It is good to be humble

2008 was my no buy year.

2009 is my French year, when I have worked almost daily to improve my grammar and pronnunciation (the first is working better than the second). Prior to starting I was comfortable reading newspapers and books and listening to movies and television. There were friends I only communicated with in French and that included my former boyfriend of 14 years. He spoke almost no English.

But having learned it hapharzardly there were holes in my knowledge, which is why I have been torturing myself with private lessons, a university course and daily exercises. I wanted to write it more coherently. I wanted my verb tenses to match reality.

I'd felt I'd been making great progress until I bombed into the health food store, a dark place run by Pedro with whom I've danced at street dances and exchanged information about be bop, jitterbugging and other music and dances fromt he 20s, 30s and 40s.

He looked at me strangely when I asked him if he had any airplanes avions. He put his arms out and ran around the store like a small boy. He stopped and picked up a package of oatmeal avoine and cocked his head, one eyebrow raised.

Oui, I said, a word I've never mispronnounced. As an old friend once said when she made her bed for the first time in several weeks, "That's once in a row."