Dos Cosas: My first uff and a ponder

The other day I was sitting down to a super American dinner of crappy pizza and beer and Iñaki asked me some question, I don´t remember what. But, the question perplexed me a tad, so I thought about it for a second and then started my response with the word, "uff..." which is sort of a nonsense word here that has lots of different uses. In this case it meant, "that´s a hard question to answer." Iñaki sat up all straight and opened his eyes wide and said, "wow, you said 'uff'". I had, and it was one of my first. I´d noticed it coming out of my mouth a few times before, but this was the first time someone else noticed.

The truth is, I´ve been wanting uff to be in my vocabulary for so long. Everyone here uses it and it sounds, for lack of a better term, so Spanish. Since I want to be so Spanish, this is a little step for me. I also have the word "oi" in my daily speech now. It´s used sort of like oops, or when someone misses a shot in basketball, the girls say it all deep and long, like "ooooooiiiiiiiii." Mom noticed my oi´s while she was here. She said she thought that must be Spanish too because one of our cab drivers used it. Most often, it comes out when I run into someone accidentally, as I do a lot since I´m so tall, and I say, "oi, perdon." Basically, "oops, scuse me." Anyhow, I´m excited to be saying uff and oi and I´ll keep you abreast to any other Spanish mannerisms I pick up.

Now, a short ponder for you... I was watching a bit of TV today, which I never do, but I need to listen to more Spanish. A commercial came on for a new type of beer that has tea in it. It showed a mom and a baby, like 8 months, at a pool. The mom looks at the baby then takes a big swig of this beer. The next scene is of the mom and the baby swimming together, both underwater and the baby is sort of freely floating in front of the mom. I´m not sure exactly what the tagline was, but something like, "enjoy your time."

Does anyone else think this is a bit of a WTF? I really don´t think mom should be throwing back cold ones while she´s supposed to be watching the baby. Swimming no less! I mean baby had no one to hang on to and mom was just sort of doing her own thing in the pool. Plus, the fact that mom looked at baby and then took a huge drink makes me think she should really get an au pair or be checked out by child services. I mean if the au pair gets hammered, it´s one thing, but mom, no. Jokes, bromas, chistes. Plus, what´s the deal with that tagline? Swimming with the kid is so stressful that it´s totally understandable that you need a few beers beforehand? Ha ha! I just thought it was so funny and such a strange juxtaposition of items.

It´s another pretty day here and I got in another good run. My knee is really sore for some reason, but I just have to run on days like today, so I did. We have a big game this weekend. There´s another American on the other team, la di flippin´da. She´s supposed to be pretty good. As I am not very good at the moment, we´ll see how this all goes down. I really want to win though, hopefully that counts for algo.

Kisses and hugs and love to all!