A few entries in our family glossary

Doesn't everyone have words and phrases that only have meaning in their own families? I want to hear yours, too!

Walter: Sad, but not with ordinary sadness -- with that voluptuous melancholy that you can sink down into and enjoy.

For a Spanish class, the spouse was reading the poetry of Lorca in Spanish, and he read me "The Ballad of the Water of the Seas" (there's a not-great translation here). The poem has a repeating refrain of "the water of the seas" (el agua de los mares), and the last stanza says, more or less: "And you, my heart, where was your deep bitterness born?" "Bitter, very bitter is the water of the seas." So we would go around saying, "Bitter, very bitter."

Well, of course "de los mares" makes you think of Walter De La Mare, who was melancholy his own self. So eventually we wound up saying, with mock solemnity, "Walter, very Walter."

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