Word Play

All talked out…

So, maybe you don’t know this, but I listen to conversations between mama and papa all day long, which is to say that they really like to yak (cheep) a lot to each other, especially around four when they have a little espresso to liven up the day, and it was so funny today when they went in the kitchen to warm up the machine, mama said, “I am getting nothing done today, where on earth does the time go and why am I overwhelmed with lists of things to do and trying to help Loulou with her blog and get my desk cleared off and besides it’s so nice just to cheep with you (papa) about so many different things and sit on your lap and hug you—I just waste so much time being in love!”

At which point papa started laughing hysterically and couldn’t stop and then they both laughed and laughed until mama said, “I’m outta here—that’s enough hugging and snuggling and cheeping for one day”, and of course I overheard that and thought to myself, “Boy, mama had better not say that to ME anytime soon or her name is fango” (mud, in Italian) because that’s sort of what I live on for sustenance even though it appears that I live on Purina morsels en gelée and the occasional lick on a Magnum stick.

But on the subject of cheeping, there was the most interesting article in the NYT about teaching kids to communicate before sex so that there were no vague areas about whether to pursue a sexual encounter when either party has said “no” clearly, and how to actually ask at each step of the way, “Is this okay/not okay with you”—things like that, which is already pretty hard to imagine but evidently psychologists feel that it’s necessary because of all the problems of date rape and such on campuses. And the teacher said, “Begin with conversing. Have a conversation with a new friend about all these things, talk a little before jumping into sex, and one student held up his hand and said, “But I don’t know how to have a conversation.”

Oh, mama was so touched by this, and so sad. In a world of tweeting and twittering and texting, no wonder conversation is becoming a lost pleasure. This poor kid was truly baffled at where to begin to simply talk to someone he wanted to know.

So I guess it’s good that people can cheep and cheep (talk) and rarely get tired of it because somebody has to keep words alive and meaningful.

Not that mama and papa always have meaningful conversations—no way, not in my book. I mean today they were talking about everything except ME! What kind of conversation is THAT?

I think I’m going to go waste some time being in love with papa…