I enjoy learning new expressions in Spanish, especially those involving animals. Two of my new favorites are está como una cabra and estás como una vaca sin cencerro . It´s all about goats and cows today!😀 Está como una cabra describes someone who is crazy, wako, out of their mind, mad as a hatter. I found this expression in a reading and listening practice exercise at Practice with Lawless Spanish .  The title is ¡Está como una cabra!  where a person talks about their crazy neighbor. Estás como una vaca sin cencerro comes to me from a short video clip from Pedro Almodóvar´s 1995 film El flor de mi secreto . It is used to describe someone who is lost, aimless, without direction or purpose. In this touching scene a mother and a daughter honestly speak about the loneliness each has experienced.   I am happy to have discovered the film El flor de mi secreto and to have watched this moving scene.  And I have enjoyed learning two Spanish expressions! ...

  My Spanish Word of the Day is descabellado . I learned it while listening to the latest Spanish With Vicente video/podcast entitled El mejor ALIÑO del mundo . He tells a funny story about when he was living in England and found it absolutely crazy that people would season their French fries with malt vinegar. As time went on he learned to love it. Nowadays, while living in Spain, he often seasons fried food with this particular condiment and of course, all the Spaniards think he's crazy.   It was fun to listen to this podcast. I learned a little bit about British as well as Spanish culture!

  Desvivirse por means to do anything for someone or something .  It also means to bend over backwards or fall over yourself for someone or something .  A definition in Spanish is: Mostrar incesante y vivo interés o solicitud por una persona o una cosa . Below is an example sentence. In the novel Marina by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Germán Blau becomes a famous, sought-after painter.       "Art dealers and gallery owners who years ago hadn't had the time of day for German were now bending over backward to gain his attention."        "Marchantes y salas de exposiciones que años atrás no se molestaban en darle los buenos días se desvivían por congraciarse con el."

 Yesterday I came across an article at Huffington Post entitled La estrategia de vacunación europea pincha en hueso . This is a new idiom to me. According to Collins online dictionary, it means to come up against a brick wall . I found this definition in Spanish at Dual Texts : no conseguir lo que se pretende, fallar en el intento; encontrar oposición o dificultad en alguien o algo .  So it basically means to encounter obstacles . The article in the Huffington Post describes the many difficulties that the European Union is up against as it tries to vaccinate its population in response to the Covid-19 Pandemic. The obstacles occur in the manufacturing of the vaccine as well as transporting and distributing it. It sounds a lot like what has been happening here in the U.S. Well, getting back to pinchar en hueso , apparently it is a term derived from bullfighting. When the matador thrusts his sword into the bull's neck, he means to pierce the aorta to kill the bull. But, i...