Random thoughts

My brother-in-law used to say "Mirë mëngjes!" when he entered the room where his parents were sitting, which was only natural for him to do as both of his parents came to the U.S. from Albania and "Mirë mëngjes!" means "Good morning!" in Albanian. "Mirë mbrëma!" means "Good evening!" and "Natën e mirë!" means "Good night!" but those two phrases are not pertinent at the moment.

One of the most amusing things I ever heard was Anna Russell singing "Je n'ai pas la plume de ma tante" which means "I don't have the pen of my aunt" in French because one of the first sentences people learn when taking French, at least it used to be so, is "La plume de ma tante est sur la table" which means "The pen of my aunt is on the table."

"Bésame Mucho" which means "Kiss me a lot" in Spanish was the name of a popular song several decades back, in 1940 to be exact, and whoever wrote about it in Wikipedia said the following: "It is considered one of the most popular songs of the 20th century and of all times, as well as one of the most important hymns in the history of Latin music. It was also recognized in 1999 as the most recorded and covered song in Spanish of all time." I find those sentences a little over the top. What about "Celito Lindo" which means "Beautiful Heavens" or "Beautiful Skies" even though Google Translate says it means "cute baby"? What about the Mexican Hat Dance?

Barron Trump, youngest child of Donald Trump and only child of Melania Trump, speaks Slovenian because he spends a lot of time with his maternal grandparents.

Franklin Graham, son of the American evangelist Billy Graham, revealed on Facebook this week that when he was a child his family ate Chinese food two or three times a week, which probably happened because his mother, Ruth Bell Graham, was born and raised in China. She was the daughter of medical missionary L. Nelson Bell who was Presbyterian but she became the wife of the world's best-known Southern Baptist.

I find it oddly satisfying that the daughter of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin (Иосиф Сталин in Russian, იოსებ სტალინი in his native Georgian) was Svetlana Alliluyeva. Her mother was Stalin's second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva. Stalin also had two sons, one with his first wife, Ekaterine Svanidze, and one with his second wife. Both sons died young. His first son, Yakov Dzhugashvili (which was Stalin's original Georgian surname), died at the age of 36 in 1943 at Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Nazi Germany. Stalin's second son, Vasili Dzhugashvili, died at the age of 40 in the Soviet Union in 1962. Svetlana, who died in 2011 at the age of 85, had defected to America, become a naturalized citizen, and been married three times. She was known in her later years as Lana Peters. I find all these facts fascinating, but most fascinating of all to my way of thinking is that the heavenly-sounding name Alliluyeva is forever connected to the terrible deeds of Stalin.

Even though the publication date of this post is the first day of November, I wrote it on the last day of October, which is Halloween, and that is the reason it contains so many whiches.

I do know the difference between which and witch. I was just having a little fun.

Okay, so it's not all that funny.