Weekly WordPress Photo Challenge: “Up”

This week’s Photo Challenge theme is “UP,” and here’s my take… but I’ll leave a bit of mystery:

Dumb Stuff the Gringa Says

Foot in the mouth (What? by I am Brad via Flickr)

There are real pros and cons to speaking another language. The pros are much talked about, but let’s get serious. Speaking (or attempting to speak) another language leaves you wide (I mean WIDE) open for riduclosity (I know that’s not a word–but it helps make my point!)

Chilean Cures for the Common Cold

Image by foshydog via Flickr

Ergg, chhjk, hack, cough, cough, wheeze, ergg, chhjk, sniffle…
Sorry, excuse me, cough, don’t come too close…

Yep, Eileen at bearshapedsphere isn’t the only one battling the bug this week. I swear I read her post on all the ways to name a cold and came down with it myself the next day! We’ve since compared symptoms, and while a certain degree of misery is shared, we’ve each maintained our own personal relationship with our viral foes.

Blogger Tag and My Seven (Just Seven?) Links

Remember how much fun it was to play tag as a kid? Well, I just got in on a grown-up blogger version. Eileen at Bearshapedsphere just tagged me, so now I’m it. Thanks Eileen!

I have no idea who made this game up, but the way it works is a blogger tags you, you match your own posts in specific “Most this” and “Most that” categories, and then you tag another 5 people. I like the idea—except for the ‘just one’ part—it’s made me go back and think about everything I’ve posted here over the past 2 ½ years or so—not to mention how interesting it is to see what everyone else puts in their categories.

Here goes:

Stuff that just bugs me…

Image via Wikipedia

Maybe I’m just grumblier than usual these days, but for some reason, I’m noticing that certain pet peeves are bugging me more than usual lately. So I thought I’d let you know. Here’s a list of gripes, pet peeves, and stuff that just plain bugs me. Bet some of these things tick you off too!

Coffee for the Road: Your Cue to Go Home

How do you know when it’s time to go home? As in before you wear out your welcome? Maneuvering the Emily Post of good dinner guesthood is challenging enough when you grow up with the rules. It gets downright tricky when you’re on someone else’s cultural turf.

We had dinner with friends the other night, and during the after-dinner tale-swapping

WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: Sky

From somewhere high above South America between Chile and Argentina.

I always ask for the window seat, day or night.

Gasfiterfobia & How the ark almost made it to the 19th floor

We all have our monsters in the closet. Things that make us shudder. The stuff of phobias. Maybe yours is a fear of flying (aviophobia), or of snakes (herpetophobia) or even a fear of foreigners (xenophobia), although I hope not. I confess my fear is a Chile-based phobia–which makes it a fobia–and I had to invent its name, although anyone who has lived here any length of time will not only recognize it, but probably share it.

I suffer from gasfiterfobia…