SPEAK ENGLISH!

ELLE N'A PAS FRETTE AUX YEUX
THERE'S NO ICE IN HER EYES

All my life, I have had to deal with mental "disconnects."  Some of them are humorous and some of them are confusing.  The one that I had today comes in the variety of  humorous, I guess, and maybe at the same time confusing.  It is a disconnect between my English speaking mind and my French Canadian, Canuck speaking mind.  Since French is my mother tongue, this happens to me rather often.  The Voice from the Kitchen and I were having a friendly conversation about a situation that has developed at the parish church where she works.  It is rather messy.  Naturally, messy human situations in churches are always good fodder for friendly conversation between two people who are not involved and included in the mess.  At some point in the verbal give and take between us, she told the story of how the central figure in the Mess had accused the parish secretary of conduct deleterious to him.  [No, not that kind of conduct.]  My interlocutor, named above, told me that the secretary, whom I know very well and have even featured on "No Crying at My Funeral", slammed him with a direct right uppercut to the left brain with her swift and devastating riposte to his accusation.  Stage right entry of my disconnect.  I wanted to affirm in the strongest of terms my assent to the ease with which my mind came to the conclusion that Miss Secretary [a confirmed 5' 10" adult in her deep 40's] was very capable of delivering such a blow to Mr. Arrogant Priest.  All that came over the neurons, in the smallest fraction of a second, was the dialectical French Canadian expression, "C'est facile a craire, a pas frette aux yeux."
To the Ears from the Kitchen, that would have made no sense.  I was left standing there for a few seconds with a quivering tongue, quickly sweating palms and stupid babbling sounds gurgling up from my throat.  My disorientation was crippling. I couldn't recover because for the like of me, even as I sit here writing this, I still cannot think of a meaningful translation.  You know that I made one up.  Of course, you know.  So I limply said, "Well, as we say in French, There's no ice in her eyes."  As we say in Latin, "Stercus Taurorum!"  We don't say that in French.  We say something like that, but not that.  Belle [that's her Real Name] just said something inane like, "That's for sure.  She's not afraid of anybody." By the way, that, too, is true of this very fetching, statuesque woman.
I leave you with that insight into my personal inner workings.  When I am tweaked just the right way, I never know what my synapses are going to deliver.  It's an interesting life.  That's why it's not hard to write a least one thought per day.  Too bad I'm limited to English, right?