Man! Am I tired.
In addition to doing the got-two-little-kids-running-my-tail-off boogie that takes up so much of every day, writing a couple of thousand words that need to string together in some sort of interesting sense, getting a few of loads of laundry done, and giving the puppy a bath, I’ve just finished three hours sweating on the veranda with a chubby Czech guy who speaks no English, but wanted to know all there is to know about me.
I had well beyond my fifteen minutes long ago, having been on TV often in my younger years in the US and the UK, and on radio with the BBC and here with my own show. The cafe Mark and I ran for half a decade plus got coverage on travel programs in Europe every year, and back in January, an interview I’d given on adoption in Seychelles aired on CNN.
I’m not shy, and I usually have something to say … stop the phony gasps, please; I know you’re not one bit shocked … so I tend to okay interviews when I know the topic and feel I’m adding something to a conversation somewhere that’s worth my time.
I have been interviewed for non-English publications, but today was the first time questions came at me, one after the other, without a single recognizable word.
We spoke through an interpreter, and I have developed a new-found appreciation for those politicos who spend hours and days with interpreters poised like parrots on shoulders yapping away in simultaneous translations. It’s exhausting.
No matter how well grasped the idea that I wasn’t going to catch a word, eye contact was important … and polite … so the conversation had me feeling like I was living an ever-looping scene from “What’s Up, Tiger Lily?”.
Having someone who wasn’t understanding anything I said, much less getting my jokes, nodding and smiling and and giving that ‘You’re doin’ great!’ look while I was trying to explain some of the ins and outs of life as an expat and what it’s like being a mom again at fifty-something was disconcerting, to say the least.
Add to that a poopy Cj stinking up the joint and Sam trying to wrangle an extra dose of cookies and milk and the puppy making off with every chewable item she can sink her razor-sharps into, and the picture of the afternoon is close to complete.
The interview was for a book on women living strange lives … or something. You know; girl meets boy, moves to tropical island, adopts kids … that sort of stuff. I was told I could be inspiring to women in the Czech Republic.
Okay. Perhaps they need an example of nuts?
A collection of my short stories:
I'm in this one, too ...
And I'm in here, as well ...
Paradise Preoccupied 