Resolutions for 2012 and adieu to wordreferencing

Hey cyber people. I appreciate the emails from people asking me where I have been and why I stopped writing. I'm so sorry but I do have an excuse. I became addicted to something worse than cocaine and heroine combined. It's also embarassing since I've been one of the harshest critics of all those guys who get hooked on some kind internet-wide science fiction game where 50,000 people combat forces of evil (literally each other) senselessly day and night for 7 months.

Anyway the doldrums of our 8 month winter in northern France led me to discover the wordreference forums, the greatest thing for language buffs since the invention of the bilingual dictionary. There are thousands of people from all over the word creating threads on vocabulary, idioms, translations, linguistics, grammar in any language in the world. Got a doubt, it will be resolved. Literally, wordreferece offered to me on a silver platter everything I ever wanted to know about language but never knew I did. The site is amazing. I guess it's like putting a little boy in an endless warehouse full of toys when previously the poor thing only got one little tiny gift each year for Christmas. Moreover he gets instant playmates who strangely enough do not find his interests so weird at all! Who knew he was not alone in the world? He thought he was odd for being excited about the imperfect subjunctive!

Unfortunately, sooner or later Wordreferencing becomes hell. 24 hours a day is not enough time to spend on this site. There are ten subject discussions being created about every minute, many of which you know something about, others maybe not, but all are interesting enough to read and comment on. Members are actually encouraged to give answers on everything too. As they say, we are all participating in the creation of the biggest language encyclopedia in history. It must be perfectly complete for posterity. As such, in the celebration section, members are constantly being given awards. Mr. Salamander wrote his 10,000th post today! Hurray! Tomorrow, is Miss Crumpets birthday so we've made this new thread just for her! She wanted to know the names of all Russian cakes, so here we go! Yay!

For some unknown reason, members get promoted to the status of Moderator. This gives them endless power to wield over other members. Mods get to enforce the WR rules and can comment on all posts or eliminate them at will! And beware! They can also choose to ban you forever from the form too. Soon you will get those private messages from mods asking you to prove this and that detail about yourself, or to admonish you for breaking continually rule number 16, one you never knew existed, and quite honestly it is of so little relevance to anything in daily life, it's absolutely pathetic.
Members also flock together in small little cliques called tagger groups. You see them waiting to pounce on anyone who enters into their circle. Worse yet, they often have blind conviction in their philosophy and will shun posters who dare to disagree. For example, a shocker and breaker for members of XX group are the circumstances in which interrogative words such as "dónde" "cómo" "cuándo" should or should not bear an accent mark!? Say what? Some gangs will kill for principles won't they? Other times groups just take offence to your mere presence in a forum you haven't been invited to. That's not a rule, by the way. Just imagine for a moment that a native French speaker goes into the German-Spanish forum and dares to comment on the best translation of a proverb from one language into another. Be you right or wrong, excuse me, but who invited you to our German-Spanish party? You'll find these mods particular harsh as they try any way possible to get rid of you. Ha ha ha!

In a nutshell, wordreferece can be great... but it has all the inconveniences of an addiction to a recreational drug, plus the hurt of a high school dance where you can't sit at a certain table or run for homecoming king... just because... that's the way it is, mate. Finally it turns into senseless clicking on a machine far worse than a game boy because... face it... you are just mechanically refreshing the same site over and over again... hoping for who knows what... a new translation? Winning some stupid dispute about grammar? Getting an honor? But guess what? Guess what? You'll be answered when and if the someone decides to carry on, and only if a mod or a clique or someone else don't zap you out. Certainly, it's just another clear example of a terrible second reality addiction just waiting to prey on someone living in a dark northern rainy and sad climate where Persephone has been damned to Hades until April at least. I admit I succombed...

Yet, now I'm free. I sent wordreferencing to hell and deleted their cookies from my hard drive. Yes!! I've got an extra two hours per day. So, now I can get back on track and start writing again. It's going to be more free-style impromptu writing this time. I've seen writing too much as a task to refine and polish, which is a major deterent. It must be fun! Anyway, these are my two of my resolutions for 2012.

Happy holidays people, I'm back! Enjoy yourselves! I wish you all the best for the new year. Then get on your resolutions too!

Caganers and Cagatíos for Christmas!

Looking for a new eclectic Christmas tradition. Try celebrating the holiday the Catalan way by getting a caganer and a cagatío (sh*tter and uncle sh*t). So what is this scatalogical tradition about, you say puzzled? Well, the Catalans place the first figure in their nativity scene and the second one under their tree.



The caganer is an important part of their crèche scene. He is placed in the corner all the way to the left or to the right and far behind the main action featuring the madonna and child and three magi kings, so as to be as discreet as possible. The figure (el caganer) has his pants down, is depicted bent over and defecating. The action is seen clearly. Apparently this addition to the nativity came about originally in the Catalan farming community. You had to have one to ensure a profitable crop the following year. Later on, the caganer spread throughout Catalunya. In families, move it's precise location daily and children have fun trying to find the spot where he is hiding. Nowadays the caganer is actually famous people, including Queen Elizabeth II or Barack Obama in recent years.

The Caga Tío is more recent and a family ritual in Catalunya. It is the form of a log and goes under the Christmas tree. On Christmas, the children crowd around the Uncle/Log who proceeds to sh*t sweets, chocolates, candies and many other little gifts for their delight. Sometimes kids also hit it with a stick piñata style to get it to defecate quicker. This tradition is a must for all Catalan families. Perhaps you might want to consider adopting it?

At the mercy of snow

In the USA, or in Ohio, when it snows a small army of people are sent out to plow, shovel, salt, spray, remove snow in any and every way possible. Besides that, the layman too has obligations like getting rid of the snow on the sidewalk or street in front of his/her building, also the stairs, driveways, and whatever else is there and could be dangerous. I recently watched in amazement as secondary roads were completely snow free by rush hour.

In contrast, in France when there is sleet, freezing rain, or snow (be it half an inch or ten feet), the government's solution is to cancel everything. Décision de préfecture. No one leave home! Bus service cancelled, train service cancelled, streets cordoned off! No school! No this! and no that! No, no salting, absolutely no chemical products onto our roads, thoroughfares or sidewalks, that's way too bad for the environment, you know! and by the way, le déneigement also requires a lot physical labour! So why not just sit back and wait for nature to thaw itself out! It will eventually happen! And once in a while they do indeed plow certain streets at irregular intervals, just in case there's some emergency, but that's about it! Snow brings on paralysis. Now, before you think that I protesteth too much, I do readily admit that sometimes this is advantageous to me. Once in a while I do even find myself praying for snow. Twice this year already, I've got to lie in on official snow days and even be paid for it. Yippy! However, the inverse could happen too, being stuck at work, on a highway, at a train station, on a train, anywhere else waiting, begging, pleading for nature to help out and spare me.


Unfortunately for me the third snowstorm occurred on December 16-17, the exact moment when I was to leave for the states. Even worse it snowed in northeastern France (where I live) but not in Paris (where my plane was set to take off at 10:30 AM). So I fretted all day the 16th as I watched the snow fall and heard slowly but surely the decrees of the local government to shut down local buses, trains and shuttles. So how the hell was I to get to the TGV train station 40 minutes away to get my ride to Paris. Every option I thought about, no can do! I couldn't miss my flight because I just could not afford buying another ticket, and yes, finding my way to Paris was my responsibility, not theirs. Paris weather was clear and sunny. I panicked so much I didn't know what to do? Why didn't I get my French driver's license? Why didn't I have a car? a truck? Or a snowmobile?

So I decided the only way was to walk to the busiest area in Metz, by the station and try anyway possible to flag down a cab. Oh Gosh! The only place I could wald was go right down the middle of the street where cars or maybe ploughs had taken away just a wee bit of those 20 centimeters, and no, suitcase wheels do not work in the snow. Walking through the streets of Metz at 4AM with two suitcases and trying to hail cabs that didn't want to be hailed was an adventure I don't want to relive. Fortunately, I found a daring guy, Antoine, who told me he'd take me to the TGV Gare Lorraine (most cab drivers obeyed the order to stay in) on the condition that we not stop and fly straight down the highway as fast as possible. So there we went running red lights and swerving on to all lanes. His noble theory: you don't stop in snow or you'll never start again, and the faster you go the more control you have. I was scared and relieved at the same time to have Antoine behind the wheel. I did the right thing by thinking of going so early. My driver's theory, if right, could not have panned out, with all those slow drivers coming and going, and those accidents that were sure to occur in an hour or two. I would never have made it. Boy, did I have to pay for Antoine though. All in all, it was worth every penny though, even though I am still cursing the government for shutting down the world.

The TGV was on time, but it ran on slow (government decree) until it approached the Paris metropolitain area, where there was no snow. So my flight was definitely on time but I was still arriving late.

Next story, I had registered on line and printed my boarding pass beforehand, good reflex in the event of being late when they tell you to check in 3 hours in advance. So luckily, they were waiting for me! When I got to the airport at 10 (plane left at 10:30), the first guy everyone meets, out of about 10 all together, got on his walkie-talkie and said, "oui, il est là, le Cincinnati", so believe it or not, I got to cut in front of everybody else to check my bag. Next, at the security area where they were making people take everything off, open up all their bags, plus asking them tons of questions, the same thing happened. "Oh, le Cincinnati, pas le temps de faire tout ça, quoi!", passport control was the same story. I went through and walked straight to the plane, got on and then they closed the gate. Scary looking back on it all, but kind of cool too. In the end, my friend, Madame K, is right, they won't leave you behind. Feels nice to know that. I really thought they'd be off in a heartbeat. And the trip to Cincinnati was completely normal, now here I am with 6 inches of snow and bare roads.

Vive la belle France! Every day is an adventure. R.T.