Parlez-vous Español?

Levi and I are on a Thanksgiving trek, trying to find the perfect places to nibble. Not too fancy, not too cheap. A place with a decent glass of white wine, maybe red, and we´ll tip real good if you have mashed potatoes. We have made two stops so far. At the first, we bought two pieces of the most perfect chocolate cake with homemade frosting and rainbow sprinkles. Then we stopped at Ben Linder Cafe, which is a tribute to a Portland engineer who was killed by the Contras in 1987.

Anyway, happy Thanksgiving. If I have learned anything in the last two months it´s that, damn, we have a lot of thanking to do.

In other news: ironic t-shirts. I think we have a winner.

We were on a dusty bus between Rivas and Leon when a Nicaraguan man with a basket filled with bready goods got on board. His t-shirt read, ¨I survived Phillip Slogoff´s bar mitzvah.¨ My dream is that Phillip Slogoff will some day Google himself and find this blog. He will be surprised and amused that his name lives in the dustiest parts of one of the world´s poorest countries. I imagine him bringing up this find at Christmas dinner and his mother being pissed that one of their guests gave this precious momento to Goodwill. Does anyone know Phillip Slogoff? Perhaps I´ll Google him now.

Today, Levi and I started volunteering at a center for street kids. We figure it´s a fair trade -- they indulge our Spanish, and we let them climb all over us. We´ll post some photos soon. They´re positively fun.

(Note: Since I wrote this post, it has been noted that Phillip Sloggoff probably doesn´t celebrate Christmas, seeing as he celebrated his Bar Mitzvah. I beg to differ. I have participated in many seders, and I am a fallen Catholic.)