Today was teaching day for me. I'm still a little worried about the beginning class, but think the advanced class is begining to seem a little more natural. Today we worked on past tenses, reviewing regular and introducing irregular. Somehow, the distinctions between could/would, should/must, may/can, etc., came up and by the time I was finished trying to explain, I was in a sweat. Don't bother to tell me that Southern Ladies glow, this one probaly isn't a lady, and teaching English makes her sweat. It's my own fault. I should be more careful or, actually, must be more careful in choosing my words in the future. We also practiced sentences with vowel /r/ words. The varied spellings of such words make it so difficult. (work, hurt, urge, bird, etc.)
During the prepared conversation part of our class, I related the story of eating zeppelins and how I enjoyed them, but that they were huge. Daiva told the class that at the restaurant where we ate, the zeppelins were really quite small. I asked her if the large ones were the size of bed pillows. She laughed and said that she had noticed that I looked like I needed a bed pillow by the time I finished eating them. It is such fun to see the smiles people get when we say we tried zeppelins and that we liked them. It reminds me of Del and his boiled peanuts that he tries to feed unsuspecting Yankees. I think they taste like blackeyed peas, by the way. I've probably already bored most of you with the story of the Robinson family and boiled peanuts, but that never stopped me before. We grew peanuts on the farm, and shortly after we started dating, Del came down during cultivating time. That means harvest, and I think the word is used because the piece of machinery used to get them up was called a cultivator. He asked if he could buy some of the green peanuts to take home to his parents. The family was clearly concerned about what to do. On the one hand, there was a history of old maids in the Robinson family, and he was the only prospect they saw on the horizon. It would not do to appear inhospitable. On the other hand, it was a well known fact that eating green (freshly harvested) peanuts would give you " the ACUTE (emphasis on A) colic and and you would surely DIE." The exact same words and intonation were always used. They came down on the side of giving Del the peanuts, but only if he would agree to tell his parents of the danger. The only other thing I know of that will give you the ACUTE colic and surely kill you is eating watermelon and drinking "cocola" together. Big Bubba (uncle) told us that from the time I can remember. Del laughs, but his mother was the one who believed swallowing chewing gum would give you appendecitis.
All that has reminded me of the old habit of putting salted peanuts into a bottle of "cocola" and drinking them. I haven't tried that in a hundred years, but the combination of sweet and salty and crunchy was really good. I'm not sure it would be the same without those little bottles, though.
Del left to attend a ceremony at the archives honoring a Lithuanian turned Chicagoan before I was to get home from class, so I stopped in at a restaurant near the bus stop for a bowl of soup. I ordered what they called pea stew, assuming it would be a thick brothy type deal. It came in a bowl and was so thick the spoon could stand up in it. The peas had been cooked to death, (that's not always a bad thing) as Mother used to say, or else someone had been after them with a potato masher until quite smooth, but they were mixed with barley to give texture, I guess. They had sprinkled bacon and what I think were little half circles of raw leek on top. It was really good. I'm not sure Del would have enjoyed it as much as I did, however. You had a tiny taste of bacon with each spoonful. I happened to have my new Lithuanian cookbook with me and saw a recipe called pea gruel and one called barley gruel that seemed as though they might have been combined to make this dish. The server looked at the book and agreed. My idea of gruel has always been a thin runny sort of thing fed to orphans in old timey days, but maybe that was not correct.
Tomorrow we take the bus to Riga. I'll tell you all about the trip when we get back on Sunday. Since I may not have access to a computer on the 4th, I'll say Happy Birthday to our baby boy today. What a great guy he turned out to be and what a wonderful family he brought us! We are blessed.
Have a great week end.
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