F ~Fitting In, Friends and The Flintstones

These are the continuing adventures of a Swedish immigrant during her first year as an American. She boldly went where she'd never gone before...please come along on Adventures in America.

School got better after that first horrific day. I learned the routine, I learned the rules, I got more confident in my English, no longer rehearsing each sentence in my head fourteen times before daring to say it.

I guess I should have told you earlier in the series, but both my sister and I were bilingual when we moved. DataBoy didn't talk. He was two. Growing up, we learned both languages at once. I've asked my parents how they did that, and I think I remember the answer. They both spoke Swedish to us. They spoke English to each other. Regardless, I've always known two languages, though at the time that we moved, Swedish was stronger.

Grandma Vivian had come on many visits, and we'd been to America when I was 6, so I'd had plenty of time to converse with those with whom I couldn't just switch to Swedish if I got stuck. I just had to move that file to the front of the line and open it. It didn't take long.

Making friends at school meant that I had more than the Camponellas to play with. There was one friend who lived on that big street beside our house (as opposed to the only slightly smaller, two lanes each way street that we lived on) and she was quite the bossy one. I know you're laughing – bossier than Tina? Yes, such a person exists, though her name is lost. She wasn't very kind.

I remember one afternoon I was done playing with her and said I had to go home. She couldn't leave it there.

“Why do you have to go?”

“I promised I'd watch a TV show with my sister.”

“You're leaving me to watch TV?”

“Yes, in Sweden they don't have kids TV and here they have cartoons and my sister and I want to watch it.”

“What show are you watching?”

“Scooby-Doo.”

“You like Scooby-Doo better than me?”

(free images from picgifs.com)

Apparently I did. I didn't know how to deal with someone so persistent and unlistening. So I just said, “See you tomorrow!” To which she answered, “I'll think about it.” Fine.

Swissie and I enjoyed our Scooby-Doo. After all, we had to look at the TV guide when it arrived and mark out our chosen two hours of TV. If you missed what you marked, it took quite a bit of persuading to substitute something else.

Favorite Genres Blogfest from Alex J. Cavanaugh

First let me introduce our host, Alex J. Cavanaugh.  Alex’s blogfests are best – probably because he’s one of the best out there - supportive, helpful, and always willing to promote what his buddies are doing.  His posts are chock-full of shout-outs to bloggers famous and those just getting started.  He’s written two best sellers: CassaStorm and CassaFire and is working on his third.  (Link in sidebar to CassaFire). 

The premise is simple:  What are your favorite genres of

                          Movies

             Books

             TV shows

                          What is your guilty pleasure, in any of the above categories.

My favorite movies are post-apocalyptic science fiction.  There are several reasons these appeal to me, and one of them is that they’re also The Engineer’s favorites, so I’ve seen a lot of them.  It used to be I’d pick a movie, he’d suffer through, he’d pick a movie, I suffered through, and then we’d agree on a movie the third time.  Didn’t take us long to realize that we both liked these, so we kinda gave up on making the other person suffer.

We also like them because they closely simulate what it would be like to start over, and had The Engineer been born a couple of generations in the future, he’d be dragging us to Mars to colonize it.  You know what?  I’d go.  Really does sound like fun.  He’s already working on getting us “off grid” as in living self-contained.  Bring on the zombie-apocalypse, we’re almost ready.

My favorite books, though, are murder mysteries.  I get plenty of sci-fi in my movies, and frankly I like to SEE my sci-fi.  I’d rather not see a grisly murder scene thankyouverymuch, so I read about them.  Some favorite authors are Karin Slaughter (like that’s not a pen name) andLisa Gardner.

My favorite TV shows have varied greatly over the years.  Right now, it’s Big Bang Theory.  I told The Engineer he most resembles Leonard (the least nerdy and best looking) but in actuality, he’s Sheldon – not with the OCD and cleanliness issues, but with the brain and talking about stuff the rest of us just say, “Huh?” to.  Don’t tell him though.  He likes being Leonard.

Guilty Pleasure: J.D Robb’s …in Death series.  The perfect books: sci-fi, murder mystery, continuing character development across the (at last count) 35 books.  She churns them out, but each one is unique and the crimes she comes up with, well, I wonder what she reads and dreams about because wow, these are some twisted crimes.  Lots of really steamy sex, and lots of humor.  Eve Dallas, the lead detective is an ass-kicking force to be reckoned with, no social skills, no fashion sense, but always gets her perp.  If her husband were real, he’d be at the top of my top five list…

What are your favorites?  Too late to join the blogfest, but you could fill my comments with your picks…and if you’re a visiting participant, I’d really appreciate a direct link to your post.  Happy Favorite Genre Day!