. I keep reading and discover it is an Italian product. The slogan: La soluzione perfetta per lavare le verdure. I get a glass of water and think about my question from yesterday. I was in a café and they were playing a version of Monk's “Well, You Needn't.” Well, I needed to know who was playing. It wasn't Thelonius. So I asked the Spanish barman. Our exchange went like this:
--Bood Pool. --¿Quién? --Bood Poul. --¿Qué? ¡Bood Pow! --Oh, ¡Bud Powell!
We were both embarrassed. Small revenge, I guess, for having had to repeat the phrase --Un tinto a thousand times since I moved here. Lost letters between us.
Or that time in Florence when I asked for the cocktail with American name and the waiter didn't understand me until I said it six times and he repeated back to me, relieved,
--Oh, un geen feez!
¿Quien tenía razón? Chi c'aveva ragione?
In Spanish and Italian I have (not) reason.
In English I can only be right or wrong.
--Kathleen Ignatius
