So, my brother-in-law Taylor made a tacky little comment (which I know I deserved after all of my tacky little comments on his blog) on my previous post about how I could understand my neighbor who doesn't speak English so I thought I would explain. Our next door neighbors, Pete and Non, are this older exentric couple. Pete has a huge white beard, is missing one of his front two teeth and is in college studying geology. When we first moved in he asked if he could have our satelite dishes, which we weren't going to use, so he could set them up to communicate with something in space. Non is from Thailand and was a college professor but when she moved to the U.S., her education, unfortunately, did not carry over so she works in the lunch room of an elementary school. They have about 8 cats, one of which my cat, Fitzgerald, fights with constantly. Anyway, Ben and I have always been confused about how they met and how they communicate since she speaks VERY limited English. We finally settled on the explanation that Non is a mail order bride. We like this couple. They are excellent neighbors. Since our cats fight, we came up with a schedule for our cats "night out" so they aren't outside at the same time. They always let us borrow garden tools and Pete gives us a lot of advice about car stuff or gardening. Non is very sweet but not the best driver (not to be sterortypical). She has seriously almost hit Ben TWICE in the same intersection near our house and Ben always says we don't owe them for all of their advice/tools because he has paid them back by not hitting Non when she pulls out in front of him in that intersection! So, one night Ben and I are eating dinner and Non knocks on our door. She is crying and holding a notepad and telephone and we are just standing there staring like, what is wrong?! Ben finally breaks the silence and asks her what is wrong. All we hear is Pete.....Americus (city in Georgia)...doctor appointment 3:00....paper....not sleeping.....still not home....fall asleep driving....911 no wreck. I look at her notepad and she has the non-emergency 911 number written on there which I know well since I used it daily when I worked for CPS. So we call 911, ask if there have been any wrecks around here and they say no. After many questions, and side way glances at each other asking "did you just understand what she said?" we come to understand that Pete has had a paper due in class where he attends in Americus, GA and has not been sleeping. Non had a doctor's appointment at 3:00 today and he was supposed to be there. She was afraid he fell asleep while driving. Luckily, he pulled up to their house around this time and she ran home screaming.
So to answer your question Taylor, we speak the universal language of "love" and "goodwill towards others" and that is how we communicated with her so well...
Funny thing. After she left Ben asked "Where is she from again?" I said "Thailand." Ben said, "So she speaks what... Thailandese?"
