less-severe baltic lady adventures
we went over to dude's mom's last night because every year she gets so excited about making corned beef for st. patrick's day and so every year we have to eat corned beef for st. patrick's day. and of course. she is latvian, born here to refugees, as we've discussed, and i am meanwhile... me (irl my name is extremely irish) and so it is always faintly amusing but. listen. it's tasty. i'll eat it.
dude had of course told her the saga of his latvian embassy visit via text and over the phone but not in person, so he recounted all the gory details, and she was vaguely indignant on his behalf, but admitted she would not have fared much better.
"There's nobody left for me to speak it with," she said. "I know I'm awfully out of practice, but I just don't have anyone to talk Latvian to."
So she speaks it to herself, on her daily walks. She looks up words to fill in phrases, figures out how to say things, and then practices it to herself, when she's alone. She'd been working up to a longer phrase for a while. "My children don't speak the language because my husband didn't speak it," she painstakingly translated.
"You have to work on your attitude too," Dude warned her.
"That's true," she said. "I'm also workshopping sassier phrases." This was hampered, however, by her never having been taught any swear words, because her mother would never have spoken like that. And she only ever spoke the language with old people or relatives.
"I just need to figure out how to humblebrag about my smart American children," she said. "But it's hard to get the attitude right when you can only talk to yourself."
