Sweet charity.

I sent in a $15 donation to the city's free outdoor summer classical music festival. I've been meaning to do this for years - I go to 10-12 concerts on average a summer, and can afford to cough up a little more than a dollar per concert. I need to start making this an annual habit. That festival really is one of the highlights of my summers!!!

Commissioned a singing telegram.

Because my one lawyer friend from Missouri has helped me out a few big times in the past year, I had promised her that I'd treat her out to brunch or dinner one day.

So, last week, I took her out to the sister restaurant (= opened by the same owners) of a brunch place that she loves, only this place is a lunch/dinner place.

As it turns out, it's also where my one friend who used to (and sometimes still does) deliver singing telegrams is a hostess and waitress, so I found out if she was working the night that me and my other friend were going to go the restuarant, and when I found out she was, I commissioned a "thank you, you are great!" singing telegram.

For that, I had to email a bunch of info about my lawyer friend to my telegram-delivering friend, so I wrote about how kind she was, how she does photography and is doing a children's book about her cute dog with her own photos, takes dance lessons, bikes everywhere, etc.

Then, because I knew at some point that I had mentioned to my lawyer friend that my telegram-delivering friend works at that restaurant, I told my telegram-delivering friend that at the restaurant we should pretend like we don't know each other, so the telegram would be a surprise.

Since I had met her at the restaurant a few times at the end of her shift to go out for drinks, I also told her to tell her co-workers (some of whom I'd met) to pretend they didn't know me.

So, I didn't bring up again her working there to my lawyer friend, and when the day finally came and we walk in the restaurant, right away to seat us my telegram-delivering friend pops around the corner to seat us, which caused me to hold back a smile, and she acted very coolly...

I was uncomfortable, and my lawyer friend turned back to me and raised an eyebrow about how odd the hostess was behaving.

Out of discomfort, I asked what the specials were. The question just hung awkwardly in the air, and my telegram-delivering friend said there were a lot, and the waitress would tell us.

After we were seated, we had a nice long dinner - the food was very tasty, and very reasonable - and then when I was still finishing up my plate and my friend was having half of hers boxed to go, this procession starts descending through the restaurant towards us, with my telegram-blowing friend at the head of the procession blowing a tin kazoo, and being followed right behind by the young Mexican host guy, who was holding a piece of cake with a couple candles on it.

As the procession petered out in front of our table, my telegram-delivering friend steps up and kneels down at our table, and my lawyer friend, who didn't know what was going on - at 1st she thought I might be celebrating her birthday, but it wasn't near her birthday at all, she told me later - was like, "This is so weird!".

"Honey," my telegram-delivering friend said, in her wonderful Southern drawl, "This is going to get weirder," and she burst into song right then.

As it turns out, the lyrics were highly personalized, and talked of how my lawyer friend "takes pictures of her pup" (complete with picture-snapping hand motion) and "goes salsa-ing by on her bike" (complete with bicylcing shoulder-roll motion). Later, there was a high kick, and then my friend knelt again and was like, "[my other friend's names], that is why we sing your praises, [her name repeated three times, louder and louder and louder, with the final one held out as the end of the telegram]!!!".

Though I would have hated something like that, my lawyer friend turns out to have *loved* it (she always likes something out-of-the-ordinary and new), and loved how I deceived her into thinking the hostess wasn't my friend... She's been telling everyone about the telegram, and even wants to write a profile of my telegram-delivering friend for the city's independent newspaper.

More re: the Catalan.

I was asking the Catalan about the sardana, and he said it was something the old people did, and he was forced to dance it as a kid.

"So dance it for me now," I was like. "Teach me about your culture, I want to see."

He wouldn't, and after I pressed a bit more, he said that it's fine to make fun of a culture, but you have to know it 1st.

"It's like if I asked you, American, to show me basketball or baseball," the Catalan was like.

So, at that, I pretend dribbled, shot an airball through a hoop, and then, after a pause, I went into batting stance, wiggled my butt, and swung a pretend bat.

Then, I got back into normal posture, pointed at the ground, and was like, "Dance!", at which the Catalan just grimaced, shrugged, and took another drag on his cigarette.

Later, when I met there Argentianian friend, he was saying that it's a stereotype for him to do the tango, but he knows it because he learned it in middle school so he could touch the girls dancing, and he would tango if the Catalan would do the sardana.

I later apologized to the Argentinian about my repeating jokes about the sardana, but I said I just found it funny.

"That is okay," he was like. "I can see that you are a persistent person."

...and another.

I was telling the Catalan about how I had been to this one classical music concert and a piece incorporated tunes from the sardana, the Catalan national dance, and he seemed not to care.

"I thought he would care," I whispered to Jesus, when the Catalan turned to light a cigarette.

"He doesn't," said Jesus. "And if he doesn't, who will?"

1 joke about the Catalan...

When I had run into the Catalan and Jesus at that one bar the other week, they were with a Spanish tenure-track prof. who was newly-arrived to the city.

When I caught up with them on the back patio, they were all speaking Spanish, and the Catalan was like, "So, you have decided to join the Spanish corner?"

"I thought you were Catalan," Jesus said.

Latin literature.

Why is all Latin literature legal orations and stuff about war and never in self-contained chapters that are satisfactory to read? I was looking through Loeb Classical Library books the other day to find fun texts to read, and so much on the shelf was just silly, whereas there was a ton of good options with the Greek stuff.

Healthy Eating.

I'm always amazed how many lower-class obese people I see buying big cups of fruit from Mexican vending carts on the street or at festivals.

I have to admit that those fruit cups are really appetizing - they're overflowing with watermelon and cantaloupe and mango, and have lime juice squeezed on, with a dash of hot pepper.

I find it jarring to see, though, because I often see lower-class obese people around the city chowing down, but it's always on Doritos or McDonalds or candy bars or whatever!

I was thinking of this, after being at the Puerto Rican festival and then seeing a (Mexican) lady selling fruitcups near my house.