I’m becoming my grandmother.
Again.
Not the pleasant, smiling, easy-going grandmother. The one Norman Rockwell would have painted if he had included Sicilians in his artwork, which he did not.
No, it’s the other grandmother. The feisty little one that can politely be recalled as “eccentric.”
The non-Norman Rockwell Nani.

Every so often something she did that embarassed me terribly as a kid comes back to haunt me. Something that I thought I would never, ever do myself in a million years.

Like…(pensive pause) screaming at the TV soap operas–in Sicilian.
Like…(another pensive pause) talking about the TV soap opera characters as if they were real.

I hate soap operas. Could never stand to watch them. Total waste of time.
In English.
But, in Spanish, I can consider them language lessons!

And so, I got hooked on a Mexican telenovela–Soy Tu Duena. It held the number five spot in the ratings for any program in the US from 9 to 10 PM, and was the most popular show ever on Univision.

But a telenovela is still a soap opera, with all the requisite absurdity and melodrama. Ridiculous coincidences. Tears by the buckets full. Glamorous women. And the main attraction–unbelievably handsome Latin men!

And I did improve my Spanish. Maybe un poquito too much. I started yelling and swearing at the TV. En espanol. Channeling my dear departed grandmother, but with a linguistic morph.

She used choice Sicilian words that aren’t listed in dictionaries and don’t translate into English.
I used choice Mexican words that aren’t listed in dictionaries and do translate into English, though not in polite company.

I had become my grandmother.
Again.
Without knowing it, until my brother stopped by one night and said, “Geeze. You’re yelling at the TV like Nani used to do. What the heck are you watching? It’s not even in English!”

It was too late. I had been sucked into the Soy Tu Duena vortex, along with a bazillion other people, 99% of them women.

At work, the Mexican ladies (though not the men) were also devotees of “Duena” as we know it. One day, two of them stopped by my office and we got to discussing the latest twists and turns of the convoluted plot. I use the word “plot” loosely. It was more like a literary labyrinth.

We became more and more animated and agitated until my brother, who has no Spanish, asked if something was wrong or there was a word-related problem.

“No problema,” I said. “We’re just discussing Soy Tu Duena. Our telenovela. you know,Soap Opera.”

He seemed greatly relieved that an employee uprising was not fomenting. But a bit perplexed by our enthusiasm, animosity, admiration, adulation, and agitation fo rpeople who, at least in his mind, weren’t real.

I have become my grandmother.
Again.
And I think she’s probably laughing at me right now.

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