Sano is the Spanish adjective for 'healthy.' Because of the sound of the word and its associations too, the nickname for really healthy people is zanahoria. Or, in English, 'carrot.' This caused me to crack up for the better part of 3 and half minutes yesterday. It also, I think, caused mi profesor Arturo to seriously question my ability to learn anything more that day. (The following photo doesn't show us being all that healthy -- though microbreweries are always a good choice.)

Today, though, brought a very welcome sense of traction. Reviewing and, in fact, rewriting las formas de los verbos regularos (incluyendo por la primera vez 'presente de subjuntivo' y 'perfecto de inidicativo') was almost (but not quite) as satisfying as the Light & Easy Sudoku puzzles I'm crunching through with increasing speed.

Éstaban reminded me, necessarily, of the peaks and valleys (y especialmente las mesetas) of learning any language. And I know I will be frustrated again in short order -- perhaps even mas fuerte but until then I'll enjoy what feels like cosmic authorization to hope that my learning is moving perceptibly in the right direction. (Or, failing that, I'll enjoy -- as I've apologized for in a few e-mails today -- peppering my paragraphs with what I'm sure is an annoying amount of Spanglish.)

Ooh, and just for fun here's a link for all you MacOSX Tiger users: Your soon-to-be-favorite widget

[Addendum: it is a fantastic thing that the kids working the Starbucks where I cybersquat are too polite to say anything to me about how it's customary to buy something when you spend hours in their establishment. It is a phantasmagoric thing that this Starbucks, which uses no real cups (only those paper take-outs), has valet parking and, at times it seems, a waiting list for a table.]