Monday, January 21, 2013

Crochet

Although I spent several years in high school and college studying French, I afraid I've lost most of what I learned.  And that is somewhat sad considering that, at the peak of my skills, I had the vocabulary of a precocious and yet largely illiterate 5 year old French child.  L'enfant terrible indeed.

But if I'm fair to myself, I've really only had two occasions, outside of the classroom, to use my French.  One one occasion, in Disney World of all places, I was asked by a French couple for directions to the toilet.  At least I hope that's what they asked, because that's where I sent them.  It is entirely possible I misunderstood, and that those particular tourists left the Magic Kingdom with a very confused understanding of Mister Toad's Wild Ride.

My second opportunity came when I myself was a tourist - visiting Montreal.  In a grocery store I was asked whether I preferred paper or plastic bags for my purchases.  I'm pleased to say that I nailed the answer.

So it was with some trepidation that I weighed learning to crochet.  It sounds, after all, quite French.  Just the attitude with which one must pronounce the word gives it away. 

But recently, I was asked to make an alligator.  This would be project 3 of 4 for my firm's auction for a local food bank.  And try as I might, I really couldn't come up with a good knitting pattern for an alligator.  In fact, I expanded my search to look for patterns for cayman, crocodiles and ill-tempered iguanas with glandular disorders.  But no luck.  The only pattern I found that I liked was for crochet.

Zut alors!

So despite my failure to recall my French, or indeed even appreciate the finer points of French culture (honestly, all wine tastes basically the same to me) I've learned to crochet.  Not particularly well, mind you.  But well enough to finish the project.  Here he is -
 




~Brian

4 comments:

  1. Bien! I think he was worth the effort of crochet.

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  2. Oh my. Not crochet-related, but french and toilet-related.
    A few years ago, my buddy and I went to Paris for an adventure. She had a rather touchy bladder at the time, and it started acting up while we were in a large department store. I (rather cockily) pulled out my Jr. High School french and asked "ou est les toilets?". We were directed down the escalator. No ladies room on the next floor, so we asked again. Down further. This continued until we got all the way to the basement where we found, yes, several dozen toilets. For sale. Zut alors! We laughed so hard she almost lost it.

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  3. It's nice to see you back on the blog! J'adore that gator--will you be making another for yourself? Hope to see you on the boat soon! I've got Orca mittens to show you before they get sent off to Amy Kay. :^)

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  4. Not bad at all for a first crochet project, this alligator is lovely. You will be pleased to learn that you know more French than you're aware of as the French for "alligator" is indeed "alligator" :)

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