Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Mind Your Js and Ns

"I want to make..." 
The 98-year-old woman in the Sewing Group pauses––not because she has dementia (as far as I can tell, she doesn't) but because her native Spanish is far better than her English.
"I want to make . . . conejos".

Conejos?
Well, it's almost Easter and that sounds like "coneys", a word I think I've read in, is it D. H. Lawrence? * 


I guess, "Rabbits? Bunnies for Easter? With ears...?"

"Yes!" she says.

So I run downstairs to the computer and print out a simple Easter bunny pattern and take it back upstairs.

I show her the pattern. "Is this right? Cojones?"


She broke into a big, long laugh.

Conejos. Bunnies.

Cojones. Balls.

The Sewing Group cut out the felt (lucky we had some), I stitched the pieces on the machine, they stuffed them, and the bunnies turned out pretty well. Tomorrow I'll bring in buttons for los ojos.


*I looked up "coney" and reading its history, I think it's Tolkien I know it from, not Lawrence.  Though it's a game-keepery kind of word, so you can see how I'd attribute it to him.

4 comments:

  1. I'm sure I know it from Tolkien. Took me a long while before I looked it up.

    Why can't you hear when bunnies are having sex?

    Cotton balls.

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  2. I think it was Sam Gamgee, eh?

    Ha, to the joke. (I never can guess jokes.)

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  3. Hey, that bunny is real cute!

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  4. Yeah, one of the many "eating scenes."

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