3 projects: 2 languages, 1 quilt.

1) I've picked up some Spanish phrasebooks so I can engage Mexicans in ordering tacos.

The other night, I was out with friends at a Mexican place, and I was like -

Quero una torta con carne asada, por favor -

and the waitress asked me (in Spanish) if I wanted everything, so I was like -

Si, con los todos -

and then she with a smile corrected me and said it was either "el todo" or "todo" (I think it was just "todo").

Then, since I was so nervous that I forgot half my order, I was like -

y una diet coca-cola tambien, por favor! -

and she gently corrected me again, to say "una coca-cola dieta".

2) On the 14th when I went into the French bakery near my (current) apartment, I greeted the owner - this short monolingual French woman who is kind of fat and wears black and a black hat and little rubber boots all the time, and talks with customers while her tall, thin, overworked (French) husband slaves away in the kitchen - with -

Bonjour, ma valentine! -

and she laughed good-naturedly at that, because she thought my joke was cute.

3) My mom is helping to repair a quilt for her co-worker at the library in my hometown - the woman never quilted before, and she messed up the pattern some, and then her the distances between her stitching was all over the place, and I think some other things were wrong as well - and so my mom took on the salvage project (the woman put a ton of time into it) and finally finished it for her like this past week...

"[the woman's name]," she was like, "Box it up and ship it to the Vatican, because they need to declare it a miracle."