Endless Saturday

Saturday seemed endless. It started with my routine trip to Queens to teach religion at the Church of the Holy Child Jesus. My assistant for the day was my daughter, Angelica. She was very enthusiastic and more than willing to help in the classroom. She knew that after class we were going to retrieve her new glasses, visit grandparents, and then get to the highlight of her day, the appointment with the beautician for her new hair style. She was exceptionally happy, and very talkative. She was also helping me to organize a little impromptu dinner with my cousins in the evening. As we raced down the boulevard to all our stops, we made mental lists of housework to be done and calls to make. Since my husband is the family chef, he was in charge of the cuisine for the night. He was planning a surprise. It was very exciting not to know what was on the menu for dinner.

I treasure these moments of bonding. Angelica is a young teenager and she is blossoming in a very mature way. She is still a child-like fourteen year old that wants to be twenty, yet enjoys visiting grandparents, helping children and spending a day out with her mother. Her patience is limitless. I realized this as we sat on a lumpy sofa, reading magazines, guessing if dad was using our tomatoes and avocados for his secret recipe and eating stale pretzels, as we waited almost two hours for her turn at the beauty shop. Her biggest complaint of the day was why did we have so many family reunions. I tried to emphasize that as much as we enjoy friends, family is our faithful support group in good and bad times. And that I did not want to wait for an incident, good or bad, to happen for us to speak, so we get together when we can and enjoy ourselves.

We returned home with just enough time to dust the piano, to sweep the floors, to light the fragrance candles and to dim the lights, so any cobwebs we missed could not be seen. My youngest, Diana had done her part and as a team, we accomplished a great feat. The house looked warm and inviting. My husband's talent was evident as the aroma of dinner danced in the air. Our cousins arrived and our evening was wonderful. As we all were talking at the dinner table, I observed Angelica as she listened and participated in the conversation with all the other adults. I felt very blessed to have such a bright, young lady for a daughter. I turned and saw my youngest being a witness to her sister's behavior and realized that her turn to blossom is just around the corner.
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NEW VOCABULARY :

• boulevard: a large street with three to four lanes.
• endless: having no end, no limit
• to treasure: to cherise , hold in high regard
• impromptu: something that is done suddenly
• stale: not fresh, old
• cobwebs: web spun by spider.
• feat: extraordinary accomplishment
• around the corner: an expression meaning: happening very soon

Complete the sentences. Use the words above:

1. We attempted to cross the large_________, but the cars did not slow down for pedestrians.
2. When we returned two days later, we found that the bread was ______ and the roast beef was hard.
3. She __________that old porce;lain doll because it had belonged to her grandmother.
4. There was dirt and ___________all over the abandoned cottage.
5. The village held an____________meeting to discuss how to trap the wolves.
6. Luck was just _____________when I found the four leaf clover.
7. We accomplished a great __________when we located the lost boy.
8. The tunnel seemed ___________ as we walked accross it the first time.

Foreign Word Borrowing:
As our culture becomes more diversifiesd, words from other languages come in contact with English and stay to become part of the English language. Examples of this phenomena are cookie (Dutch), yogurt (Turkish), gorilla (Africa), menu (French) and piano (Italy). Some words remain with their original spelling as in the French word, chauffeur. While others change, like stampede which comes from the Spainsh word: estampida. Re-read the above story carefully. There are 12 borrowed foreign words used. Can you find at least 10 foreign words? Write them down and see if you can guess what language they come from.

Have Fun!