Jessie's Kitchen

L'accent français de mon père (Jeemy Apple Henry)

We've got French in our heads here.  We have read Léo le Chat a number of times and graduated to "Boucle d'Or et les Trois Ours" (Goldilocks and the Three Bears) which we read at least once a day, first in English and then in French.  It's mainly for me.  I've been sad to see 97% of my highschool French lost from my sieve-like intellect, and it's been great re-learning vocabulary and verb conjugations.

(Did I just use the word "great"?  I wonder why I did that.)

Jessie has been learning a few (a very few) words and phrases.  However she shows little to no comprehension, pulling out her stock phrase from Léo le Chat: "un peu" (a little) whenever she wants to say anything in French.  Which would be good if I'd only asked the correct question in the first place, correct questions like:

Me: Jessie, did you eat ANY of that food?
Jessie: Un peu.

Me: Do you think you could manage some time today without asking me questions?
Jessie: Un peu.

Me: Is your nappy dirty?
Jessie: Un peu.

See?  All it takes is to ask the right question, and she really has a very good grasp ... of the phrase "un peu."

Both Buzz and Jessie are learning the Goldilocks formula: Three Things - one big, one medium-sized and one small.  They were highly amused when I noted that we had "trois kids" (we haven't come across the word "enfants" yet so I just used "kids" for comprehension purposes.  I hope you'll forgive me.)  "Un, deux, trois.  Un grand kid, un kid de taille moyenne et un petit kid."

Jessie really loves the exclamation Goldilocks gives having broken the small chair: "Stupide Chaise!"

All this French reminded me this morning of how my father shared a staffroom with my highschool French teacher and how he loved to frustrate her with his deliberately awful French pronunciation.  He would read it as if it was English, and put a very obvious broad Australian accent on it.

As I stood at the kitchen sink this morning, I remembered how in my first year of highschool, I was learning very basic French and Dad had been reading some of my homework exercises.  His eye fell on some fictitious character introducing himself as Henry.  "Je m'appelle Henri," my book read.

"Jeemy apple, Henry," Dad said.  I knew he was being funny, so I just smirked and left it at that.  But my French teacher thought he was serious.  She was aghast when he announced he'd been "helping me" with my pronunciation, and then demonstrated with "Jeemy apple, Henry."

One day outside the staffroom, my French teacher, my Dad and I were discussing a French poem I was learning in order to enter into a recitation competition.  When Dad suggested he might give me some coaching to help with my accent, my poor teacher tripped over herself to strongly dissuade me from taking his advice without insulting him right there.

And this morning, standing at my kitchen sink, I smiled with the memory.  "Jeemy apple, Henry," I said out loud.

"What?" asked Buzz.  "What does that mean?  Did you say Jeevy Apple Hemrick?  What is a Jeevy Apple Hemrick?"

I sighed and attempted to unravel the long train of thought that began with reading library books and ended up with me murmuring the phrase "Jeemy apple Henry" at my kitchen sink.  Buzz seemed to understand a little bit, and then I took him off to school, with him repeating "Jeemy apple Henry" as he went.

People must think we're mad.

Phone conversation with my sister

This is a tandem post with THIS ONE.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Phone rings)

Me: Hello?

Crazy Sister: Hi, it's your sister here.

Me:  That's a co-incidence, because it's yours here!

CS: What?  Is that you?

(She was on her mobile, I was on speakerphone.)

Me: Yes.  How may I be of assistance?

CS: I need some advice.  I'm standing outside the Bank ...

Me (thinking): Oh no, she's been arrested...

CS: ... The automatic teller machine ate my card the other day and I'm trying to get it back.  Now they've told me there are three cards on this account, but we only have two.

 Me:  That's weird.

CS:  Yes.  And the other problem is that we didn't know which cards to cancel, because we don't know which ones are the extra card and the lost card.  So she's sent me outside to call Yummy Hubby to work out which card he has, so we know which two to cancel.

Me: Okay, so ...?

CS:  Okay.  So.  Now I've just looked in my purse and I've actually found the card I thought I'd lost.  I've had it all along.

Me:  That is SO something that would happen to me.

CS (laughing):  So here's my dilemma.  Do I continue with this charade of having a missing card so I don't lose face, or do I just go back in there and admit it all?

Me:  Ooooh.  Tough one.  Um - what about you go back in and ask the teller, "Hypothetically speaking, if I just by pure chance found the extra card in my purse, should I tell you about it or just go through with this lost-card charade to save face?"

CS: I guess that's the other option.

Me: Are they nice in the bank?

CS: They are ... officious.

Me (assuming officious means "efficient" but finding out later that it doesn't): Hm.  Well.  I'm not sure if my advice is any good.

CS (laughing): No, it was good.  Thanks for your help!

Me: I was a HELP?  Seriously?

CS: Yes, I think I'll do it.

Me: Okay then!  Best of luck!  Bye!

CS: Bye!

Ten minutes later, a text from Crazy Sister came.

"Bank lady just laughed and said, "Oh Bless!  You must have been stressed!"

So tired

On my Wee Bro's birthday, I posted pictures of him as a baby sleeping in weird positions.  I neglected to mention that he wasn't the only one of us who slept in weird positions.

Piano Playing and Photography

I enjoyed myself immensely this morning, playing piano in the worship band at church.  It seemed that numbers were down a little which should have been a relief for my first day.  However, nerves do a weird thing to you, and I found sweat coursing down my back while I hit some pretty ghastly wrong notes which hardly anyone noticed and I tried to ignore myself.

And now for something completely different.

My About Me page is now up.  Please visit it to read the story of Lesley and the Fly, and also the details of my first kiss.

And now for something else completely different to that.

Tonight I looked up from my kitchen sink and saw the moon rising from behind some leaves of the trees outside.  It was beautiful.  I decided to take a photo so I headed off to put the following ingredients together: camera, long lens, tripod, and the moon.

I patiently explained to the clamouring children ("Can I have some milk please?"  "Can you stick this onto this bit of paper please?") that I was just going to take a photo, and I took my tripod and camera outside.  While I was fiddling with the settings and wondering how to take this photo on full manual mode, the clouds completely obscured the moon.  I went back inside.  I could have left the camera on the kitchen bench and tried again when the clouds cleared, but I didn't because of the old adage "Expensive Photographic Equipment and Butter Don't Mix."

My photographic career is not an auspicious one.

It's good to be back.

I recently labelled all 600-odd of my posts.  Doing this reminded me of things I'd written in the past.

What struck me from my writing 12 months ago was the number of things I was mourning the loss of as we moved away.  A church I fitted in, friends I loved, a coffee-shop home group, playing piano in worship bands, a lovely house and a mental plan regarding where I will send my children to kindy and school.

Amazing really.  We now have a great house in an awesome location, a church we love so much that we became members after 6 months there, a new coffee-shop home group, a great kindy and school to send my kids to and  (buckle up!) tomorrow I am playing piano in the worship band for the first time!

At the rehearsal today, my soul went "Aaaaaahh!  It's good to be back!"

At my last church I played in front of up to 200 people.  Tomorrow it will be in front of 800 to 1000.  And I'm doing a solo for communion.  Oo wow.  Goodness.

I'm just remembering to thank God for the opportunities He has opened up for me here.

Thankyou also to YOU my readers who stuck by me through the dark and grumpy days.  You encouraged me so much, and reminded me that through blogging I've contacted many real and wonderful people who are able to offer support and love.

Thankyou.  That's all I've got for tonight.  Thankyou!

The Pumpkin Pimp

Today I have been pollinating pumpkins.  Despite the fact that pumpkins have been hitchin up and doin the deed without human involvement until now, when you don't have a lot of bees around, when you only have one or two plants, or when you don't want your lovely little punkins crossed with zucchinis, giving them a little help never goes astray.  This is my first crop of pumpkins and seeing that we eat so much pumpkin at our house, I don't want to have a failed crop.

A few short months ago, I didn't know a single thing about growing pumpkins.  Now I know the following facts about growing pumpkins:

1. If you bury garden scraps containing 316 discarded pumpkin seeds, you are likely to get 316 pumpkin plants growing in the exact spot.

2.  I now know what embryonic pumpkin plants look like.

3.  I know that if you want a pumpkin plant growing in that spot, it's okay to pull out 315 tiny pumpkin plants and allow just one to grow.

4.  I know that the one remaining pumpkin plant will take up an unimaginably enormous amount of space.

5.  To a pumpkin lover, this is a truly wonderful sight:

6.  This is what a male flower looks like:

7.  This is what a female flower looks like:

Aw, look, she's pregnant!

7b. This is a cucumber, don't let it confuse you if you're growing them side-by-side.

Actually, it would only be me who would be confused by this.  Please ignore what I just said.

Again...
Male:

Female: 

See the difference?  Vive la difference.

8.  My mother told me that you'll need both males and females and you therefore shouldn't go hacking off any of your radials until you are sure you don't need them.  Even if you think your broccoli seedlings need the sunlight, do check before you go lopping off anything.

These two radials have grown through the sweet corn bed, and are now taking up my broccoli and cauliflower beds.  They are a bit of a nuisance, but they are bearing female flowers.  If I chopped these two off, I wouldn't be able to go cryin' to my Mum when I got no pumpkins.

Sorry, that was a bit dramatic.

9.  Now this is the bit where you should avert your eyes if you want.  The inside of the flowers are different.  The male looks like this:

and the female looks like this:

I want to shout with joy, "It's a boy!" and "It's a girl!" when I see these pictures.

10.  What you do is get the pollen from the stamen of the male flower and get it into the stigma of the female flower.  It seems that you can't go too wrong in this step, but for more detail on knowing when male and female flowers are ready and different -er- pollinating techniques, read this great article.  It begins with the marriage service of a male flower and a female flower.

11.  Before you know it, the female flower dies and you see a Leetle Baybee Punkin:

I really have no right to go on about this like I've been doing it for years.  I only mention it because it's what I've been learning recently.  I hope that in a few months I won't be lamenting my non-crop of pumpkins, shamefacedly admitting I shot off my mouth on 25 March, appearing like the expert I'm not.

But that's a worry for another day.

Five

Over the last 6 months ...

"Look Mum, I'm cleaning up! Our house is so clean! Cleaner than A Old Lady's CAR!"

Buzz's Wallace & Grommit game was put on hold while Grandma visited briefly. She said she needed to go a few times, but stayed a little longer to see photos of Buzz on Mt Tabletop. Buzz asked a number of times to get back to his game, but to no avail. Finally he said, "Grandma, remember you were going to go?!"

Late September, on a secondary school camp, Buzz and Mr de Elba came upon a pair of highschoolers who had coupled up and were getting physically amorous. Reminding them of the camp rules, Mr de Elba said, "You know you probably should cool it guys," and Buzz added, "You shouldn't do that til you're married."

Playing a game on the iPhone: "Ooh, sorry to kill you. You could have come to tea if you weren't killed."

Buzz has been learning about the emergency services at kindy. One day he said, "If you shout at me, I will call the Police." I asked if he knew how to do that and he said, "I do. You get the phone and do zero-zero-zero and they will say 'Police, Fire or Ambly-ance'."

A few months later, I wanted to have a short rest so I asked the children if they could watch their movie quietly while I went for a 20-minute rest.  I said that they didn't need to bother me.  Then I said that if there were blood or flames, I did want them to come and wake me because I'd need to deal with that.  Buzz replied, "Okay, I'll wake you.  But not for flames.  I can deal with that myself."  "Er, can you?" I asked.  "Yes," he said.  "I just call zero-zero-zero and tell them, 'Police, Fire or Ambly-ance.'"  It made me so nervous I didn't get to sleep.

Buzz asked for a drink one day and I asked if he wanted milk or water. He thought for a very long time and settled on milk. While he was drinking it, he said, "Know why I chose milk?" "No," I said. "I didn't want to waste the dams," he said.

Buzz and Mr de Elba had been talking about the events Buzz could enter in the Olympics, being such a good jumper. They discussed High Jump, Long Jump and Triple Jump. Buzz came out into the kitchen and announced "I can go in The Long Event! And The 5-Jump!"

"My favourite colour is RED! Well it's EVERY colour. Except pink."

Miniature trains

Our home group (which doesn't meet in a home, so perhaps we should be called a "coffee shop group") had a BBQ picnic yesterday.  The post-BBQ entertainment was rides on miniature steam and diesel trains.  Now I wish I'd got permission to post pictures of all of us!

Can't smile: eating.

Woody. You are so photogenic.

Could you stop eating dirt, grass and leaves just long enough for me to

take a decent photo?