Lessons on bartering

At the end of last semester, I set a few "summer" goals for myself in an effort to stay productive and not give in to the temptation to watch hours of meaningless television, which I can easily do without even batting an eye, and to keep myself from getting really cranky about watching my teenagers and their friends eat me out of house and home.

So, yesterday, I began goal #3. Keep up on my french. In fact, on my sheet of paper, I went so far as to write, improve my french. My french skills right now are minimal at best. I can read and write a little, but to speak is downright painful. So, to accomplish this goal requires the aid of my tutor, Naomi. I like Naomi and I think she likes me; of course, I pay her to be my friend but the relationship works. I respect Naomi very much and think she is an intelligent woman. She speaks four languages fluently for heaven's sake.

I think her skills as a linguist are impressive and quite frankly I am more than a little envious of her keen memory. Without thinking, my memory skills include important things like being able to recall the name of any random actor or actress in a unimportant film I watch - she can speak french, portugese, spanish, and german. My children and I can quote, with ease I might add, any funny line from a previous "Office" episode - she and her children speak both french and spanish. I love it when I am there in her home and she requests her two teenage children to speak french. My kids can only bicker in their native tongue.

So, when I finished school last semester and was formulating my summer plans, I thought maybe I could barter some french lessons from Naomi. Naomi was all over it. I help her clean her house and while we work, we speak french. OOO-LA-LA! IT's beautiful and mutually beneficial! Yesterday was my first day. While we were both doing housework (ménage de la maison), we chatted.

I started by vacuuming the corners of the living room (j'ai passe l'aspirateur les coins de la salle vivante) while she dusted. We talked about the modern furniture (le meuble moderne) she bought when she lived in a downtown loft twenty years ago (il y a vingt ans.)

I learned the name for dust (poussière) and clean (propre) and small baskets (corbeille), not to be confused with big baskets that act as a laundry hamper (cabas) and by the time we were done scouring her living room, two and a half hours later, her house was clean and I was mentally exhausted. Literally, I was finished (fini!!) and couldn't hardly say my name in english. But Naomi, she just kept asking me questions and when I would cheat and start my answer in english, she would smile and say, "parle tu francais, s'il te plait."

My favorite lines of the day were, "desolee" (sorry) and "comment dit-on?" (how does one say?) and in the end, I left her clean home (propre chez elle) with nary a single thought left in my void brain.