Dear friends,
My friend Gayle gave me permission to share some of her posts with you. She sends them out to a group of friends who want to hear from her, and writes almost every day. I asked her about a year ago if it would be OK to share them with some friends in China, and she said "Sure! The reason I am sharing them is so that you get an idea of what a nice, casual, well-educated American woman is like living her active life and writing to her friends. She has a university degree with a major in Spanish. As there are a lot of Spanish-speaking people (Hispanics,) immigrating into the U.S. from Mexico and so on, she has a good opportunity to use it from time to time. Her dream is to travel in Mexico and Latin America. You can trust that she writes good quality English, and that her punctuation is pretty accurate. She writes as she talks, so she uses easy-going slang terms here and there. If anything puzzles you, ask me. And no, she doesn't want to join the forum. :-)
I should tell you that some years ago she fell off an overcrowded San Francisco streetcar and the front of her right foot was badly injured when the car ran over it. She hasn't been able to work since, and receives a disability pension from the U.S. government. Recently she had an operation to remove all the toes on that foot and she has a lot of trouble with foot, leg, and various other parts of herself. Therefore, she gets around outside her home on a motorized "scooter" provided by the government. Recently hers went back to a government facility for repairs and the one she was lent to use was somewhat unstable. It tipped over and spilled her out twice. She injured her shoulder. She doesn't complain a lot, but she consistently reports a lot of aches and pains, and life is not easy, except that she makes it as good for herself and her family and friends as possible. Jamal likes to ride on the back of the scooter when they go places together. It runs on a rechargeable electric battery.
Jamal is their 12 year old adopted son. She is separated from her husband. They have an adopted daughter, Marzi, who just turned 15 years old. Her husband and the children are "black". That means they are a very nice shade of brown and have curly hair as they have both "black" and "white" ancestry. Gayle herself is "white". Gayle's friends are various colours, many are black, although she doesn't noticem, so never mentions that.
Personally, I find the terms "black" "White", "red", "yellow", "brown", pretty peculiar myself, because nobody looks those colours to me. All people just look varying tones of brown, from very pale to very dark, to me. I know her and her family because they're Baha'is. Her husband is a very good speaker, and he wears a small, well-timmed beard. She is breezy and outgoing, and must be the most extroverted person I know. She's known and liked everywhere she goes, continully remembers her friends and their babies, and picks up little gifts for them, and is very kind to everybody imaginable, strangers and friends alike, no matter how poor, or what they do or don't do for a living. She likes writers and has been friends with some well-known writers. I think she really is a writer, herself.
She is quite poor, and has a hard time keeping house because of her disabilities. Her husband has a serious heart condition but still holds a job. Although maritally separated, (not divorced,) they live near each other, help each other in various ways, and confer about the children, and the children live with one sometimes and visit the other, and vice versa. It seems to be very good for the children.
They are a nice looking family, and the children are good kids. No drugs, sleeping around, smoking, gangs, and so on. "Snicker" is a very small and cute little dog. He only weighs five pounds. Gayle takes him everywhere she goes. Everybody knows him, and Gayle loves him dearly. They have various other pets that you'll probably be introduced to over time.
So now I have introduced you to this interesting American family. I think you will enjoy insights into life in the USA, gained through parts of Gayle's posts to us. Some of her latest post follows. She and Jamal visited the California State Fair yesterday. If you like this taste of her posts, let me know nd I'll continue to post what I think will interest you.
Now here's a little English lesson for all of you: note that as I quoted Gayle's post I use quotation marks at the beginnings of each of her paragraphs but not at the ends. That is, not until I came to the last paragraph of the quotation. Then I used a quotation mark at the end of that one. It indicates to you that the quotation is finished.
If I had to use quotation marks within one of those paragraphs, if she had reported exactly what someone said, I would have only used a single quotation mark around what that person said, like this. 'She said that.' The usual double mark would be used around the whole thing, as described above. By double mark I mean this one, "This is the one I mean. See?"
One other little point: when I explain something she wrote I use square brackets, like this: [that is the correct way to do it when you add something to a quotation you didn't write. MK]. You will notice that I also added the initials of my name so you know that I am the one who made the interposition. This is the correct way to do such a thing in English. So, if you write reports or essays, things you need to be correct, this is the way to indicate an interposed comment that was not in the original quotation.
Affectionately, Mary
*********"Jamal and I returned to the Fair today. We left at 5 p.m. and the weather was magnifico! Only 81 degrees. It felt just balmy.
"We went first to the Rhythm Touch booth where I got another shoulder treatment. I have decided to purchase one of these little machines as they are terrific! I'm getting friendly with the two guys and one woman who work the booth. One of the fellows in particular, Bob, is NERTZ about Snicker and said he'd trade me TWO machines for Snicker. You'll not have to scratch your head in wonderment to guess My answer.
"Then Jamal and I went through the California Building which has displays by each of California's Counties. Not a lot to linger over there, but nice to see.We moseyed over to the midway and Jamal checked out the games there ('Just ONE in the bucket wins you one of these fabulous prizes!') [called the barker,] as he was feeling gamey. Hahaha.
"We went over to Center Stage where Terry usually performs [a hypnotist who is performing in Las Vegas at this time so didn't perform at this fair. MK], and watched some African Dancers. Well, they probably weren't from Africa, but the dances were. One dance was choreographed by a 12 year old dancer! Thesedancers moved to the beat of drums instead of music.One redheaded teeny bopper in the audience just could not sit still and she was dancing off the stage butdirectly in front of it. Soon the dancers came out into the audience to lure some other dancers to be up with them. Of course the little redhead was chosen.
After they were finished we watched some spectacular Chinese Acrobats! They began their act with several hoops connected together so that they were in astack and the acrobats (men this time) jumped THROUGH the top hoop and did rolls and falls and jumps on the other side. One fellow jumped feet first! It wasvery exciting.
Then a group of female dancers came out. They looked so sweet in their pink and peach Chinese pajama outfits. They were spinning spindles of sorts. Each womanhad two sticks with a string in between and they flung their spindles up and caught them with the strings, threw them back and forth to each other and finally spun one spindle from dancer to dancer as they lined their stringsup just so.
After that more male dancers came out spinning heavy pottery jugs on their heads, balancing them on their necks and tossing them into the air only to catchthem on their bent-over necks again. The multitude of dancers faded away and one dancer was left. He started his tricks with a smallish ceramic pot and graduated to one about 18 in [18 inches. The USA still uses this form of measurement, and not metric. MK] diameter. Same deal with pot on back ofneck, throwing it up, catching it. The audience was mesmerized when he balanced this pot on his head and made abrupt 1/4 turns with the pot staying up there!
Lastly was a gent who got up on a platform and stacked 8-10 chairs up and did his balancing act on the top of whatever chair was there. The kicker was when hetilted one of the chairs, did his balancing act and sat down in the V of the tilted chair. My heart was in my throat, I'm so scared of heights. I was afraid for him, just in case HE wasn't appropriately scared.
Well, Jamal and I hung out until the fireworks at ten. We finally left, a bit chilly as we didn't bring particularly warm jackets with us. It took us about anhour to scoot home with Jamal on the back of the scooter, either sitting or standing there. Snicker was the most comfy as he was inside my lined windbreaker with his oval fuzzy between him and the outside of the jacket.Next time we will prepare better!
So nice to come home only mildly tired and not on the verge of hysteria!
Lots of love,Gayle *********
