A Car-nival of Cars

Never expected to participate in a A Car-nival of Cars which is my way of saying we got two new cars in the family in less than a week.

Didn’t plan or want to do it that way but as my people say, “דער מענטש טראַכט און גאָט לאַכט”.

“Der mentsh trakht un got lakht/Man plans and God laughs.”

The actual plan was to get one car now and somewhere between August and December get another car. No need to rush, no need to run to spend extra money.

Take some time to watch to see what impact the 2022s coming out would have on the 2021s and make an informed decision based upon that.

Had more than one salesmen tell me there is a car shortage because of chips and each time they did I said “I know because my industry is impacted by this too.”

When they said that meant I should understand the importance of moving I said unless they made it really interesting I wasn’t going to move.

And I didn’t budge.

One almost convinced me to do something but upon careful reflection it didn’t seem to make sense so nothing happened.

And then the 16 year-old van declared a mutiny and decided it required immediate action to keep going. That made the decision simple because that vehicle was beyond the point at which I was willing to put real money into it.

דער מענטש טראַכט און גאָט לאַכט
Der mentsh trakht un got lakht/Man plans and God laughs.

Yiddish Lessons

It has been 35 years since I took Yiddish lessons in high school and 31 since I took Hebrew in college. Been almost 40 since I took Spanish but as a Peace Corps baby I grew up hearing Spanish spoken at home.

Can’t really say I was fluent in any one of them but whenever I have focused upon them I have gotten good enough to get by.

I have often thought if I really took the time to bear down I could do far better than just get by. Maybe that is laziness on my part or lack of real interest in doing better than ok.

I can read and write in all but Spanish is sort of a gimme because I am a native English speaker and the letters/alphabet aren’t foreign.

Anyhoo, I have been using Duolingo’s app to take the free Yiddish lessons for around a month now and have been enjoying it.

I have done the same with their Hebrew and Spanish modules and enjoyed those too.

Though I have wrestled with where to focus my time because I can use Spanish daily and have plenty of people to practice with. Hell, I have native Spanish speakers from both Spain and Mexico here. Kind of funny to hear them argue about some expressions, probably similar to Americans talking about English with someone from the UK.

The people who speak Yiddish on Duolingo sound different to me. It is an East Coast accent, Hasidim I am guessing.

It is different from what I am used to. My grandfathers were born in Canada and the US so their Yiddish sounded just like their English to me.

But I grew up around plenty of Yidden from Europe and that accent is what I learned to listen to and frankly expect to hear first.

Anyhoo, I am grateful to be in the position I am in now given all that it took get here. Grateful that I can write this and doing my best to just roll with what comes because you know things can change.

דער מענטש טראַכט און גאָט לאַכט
Der mentsh trakht un got lakht/Man plans and God laughs.