Italian and Other Stuff

Italian Phrase of the Day: {These come from An Italian Phrase a Day desk calendar}: Sa lavorare a maglia? Do you know how to knit?

My comment on this: Si, so lavorare a maglia. Sapevo lavorare a maglia nella scuola quand’ era una scolara piccola. Ma sapevo fare  la maglieria complessa per mio padre. Yes, I know how to knit. I learned to knit in school as small schoolgirl. But I learned to make complex knitware from my father.

This is actually quite true. My father was invalided out of the army with ulcers and as part of his therapy, he was taught to knit. He took to it with enthusiasm. I was taught the basic knit and purl stitches in school — domestic science classes which only girls took then — but my father taught me more complicated stuff like putting in cables and different stitches besides the basic stockingette stitch.

This morning I have worked a bit on Italian. One of the books we are using in this coming semester is called Pasta per due which, when  translated means Pasta for Two. { Incidentally, in Italian the titles of books have only the first word capitalized. As a former English teacher, this, along with no capitalization of the days of the week, is one of those small differences that irritate me very slightly.}  Anyway, this is a cute little story about Libero who lives in Rome and Minni who lives in Thailand. They become pen-pals via email { {C’è posta per te! –You’ve got mail!} and Minni flies to Italy to visit him. At the point where I stopped translating, he is getting ready to meet her at the airport and he "ha la testa fra le nuvole." No, this has nothing to do with his testicles! It literally means he has his brain among the clouds, or he is distracted! He is so distracted that he is wearing one brown shoe and one blue shoe!

I have also been working on learning the cardinal numbers and although I am not completely sure of the multiples of ten, I am getting there. Once I have gotten the multiples of ten down solidly, I will start on the hundreds. I also want to learn the ordinal numbers…. haven’t even looked at those yet.
Fa freddo! It is cold. I think Fred said 1 degree F. I went out front to get the mail and my hands got icy cold just doing that. I hope it gets better before I have to go to class next Tuesday. I AM going to try to get in a short walk when I have finished here. The roads look a bit slushy, though and that means there will most probably be ice. I am going to dig out my winter boots and the crampon-type things that strap over them. This is a big hassle and one reason why I haven’t been out. I will have to locate heavy socks, too. Well, that won’t be a big job because I know where they are. However, once I have these boots out, I can put them in an easily-accessible place so I can’t use them as an excuse for not taking a walk!

QUOTATION FOR THIS MONTH: If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment. — Marcus Aurelius

Until later….