Friday, March 05, 2010

Failings of the brain

-I forgot, in front of my class, how to say "square" in French. I could remember square as in Union Square, and as in conformist (which was, as it turns out, the definition my student wanted), but the shape? Hmm.

-I forgot, while speaking to Jo about I don't remember what, how to conjugate "to know" in English. I may have even gone with an "I not noes." I'm not kidding.

-Looking into possible nearby vacation destinations, I found a NYT story on the foodie delights of Ghent, NY. Mildly intrigued, I clicked on the link to "Ghent," and simply could not believe that a Little Belgium on this scale existed right in the Hudson Valley. Belgian restaurants and everything else Belgian galore! And then, not at all quickly enough, it became clear that this was a guide to Ghent in Belgium. I want to blame the misleading link, but no.

9 comments:

Nick said...

hahahahahahahaha priceless.

time to brush up on your belgian municipalities.

and french geometry, it appears.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy said...

Right. And English 101, it appears.

Helen said...

My uncle's weekend place is in Ghent (the NY one), and I in fact highly, highly recommend it. Fab little town surrounded by other fab towns (Old Chatham in particular).

Matt said...

Reading the first point I found myself thinking, "That's not so bad- that same thing happens to me all the time in English", so the second point made me feel a bit better.

As for a trip, maybe you should go to the Culinary Institute of America. It's not far from NYC. I've wanted to go for ages but for some reason it never worked out. Train directions are here (it says "plane" but the train bit is below that) though I don't know how easy it is from the station to the place. I'm told it's lots of fun as well as yummy.

http://www.ciachef.edu/visitors/hp/directions/plane.asp

Phoebe Maltz Bovy said...

Helen,

Now I'm very intrigued. Would this mean having to (encourage my boyfriend to) rent a car?

Matt,

This has been on the short-list. I'm not entirely opposed to basing a vacation around good eating, if that wasn't already clear.

PG said...

CIA is in same town as Vassar, right? One of my friends liked the town a lot. It made me extra bitter that my college dining hall was catered by Aramark.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy said...

PG,

Near Vassar, I think, but possibly not the same town? At any rate, I'm still bitter about four years of Aramark, and still shudder whenever I see a truck from that company. The calzone with a surprise American-cheese filling, etc., etc.

PG said...

[After reading NYT article]: I don't think you could have been as confused as the person who click on the Turkey in "turkey tetrazzini" (speaking of Aramark flashbacks). Whoever coded the Times website to do this stuff needs to be slapped -- it reminds me of those commercials for the Bing search engine.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy said...

PG,

I guess, but the Turkey mistake would immediately become apparent. (Not to me, most likely, but to a normal person.) Meanwhile, here I was thinking rice pudding tarts and the like were just north of Westchester! It must be fixed.