Spanish Plática Meeting Highlights

Tuesdays are for OKC Spanish meetings!

This Tuesday, I decided to make myself busy. And it made me very late to Spanish 😅

I was able to send a message out to the Advanced group chat to let them know... I just didn't realize I would be an hour late to a meeting that lasts an hour and a half 🤦‍♀️

Luckily, we had a few regulars show up to hold down the fort while I kept thinking, "I'm almost done, I'll be there soon..."

¿De qué hablamos?

When I got to the bookstore, I walked by the checkout counter and said hello to the employees. They were talking to another person, and they introduced me to her as someone interested in the group! But, unfortunately, she showed up on a Plática night when she would have been more comfortable with a beginner or intermediate meeting. She said she sat and listened for a while, and that the other people in the group were very nice 😎 I gave her the low-down on the group, sent her to the website, and told her about the meeting content, then hurried off to the people who were wondering where I was.

Obviously, when I arrived the big question was: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Addie! Is everything okay? So, of course, I gave them the deets of my tardiness. I recently finished watching the comedy series "Reno 911", and there was an episode where the characters - county sheriff officers - donated plasma as a way to make some extra cash after their department got defunded. I was curious, so I decided to give it a try. I'll spare you the details, but apparently there was a rush of donors right before I got there - so I'm assuming due to employee breaks (much needed, I'm sure!) and not enough staffing for the unexpected boom... it took me 2 hours to get through the check-in and health screening process to get sat in a chair: The entire process is estimated to take 2.5 hours. Then my itty-bitty veins were being difficult. But at least all of the employees were friendly and seemed to be genuinely trying to get people through.

Then we talked about the last time that someone remembered me being "late" - so late that I couldn't get there in time to even attend. That was a year or two ago, I think; I had gotten stuck on the I-40 for 40 minutes and had left my phone at the office 🤦‍♀️.

After we exhausted all of the topics about me and my rare "Where's Addie?" moments, we talked about another person's work as an Air Force pilot and her recent trips for training opportunities, and how we feel about the new Conversation Pit. It definitely blocks a lot of noise from the rest of the bookstore, but the seating will take some getting used to. Those theatre chairs are nobody's favorite, and I feel like my favorite red chair (that I've been sitting in for more than ten years!) thinks I've abandoned her. But we'll see.

¿Qué aprendimos?

In our plática meetings, the conversation goes so quick that it can be hard to keep up with the vocab sometimes. More so on this occasion, since I did a lot of talking for the 30 minutes that I was there (my storytelling skills do not include being concise 😅). Since our topics vary widely throughout the meeting, the vocab we do encounter would make a terrible vocabulary list!

But here's some words from last night:

• el sheriff del condado, el/la alguacil - the county sheriff

• el salino - saline, which is part of the plasma donation process

• apretar - to squeeze, tighten (I first used agarrar because I forgot apretar)

• el pantalón de chándal / de la sudadera, pantalones deportivos - sweatpants.

  • I actually looked up the word chándal in the Diccionario de la Lengua Española from the Real Academia de España (my go-to native Spanish dictionary app). The word comes from the French word chandail, which means: jersey de los vendedores de verdura (the sweater of vegetable-sellers). Next time you go to France, find a farmer's market and see if they are wearing sweatpants.

• descongestionar - to reduce or remove congestion. Since I know that driving traffic is called congestión, I tried to add a prefix to indicate that the traffic had lessened. I think I used de- instead of des-. I was close though!

Al fin y al cabo

I'm grateful to everyone who showed up, and to the regulars who welcomed the other attendees. I really didn't think I needed an hour and a half buffer time for my latest micro-adventure, but I'm glad the meeting was able to go on in my absence!

I'm starting to plan the OKC Spanish 23rd anniversary party with Mama Roja's restaurant!

I greatly appreciate your donations, which fund this event. It is my absolute favorite night of the year, and I hope you can celebrate with us!