I got a letter in the mail from my daughter's school telling me she had an award ceremony to attend. When I asked the girl what she was getting an award for, do you think she had a clue why? No, of course not.
Me: "Any idea?"
Her: "None."
Me: "Way to stay informed.."
In sitting wayyyyy the hell in the back of the auditorium (see the "go to hell" post if that needs to be explained), my daughter and I rediscovered two things:
1) We really should sit as far away from other people as humanly possible so they don't hear us.
2) We have a lot of fun together.
Since we had no clue what kind of award she was going to get - every time they would announce something like, "this student is always a pleasure to have in class" or some other such kiss ass speech... we'd look at each other and one of us would go, "Well, that's obviously not going to you"...
We tried to keep our comments VERY low and limited to whispering into each others ear while everyone else was clapping for something or other.
We joke.
It's what we do.
She and I are NEVER bored together.
Of course, when it got to be closing in on the end of the second hour of this ceremony, we would have made fun of ANYTHING. It really did drag on.
This is how bad it got...
We made jokes about the Perfect Attendance awards - and how we were certain one of them wasn't going to be there to receive it and somehow that was one of the funniest visions. Perfect attendance, except to receive your Perfect Attendance Award!
.......and it DID happen!
We laughed our asses off in the parking lot walking to the car over that at the end of the night.
Then I leaned over and whispered to her...
Me: "Those are a prime example of kids who are hated by their parents..... What? You have Ebola? I DON'T CARE! GET YOUR ASS UP, YOU'RE GOING TO SCHOOL!"
Of course this is not true (er, most likely not true anyway), but it kept us from setting anything on fire. So...
Speaker: "This student always has a sunny disposition"..
Me: "Ah... so, you're not winning that award either, huh?"
We never got bored of this.
Me: "GYM! I bet your award is for GYM!"
My daughter hates gym.
She looked at me like I just sprouted a second head.
It was hilarious.
I was rummaging through her purse for some lip gloss and opened one of the compartments where I discovered 26 PAT certificates for chorus. She's in an All Girls Chorus that consists of a hundred and fifty 6-8th graders. They give out PAT certificates when you do something good in class.
Me: "Uh... think MAYBE you're getting the award in Chorus?"
Her: "I hope not!"
We thought it might have been in art because a pot she made was featured in an Art Magazine and on the local network access channel back in December of that year. No dice. Which worked out fine since she was hoping it wasn't going to be in Art either.
It turned out to be an award for Academic Diligence in French.
So, I have one kid that speaks Spanish.
I can fake my way through a conversation with him.
Normally his report cards garnish him a C in ENGLISH...all the while getting A's in Spanish.........
/stare...
The other kid speaks French.
I can't fake my way through anything with her.
There are times she will say something and I'll go, "DID YOU JUST SWEAR AT ME LITTLE GIRL?!"
Yet another child that does better in a foreign language than ENGLISH...
The only thing I really picked up from her is, "J'ai soif"...(which means I'm thirsty, fyi).
In any event...
My little french speaking lunatic and I had a great time.
She did a good job.
À tout seigneur tout honneur - Honor to whom honor is due.
À coeur vaillant rien d'impossible - Nothing is impossible for a willing heart.
I remember in 9th grade, I was taking first year French. It was harder for me because I didn't take any of the 1 semester "trial" classes for it the couple of years beforehand while everyone else in my class had. Anyhow, this year I ended up with French and English back to back. *laffin* I'd be in English taking a spelling test and my brain would still be trying to translate everything into French...LOL.
ReplyDeleteNice, pleasing to have a daughter who will be eventually lounging in the salons of Paris while creating poetry and whimsy!
ReplyDeleteLove this post. I can relate to your posting on a couple of levels: I don't speak French but have a daughter who speaks it like a Parisian (I once was introduced to one of her Parisian friends who asked if I had suffered a stroke, as my French was non-existent. She thought my daughter was French and that I must be also.)
ReplyDeleteAs a member of the faculty at a middle school, I skipped out on the end-of-year faculty party/meeting and was not present to accept an award for perfect attendance. BTW, the prize for that award is a free day off...now that makes me laugh my ass off.
I took a lot of French in junior high, high school and college...I can fake my way through a menu. Oh well, c'est la vie!
ReplyDeleteCongrats (ever so belatedly) your daughter...and it is great you 2 have such fun together. I love that. :-)
I swear to God, I use to write because I really love to write - now I think I write just to read the comments and stories that are written in them.
ReplyDeleteI've always been partial to Spanish. Then one of my Mexican friend's pointed out to me that New Yorkers don't have a clue about Spanish and that it's all Puerto Rican and Dominican slang that would get my ass kicked if I went to go to any real Spanish speaking country.
So I've pretty much been scared to death of saying the wrong thing now...laughs