Please allow me to start this post by conveying my sincerest, deepest gratitude to everyone who has expressed their condolences, thoughts, prayers and sympathies to my family and me over the past two-and-a-half weeks.
You cannot know how much they have helped, especially with so many coming on the same day I had to pick up the death certificates. I'm so grateful to DL Hammonds, Alex Cavanaugh and Al Diaz for their respective roles in making the "Blitz" such a special blessing.
Today is August 4th, our anniversary, the 29-year milestone, and the first with us apart.
I picked up a card to celebrate just as I've always done. Within it, I spilled my heart just as I always have. I'm unable to hand it to her this year and I don't know Heaven's mailing address. I am therefore putting it on my blog. Surely Heaven has wi-fi.
Even through the ache of loss, my love for you remains.
(Click to enlarge)
Now, for the surfing.
Please note that as time progresses, I should be able to raise the quantity of links back up to their original level. I'm still taking baby steps for now. I'm way behind on my visiting, but I do plan to catch up soon.
The always delightful Jo Wake of Jo On Food, My Travels and a Scent of Chocolate tagged me in this post. I'm just not fast enough to outrun folks anymore. It seems every child over two years old could render me frozen or it at will. But this is not a tag from which I'd choose to run.
This is a happy tag, literally. I'm to list Five Things That Make Me Happy.
I've chosen to bypass the obvious, most important things that I've mentioned many times before: wife, children, grandchildren, a good job, a good life, all that wonderful stuff that makes me perpetually happy.
Instead, I've decided to choose very specific things that make or made me happy. And I'll start by choosing...
1) Jo! She really made my day/week/month/year when she posted this after reading my manuscript. Happy begins to cover it.
2) My taskmaster, Al Diaz. Father Dragon, who can chide me, prod me, encourage me, and critique my writing all at the same time and still have me laughing. That, people, is a gift. Having Father Dragon as a partner in blogging, writing and friendship makes me very happy.
3) Finding a component free of charge that should work beautifully in my Magic Music writing app made me quite happy. Of course, development time is at a minimum until at least June 12. I somehow kinda sorta made this commitment and noble knights value their word as much as noble dragons do. Let's just say Night Writer has been very very busy this week and will continue to be for the next few to follow.
4) This special editor I have the pleasure of knowing has expressed an interest in my latest short story. That made me very happy. Hopefully, I'll be fortunate enough to make an announcement regarding it sometime soon. I'm also happy to have amazing critique partners with their own unique approaches to criticism offering brilliant feedback.
5) I was invited to submit a short story (still unwritten) to a competition. (Fortunately, the deadline is after June 12.) The fact that I was among those selected to vie for a very nice grand prize made me very happy. I don't have to win. Just being selected made me happy.
To those folks I referenced above, I'd like to say, thank you for making Jeff a very happy boy.
Now, I had to chase down five folks who are slower than I am--not an easy achievment. I shan't freeze them, but I shall tag them as it and humbly ask that they continue this wonderfully happy tradition.
I met Al via the Yahoo Fantasy Writing group. We've exchanged critiques and ideas on our works in process, offering each other suggestions, encouragement and more than a few laughs.
Al is one awesome dragon, writing a novel in English even though Spanish is Al's native (and primary) tongue! And I thought the struggles that I, a born-and-raised American, endured writing a novel in English were tough!
A lot of talent and creativity resides within Al, so give this awesome dragon an awesome welcome!
"Ken Lee"
by
Al Diaz
The
lyrics to this song may ring a bell for all those lovers of YouTube. If
you’re not familiar with it, you just need to type the name and you’ll
be able to enjoy this piece of creativity. Anyway, the singer presumes
Ken Lee is English. Well, this is Ken Lee’s English with its reference
in the “other” English. (Bummer, how many English are there in this
world?)
Lyrics as Sang
(True English Lyrics)
No one ken to ken to sivmen
(No, I can’t forget this evening)
Nor yon clees toju maliveeh
(Or your face as you were leaving)
When I gez aju zavateh na nalechoo more
(When I had you there but then I let you go)
New yonooz tonight molinigh
(You always smile but in your eyes)
Yon sorrah shoo, yes, ee shoo
(Your sorrow shows, yes it shows)
Ken Lee
(Can’t live)
Tulibu dibu douchoo
(If living is without you)
Ken Lee
(Can’t live)
Ken lee meju more
(I can’t give any more)
As much as this song has made me laugh
real hard, I must confess in my youth I used to sing my “Ken Lee”
versions of my favorite songs. I could nearly bet my left shoe that all
those for whom English is not our mother language have started with “Ken
Lee” singing attempts.
Billy Joel’s “We didn’t start the fire” for example. Our “Ken Lee” version was;
“Harrison and drum spring. Make Shon and Jhonny away. Sun besin the pot and wishes. Shon Jumanji Oh.”
Corresponding to the “other” English version of:
“Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray. South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio.”
Yes,
you can laugh at us too. My mother language is Spanish. Back in my
youth I wished I could understand at least half of what my favorite
songs said, though. I learned English along with my career. By the end I
could manage a simple conversation and I could write a business letter
in English, from Dear Sirs to Yours Very Truly. However, if this
conversation went any bit deeper than the status of your order, messages
and directions, I could be in deep trouble. God forbids if I’ve got to
talk with an actual English speaking person. I could well speak Apache
then, or my fingers suddenly became clumsy. After cutting the
communication “by accident”, I would hide under my desk with a Mr. Bean
kind of expression and hope no one would have noticed that.
It
was more than evident English and I didn’t get along well. It was ok by
me. Who needs English anyway when all good movies have subtitles and
Internet was a only a subject good for Sci-Fi? But fates had other
plans and for circumstances out of my control I couldn’t find a job
related to my career. I had English, though. Somebody suggested I should
offer translation services. (But of course! Why didn’t I think about it
before?)
Only those who work in the translation
business can tell that knowing a language and translating to that
language and back to your own are not necessarily related. Actually
they are not. I have found wonderful English teachers that really suck at translation and excellent translators that cannot remember one
single grammar rule under penalty of death. But hey! I was not nearly an
English teacher, so I felt safe enough to try in the translation
business. Now that was not a proof of my common sense but sure as hell I
proved some chutzpah. I still don’t know how it was that I managed to
survive in the translation world without someone to just kick my butt
out. A reason could be that those who were up to try it would have to
first find me under piles and piles of dictionaries. Engineering,
medical, legal and business dictionaries shaped my fortress. I learned
translation along the road out of a need to earn my living and thus the
need to make people believe I knew what I was doing, (or in this case,
speaking.) I came to be pretty good at it after a couple of years but it
needed time and hard work.
I
have always loved to write stories. I wrote them in Spanish of course.
One day it occurred to me I should write stories in English to further
improve my knowledge of the language. Now if I could translate how a
scrapper for offshore oil byproduct pipelines worked, or better,
translate a whole lawsuit from Spanish to English, writing a story was
like child’s play. (Yeah, keep dreaming.)
It was quite
a shock to feel I didn’t know any English at all….yet again. I didn’t
know words as common as sigh, scoop, grin, smirk, hut. (Can you hear it?
The curse to deaf Heaven?) Yes. "How many times will I have to learn
English, for crying out loud?"
I was
overwhelmed by this sense of déjà vu and this time I could not shrug it
off. Who needs English? Well, just surf the Internet and you’ll find who
needs English. If I wanted more people to be able to read my stories, I
had to learn that sort of English. I’m still learning, but I can tell
you it has come to be very gratifying. I am proud of my efforts and my
level of English. I have not mastered it yet, but it’s way above the “Ken
Lee” English with which I started several years ago. The best part is
that it didn’t cost me nearly the amounts of money one may guess. My
English boost came 99% from writing stories and role playing with English
speaking fellows that have become also dearest friends.
This
doesn’t mean I’ve given up on “Ken Lee”. Now I sing “Ken Lee” versions
of Japanese, Indian, Portuguese and Italian songs. “Ken Lee” is still
fun for me but now I know one thing for sure. Learning another language
is not matter of money. It’s matter of determination, time and effort.
Al Diaz is awesome!
About Al Diaz
I work as an English-Spanish translator. I also write small articles for a monthly magazine for Risaterapia, an organization of hospital clown volunteers. I have an harem of muses and when I am not writing, I am painting, sculpting with clay or papier mache, doing 3D origami, making puppets (and muppets) training dogs, creating vegetarian recipes for people with gastrointestinal disorders, dancing, practicing PNL or reading about all the above.
