grammatical errors and other such offenses to the english language

My homestay mom, an artist who owns a gallery here in town, discussed these things over dinner.  Apparently people in Nebraska have better grammar.  She is originally from there, and she and her family moved here ten years ago.  Her husband's favorite (or perhaps, leas favorite) is "We're fixin' to take up and go."  My reaction:  "What does that even mean?"

Her son apparently corrected his ENGLISH teacher on her grammar.  The woman said "I seen that" and he very politely told her that no, it should be "I saw that".  She actually fought him on it!

And to think, it drives me crazy when people don't use adverbs!  People don't even use correct verb tenses.

Anyhow, the kids are stellar.  Red Riding Hood is unbelievable- she's eleven and just as tiny as my eleven year old cousin.  But she's so mature and her voice is about eight times her size!  And the boy playing The Boy Who Cries Wolf this week is nine, but is about the size of a six year old with the intelligence/brain capacity of a college educated thirty year old.  Well maybe I should say twenty-two year old, since I am twenty-two and I would say he's at least as smart as I am.  And his older brother plays the Woodsman, and let me tell you, it is a relief to have a slightly older Woodsman again- the ten year olds we've had for the past few weeks just don't quite enjoy the idea of all the girls swooning over them yet.

Word on the street was our contact was cool.  Well now that I've hung out with her for a while, I am happy to report, that she definitely is.  We bonded over the fact that we both had a lot of straight male friends in college who were never anything but platonic.  Of course her friends were more manly than mine- they were all cowboys and mine were, well, in a cappella groups.  Then she told us about this guy she went on a few dates with who worked as a forest fire fighter at the state park about an hour form here.  But he was sent back to Arizona since the fire risk is so low here.  But her promised her, if it ever goes back up, he'll be coming back to Kansas and she will be the first person he tells.  So everyone keep your fingers crossed that it doesn't rain in Kansas (note: it did yesterday AND today, thought it hadn't for about eight weeks...) so that Mr. Firefighter can come back and our contact can live happily ever after.

Her best friend from college lives out here, but she doesn't get to see much of her, since her friend is married.  I don't think that that should change people's relationships with one another, but unfortunately it does.  I have decided that if and when I ever get married, I am not going to become boring.  I am still going to go out and have my own friends and my own activities.  I don't see why being married should prevent you from socializing with others.  And I will always be extra considerate of my unmarried friends (only, let's face it, I will probably have to hope it's the other way around and that my married friends will be considerate of me, because I probably will be the last person to get married).