Let there be light...

I really should have been sound asleep 2 hours ago since there are many many eggs to be dealt with, but I'm ever nocturnal and it's sometimes a challenge to force myself down at night. So one blog entry, and I'm off to dream land.

I've had more semi-bilingual adventures of late. Yesterday was a fun Spanglish lab meeting. We covered a paper that's a big fat whopping review of a bunch of complicated models without a whole lot of consensus, and I give huge props to my Spanish colleagues for the effort to conduct the discussion in English even though it's not a comfortable conversational language for all of them. The result was that the conversation was held more or less twice - once in english with me included and a reiterated and continued discussion in spanish for those who struggled a little through the english. 2 hours, and we only got through the first half of the paper. To be continued monday. Most of the folks at the medical campus speak and understand a good amount of english - it is an academic center after all, but a some of them focus on reading and writing papers and don't have much opportunity to speak. They're the easy ones to pick out because there's a bit of a deer in headlights look when I approach. Like today when Marian asked Mamen to help me with a protocol. Poor thing. Mamen is so sweet and smiley and is always singing or making funny noises and happily bouncing around the lab, but she turned flush red and quivery when she came up to me. She apologized that she'd been avoiding me because she was afraid to try to speak english with me, but she underestimates her abilities, and we communicated quite well. Though she insisted Irene stay nearby to bail her out in case she panicked. I keep telling everyone they should feel good because everyone's english is FAR better than my pathetic Spanish.

And today my lack of Spanish got put to the test again when I had just gotten home, got all comfy, started arranging dinner, and *pop* the power goes out. But only in my room. The hall lights were on, and I could hear TVs in other rooms. So I dug around looking for a fuse box and realized I would have no choice but to go down to the desk and try to explain to Carmen that I have no power. Out comes the phrase book. "Mi habitacion tiene no poder" which I'm sure is not correct grammar, but I looked up all of the individual words and at least figured I'd get my point across. So feeling like John Cleese in the Monty Python sketch, I head down to the desk and say "no poder. tiene no poder" and get the look that the failed gubernatorial candidate, Gary Coleman, was famous for in the ever popular and yet incredibly politically incorrect 80's sitcom "Different Strokes"..."what you talking about, Willis?" So I tried again, and she understood I was trying to say "power" when I struggled to pronounce "luz" for "light". So after asking about lights in the halls and all she goes rattling off something about housekeeping tomorrow, etc, etc, and I quickly start digging for the word "flashlight". At this point she's giving me the look like I'm a crazy lady and gives up trying to understand (though I was actually quite proud we'd gotten that far with my phrasebook and a rudimentary understanding of a few words of spanish and english between the two of us. So she headed up to my room, discovered that I wasn't crazy and it was the breaker that flipped. And now I know that the breaker switches are all in a little box over the door if it ever happens again. Poder restored.

One last point to make again about food. I (pretty easily) convinced Rushi to join me for dinner last night but made him pick the restaurant and order everything. I love this arrangement. Another amazing meal. We started with slices of octopus on thin medallions of potatoes drizzled in olive oil and generously sprinkled with paprika. I never realized octopus could be so good, because it's most often a nearly inedible tire rubber consistency that you either want to spit out or give up chewing and swallow whole. And without much taste. But this was incredible. Apparently it's a specialty in Galicia, the next province over, and they tenderize it by pounding it then freezing it, then boiling it, and then lighly sauteeing it in olive oil. The result is well worth the effort and is still a little firm around the edges but rich and buttery soft in the center and soaks up the richness of the olive oil. Next we had skewers (I love food on sticks). One was mushrooms, peppers, onion, and bacon. The other was chunks of pork (I also love pig) marinated in olive oil, oregano, and enough garlic to expunge the world of vampires. The last dish was one of the best and yet simplest things I've had so far. It was little squids (baby tentacles and mantles) sauteed with caramelized onions and red and green peppers that were cooked down almost to nothing with extra flavorful blackened bits of onion. All of that was swimming in olive oil and seasoned with oregano and a generous but not ruinous amount of salt. Then across the top was a fan of thinly sliced and perfectly golden potatoes. Yum.