One of my favourite things

One of my very favourite things is to listen to my friend Jeff’s accent here in America.
He has, what I can only describe as, a lovely, soft comforting ‘drawl’.

That’s handsome Jeff in the middle in the checked shirt 🙂

His accent is a hybrid of having a mum and dad from Alabama and Tennessee respectively, growing up in North Carolina, and having a hubby from Maryland – where he has lived for 16 years now.

Jeff calls it a ‘Mid-Atlantic Southern’. His FAVORITE word is “y’all”, and I have heard him say this, and it does make me go all gooey and I would pretty much do anything he asked with that word thrown in 🙂 (FYI, he says that this word is very ‘inclusive and not at all gender biased’, which makes me love him and his accent even more.)

I had difficulty placing his accent at first, but he tells me this is pretty common (the fact, not his accent) because he definitely “throws people for a loop” (oh my, I LOVE that phrase!) and they often ask where he is from as they just can’t place it.

American accents, you are so intriguing and wonderful – I could listen to you all day and experience different ones and keep on listening and guessing and trying out the accent myself. But you don’t want to hear that bit 😉

I just have to share this video with you…some bloke RonnyBoy2Rdot who just talks about accents in the USA and tries to do some. It’s funny!

Left out in the rain

Today is the first time I’ve really felt like an outsider in the USA.

The sad tale of my woes begins and ends in the school playground during early dismissal on a very rainy day.

All the American moms and dads stood around discussing their Thanksgiving plans and who was going to whose house and who was cooking what and then they started talking about where they get their turkeys from. I kind of stood on the sidelines listening…

Today was a very rainy day 😦

According to Harry I have to wear this when I say what I am thankful for….

Apparently there is a farm where you can get phenomenal turkeys – these are smoked and are breast only, said one dad. I sort of wanted to join in the conversation, but really I just wanted to make jokes about how ‘breast is best’ and tell him he looked ‘more like a leg man’, but I don’t think it would have gone down so well….

Then they started talking about some game (I am guessing football) and I had no idea what they were on about, and I suppose I could have asked about it and joined in, but just for a moment there I realised that this was something that I was culturally not fully part of. So I just listened and absorbed it all.

I would not be thankful for these Oreo cookie turkey things tho… barf!

Oh, don’t doubt that we are doing Thanksgiving and we are going to our friends’ house and he is a fab cook and it will be brilliant and there will be turkey and pumpkin pie and booze (we are Brits, after all!), but…..really, I’m just witnessing the event as it goes on around me and maybe, just maybe, next year I will feel entitled to embrace it and be part of it, but in some way Thanksgiving is still a bit alien to me, but I’m learning!