please don’t take my translations here too seriously, oh and am I now taking requests?

sunset in Dachau a while back

Not that I normally do this, but I guess now I’m taking requests. Asked a friend what she thought I should write about, and she had kind of a funny response.

Funny haha not funny weird…well, I suppose a little funny weird.

Don’t start getting ideas, though. I’m not a trained monkey here simply to do your bidding. You can’t just contact me and assume I’ll write about whatever your heart desires. That’s not how it works over here.

To be fair, I asked her what I should write about. It’s not her fault.

I’m the curator of this here place, by the way. Or if I want to make it sound/look more French, I simply spell it curatoeur. I’m not even sure if that’s a French word.

I wasn’t very good in French when I was in school.

They let you pick your own name in language classes, though. It sounds so preposterous to have this thirteen-year-old properly learning a new language for the first time saying, ‘Je m’appelle Ken,’ or, ‘Je m’appelle Lahikmajoe,’ or what have you.

Any of my friends from that time will tell you, ‘il s’appelle Xavier.’

Go ahead. Ask them.

Loved that name.

Since I was a teenager.

Weird.

I tell Miriam that’d be a great name for a boy, and she rejects it out of hand.

Which is funny.

Our daughter has two given names. I don’t say her name online a lot, just because of privacy issues and all. At some point, she’s going to want to make choices about how to present herself in the sphere of the web, and I’d rather she not have a lifetime of stuff already come up when you google her name.

Her middle name, or as the Germans say her ‘second first name‘ but please don’t take my translations here too seriously, is my Nana’s name and my mom’s second first name.

I’m a translator in my other job, by the way, and I like to play around here. Like I say, don’t take my translations here too seriously. Most of my translations on this blog are meant to be tongue in cheek.

Think about it. Some of my readers are English speakers with rudimentary German. I’m looking at you Elaine, or you Troy. Others are German natives, but their English is quite good. That’s what I tell friends when they ask how Miriam’s English is. Her english is quite good. Really.

Recently a few friends said they’d love to meet Miriam, but they were worried their German wasn’t up to snuff. I chuckled and said, ‘Yeah, neither is mine.’

She talks a bit of the old Blighty bleety. She makes English words with her mouth. She’s significantly better in English than most of the English students I’ve had over the years.

Anywho…looks like I’m out of time. Didn’t get to the topic request.

Sorry, Heidi.

Next time, yeah?

Oh, by the way. Look up in the sky the next few nights. The Wolf Moon is getting big and beautiful. I was howling at her last night, and I think I might’ve heard another howl in the distance.

In Munich?

Wolves in Bavaria?

That can’t be right.

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