My four year old is arguing with me about how to spell words.

CHRIS: Mommy, how do you spell Coney Island?

ME: C-O-N-E-Y spells Coney, and I-S-L-A-N-D spells Island.

CHRIS: But there's no ssss sound in island.

ME: I know. It's spelled funny.

CHRIS: But there's no ssss sound in island.

ME: I know.

CHRIS: How do you spell island, again.

ME: I-S-L-A-N-D

CHRIS: But there's no ssss sound in island.

ME: I know. It's spell like "is" "land" but that's just 'cause it's spelled funny.

CHRIS: But there's no ssss sound in island.

THUNK

This combining finances has been so stressful in general, that shit like this really pushes me over the edge. Sorry for venting.

Nora, it's the pressure cooker theory. You vent or you explode. Please vent.

Kids are very binary. It is or it isn't. I hate watching kids learn that "Please" doesn't always work, because you tell them and tell them to use the magic word to ask for something, then they ask for something they simply can't have, and you see their logic centers spinning rubber. "Wait--I need to say Please. Why isn't it working? Didn't I say it right? I said Please! I know I did! Why are the rules changing!"

Don't apologize for venting, Nora. This is the place can absorb it, and turn it into punctuation.

As for me. It's been a hell of a week at work. The office Mouth has been working overtime. My boss tells me that I am unhappy with my job and with teaching so suddenly, I am not teaching the class I have taught every semester for 2.5 years. I'm all, WTF?!? While trying to do damage control. We're a small staff here, so I can't exactly point fingers and say, "Have you been listening to the Mouth, Boss? Because she talks such shit!"

Also, they hired the person I hated. His work is fine, but he sends me back my emails with typos corrected, and reads law review articles for fun. shudder

Nora, can you get your hands on a Starbucks hot apple cider? And make them put a cinnamon stick in it?

Huh. Maybe my voice changes in a very subtle way. It's almost subconscious. Weird. I'm trying to switch back and forth, and I think my voice is slightly different, but I can't do anything about it. I can't tone down the Gujarati into what I think is closer to my normal voice. It's the only way it comes out.

This is me, going back and forth between the US and the UK. Here, the London comes out and is noticeable, at least to Brits. In London, I get very North American - think a San Francisco version of Carmela Soprano.

Thank you all for the sorries - alas, this is likely to be one in a series. I've just realised something - most of my friends from those years were between ten and twenty years my senior. I'm fifty. And even I can do that math.

I need to go write.

the London comes out and is noticeable, at least to Brits

Well, I don't know from London, but when I talked to you on the phone I thought, "Wow, how long was she in England?"

His work is fine, but he sends me back my emails with typos corrected

Sparky, he must be slapped.

Work time. Off I go.

This is me, going back and forth between the US and the UK.

When DH speaks Spanish (it was his first language) he sounds exactly the same to me. Has has no foreign accent in either language. He is also the person whom I am most able to understand in Spanish (although that could be because I hear him the most). But I don't think his voice/tone/whatever changes. I have to concentrate a bit to sound right in Spanish or Portugese.

ETA: I love the idea of connie's husband being a double agent. That exchange made laugh.

Also, deb, so sorry about your friend. That sounds trite to me, but it's not meant to be.

alas, this is likely to be one in a series. I've just realised something - most of my friends from those years were between ten and twenty years my senior. I'm fifty.

Being the same age that was my first thought. We got a lot of this ahead of us. Sucks. Though not as much as not having had the friendships in the first place would.

Sparky, he must be slapped.

I've tried. His ego acts as a force field.