Jonah-isms

Jonah's favourite restaurant is, chagrinably, Pizza Hut (No, Hobo, that's not a word, nor is it an error.). Yes, he's embraced the cultural strangeness of our new home, and all its gustatory richness, mystique and wonder, with passionate adventurousness.

Anyway, since 3 of the 5 of us are putting on a little weight of late, we've decided to cut down the trips to this and similarly fine culinary establishments. So every time he says he wants to eat at Pizza Hut, one of us responds, "Pizza what?" And he hollas back "Pizza Butt!" Wendy would prefer we say "Pizza Gut," which is both anatomically more accurate and socially acceptable, but let's face it: it just isn't as funny.

Of course, we also have Chicken Hut here, a place we tried once, with "diarrh'' results, which we could call "Chicken Butt," since we already use the colourful expression, "Guess what, Chicken Butt." But then the meaning is too diffuse. So we could call it "Chicken Gut," which would be apropos if we were in Shanghai or Singapore or Nam. But we're not, and it's gross, so we just don't call Chicken Hut period.

Also, Chicken Palace, which we need to snap one of these days: it's a little shack of a place bathing in neon self-importance in the middle of what looks like a Walmart parking lot. Too funny.

Back to Jonah-isms. He's taken to imitating the subcon accent, which makes for some risky, bone-tickling moments. His favourite word is our very own "row-n-da-bote," and he has ranked these according to their aesthetic charms. Or maybe he's ranked them based on how fun they are to say.

The favourite until this last week was the Sheikh Zayed Roundabout, which features a metallic sculpture, 2-dimensional and die-cast, of Sheikh Zayed's head. So Jonah dubbed it "Sheik's Head Roundabout" very early on. Unfortunately, he has also been discovering rhyme: "dead" and "head" rhyme, so we are constantly reminded of the lamentable fact that the founding ruler of the UAE--a man of vision, acumen, intelligence, and considerable offspring--is no longer with us. File that under "Things Jonah Says in Public that Might One Day Get Us Deported."

Oh, and Christopher announced on the way home from Church that "caca" means "cake" in Arabic. So you can imagine the crass hilarity that ensued, once I told them what "caca" means in Spanish. Birthday caca, anyone? In fact, Christopher's in the kitchen making caca right now. Oy veh.

(Sorry again, mom. We're hard up for entertainment here, with Wendy gone, and taken her grammar with her.)