Yee-haw!

My sister is going to a George Strait concert in Las Vegas in April.
(For those who might not understand what a big deal this is to some people, it's like going to see the Pope of Country Music. REAL country music, not that Luke Bryant sh...tuff.)

A true girl to the core, she's already obsessing over what to wear.
(Of course, she obsesses over everything which is one of the things I love about her. The price of eggs, who was the old lady with cat eye glasses in the VFW kitchen 30 years ago, why God allows suffering....these all get equal obsessing time.  I've decided it's a very nice balance to my "Who knows? Or cares?" approach to life.)

Anyway.
The tricky thing about a "country" concert is how western to go with the ensemble.  Boots are a given, no-brainer, moving on to bigger stuff sort of component so that was easy.  But what else? We decided to go to Pinterest, the idea hole of the internet, and take a look at options.

Well, let me tell you, "western wear" is...
WHO WEARS THIS STUFF???

Certainly not women in the west! First of all, we'd have to sell 3 cows at last year's record market high price to be able to afford one stinkin' outfit. Who ARE these women and where are they getting their money?? Are they selling drugs and wearing these clothes as a costume to evade the law? Have they won the Publisher's Clearing House sweepstakes?

Another thing I feel absolutely compelled to point out is the sincere ridiculousness of the cut and embellishment. If one lives in Eastern Montana, say, it's necessary for your physical survival (not fashion, but true survival) that there is more than 12 square inches of fabric in your skirt or shorts. Same for your top. OR inversely, you will also die if you wear that much fringe because the wind will whip it around your body, tangling you up to the point of "Well, she's just gonna have to be tube fed and we don't have time for that...".  All the stuff is dry clean only and my dears, in the true west, most of us live a conservative 100 miles away from the nearest dry cleaner.  It's not gonna happen. Especially when you can get manure on your clothes walking carefully from the car to your house.
I'm not even going to address the "cowboy hats". You'll just have to go look for yourself.

I understand this sort of western fashion is for dress-up occasions and that sort of thing, but my concern is this: is the rest of the world looking at this and thinking we Montana women artfully drape our turquoise/silver/leather/silk be-robed selves over rustic fenceposts, looking dreamily off into the great wild western sky?

(We saw a few things that might be good ideas, but still have several months to work out the details. I'll keep you posted.)

Pardon my French...

Every year for the last ten years AT LEAST, I've been trying to learn the French language.  I have an audio cd course, tried several free language education websites, subscribed to France magazine....

And I haven't made any measurable progress, to speak of.

Part of the reason is the way the lessons are set up. 

(I understand the creators of the courses are trying for high success/high retention, but...)

One of the first words you learn is "cat" (chat). Truly. In almost every course that I've started, chat is right up there in the first 10 vocabulary lessons.  

Now, there are a lot of words I can think of that should take higher priority in my opinion. 

"Bathroom" being one of them. (If EVER you needed a high success/high retention word to leap to mind in a situation where French is the primary language, I would think this would be one of the biggies.)

"Police", "thank you", "help", "nice shoes", "more wine, please"....any of these would be more useful right away. 

I'm using an application on my phone right now and it's been very good in leading me along, keeping my interest and success high.  But it, too, has this crazy hierarchy of words I need to know right away!

I'm on Level 6, which means I have a French proficiency of approximately 1% I was informed today. This is very good news. 

I can, as of today, discuss sharks eating black chickens with anyone should the topic arise in conversation. (Les requins manges des poules noire!) I have the linguistic skills to note in passing that the woman has a red dress. (La femme a robe rouge...).  I would be able to ask an elephant about the sugar. (I'm SERIOUS. Apparently, the French converse a disproportionate amount of time about things that are black and red, are quite concerned with elephants, sharks, and cats, AND feel the need to comment on one's dress at any given moment.)

I'm one who tries to figure out meaning in context, but these lessons are killing me.  Today, I had to translate the French sentence "The men ate a whale." I knew all the words, but kept second guessing the word for "whale" because the sentence didn't make any sense at all the way I was reading it.  It turns out, that doesn't really matter when you're speaking French....or perhaps just learning it.  There was also a sentence about the women having cold soup, a chicken and a mouse eating a strawberry, and the sandwich being red. 

I'm hoping there will be a section soon that teaches me to hail a whale's red cab, ask where the black bathroom for chickens is, and how to order wine for la petite chat.  

You know, really useful things.

(All humor aside, I really am making good progress with the application Duolingo. I do 20 minutes a day, generally at the bus stop in the afternoon waiting for the kids or right before lunch. Any learning is good and it's a fun break from War and Peace which I'm happy to say has a bookmark between pages 121-122. Only 1100 pages to go!)