Father's Day without Dad

So there we were, Laura, Stella (Laura’s neighbor and my original host mom), Stella’s nephew Luciano, Flor and I. Sitting at our table, all set with a table cloth, wine glasses, napkins decoratively placed within the glasses (thanks to Luciano), and a meal of handmade gnocchi with chicken, cheese, and bread. A feast.

We all lift our glasses to cheers. “Chin Chin! Feliz dia del padre sin padre!”

Miguel had not yet come home, Luciano’s father wasn’t there, and mine is back in the States. So we celebrated Father’s day without our fathers.

But, this morning I was blessed with a strong Internet connection in the mall, enough to skype with my family back home. It was wonderful to be able to see them and talk to them, with little technical difficulties. While I have become more comfortable speaking Spanish and can easily understand a majority of what is said around me, it was nice to be able to speak a language I am most familiar with, make jokes, and hear what’s going on at home.

And despite the lack of fathers, the feast was wonderful! Luciano, who is only 13 years old, said he has been studying English for 10 years, and throughout the afternoon spoke in English to practice. He talked a lot about movies; the actors he was familiar with being Nicholas Cage, Tom Cruise, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. While it is a diverse group of actors, many are not the most respected or gifted in Hollywood (in my opinion), but it was interesting to know what he has been exposed to in Argentina.

Conversation took a more interesting turn when Stella starting complaining about her ex-husband’s tendency to buy broken furniture claiming he’d fix it—but never did. Which led to her belief that spouses limit a person’s abilities and opportunities (Laura disagreed saying it depended on the spouse). And this somehow led to the talk of trying to mate Stella’s dog, Racer, a beautiful male golden retriever, with a neighbor’s dog. And then Luciano brought up the Kama Sutra, which led to Miguel talking about a non-erotic movie called “Kama Sutra.” Then, Stella talked about her visit to New Orleans and the consistent flashing of women breasts in the streets, while people threw coins at them…

In case you didn’t follow this train of thought, don’t worry, neither did I. But it was quite a funny conversation to listen to.