Christinglish

;Feliz cumpleanos, Lisita!

"Today is the birthday of El Guapo," ran a line in a Portillo family fave film from our CA days. Can you name that flick? More importantly: "Today is the birthday of El Yse!" Nuestro Cinco de Mayo bambina es 23, hoy! Te amo, mi hita: Mas, tardes...! (P.S. How do I love thee, Elyse? Let me count the ways. Today, to honor your birthday, I texted, phoned, twittered, blogged, and facebooked about it! Pix and flix to follow!!)

Maybe I should build her a cake or something....

Happy M'aider!

As we enter again the lusty month of May (I just love saying that: QUITE big on Camelot I was, back when I was enjoying the simple joys of maidenhood, and all those adoring daring boys!), I have a fun little nugget to share, gleaned from my hero Garrison Keillor on today's NPR broadcast of "Writer's Almanac." We've all heard the distress call of "May day, May day!" in the nautical sense of S.O.S. Garrison tells me it has nothing to do with today's date. Rather, it is from the French for "Help me!": M'aider (pronounced, as you might have guessed, "Mayday"). I'd never heard, never known; but it makes perfect, tidy sense. And how I love to learn more about la langue francaise, and to share what I've learned with tout  Le Monde. With that, I'll close with one of my phave Phrench phrases: "Tout le monde est fou, sauf moi!" (All the world is crazy, 'cept me!)