And now, a little fluff! Everyone likes fluff, right?

I can’t wait to wear my fishing pants. You see, in my miniscule closet, next to the dress pants I never wear, the courdoroys I’m trying to retire into the far reaches and the jeans I wear most days are a set of pants called fishing pants. Oh sure, you may know them as capris, those I’m not pants and I’m not shorts pants that come somewhere to the mid shin. I promise, mine are not white, nor do they have kittens on them, as some of you may think these pants are for the truly fashion impaired. In fact, I have a number of pairs, in all kinds of colors, ranging from khaki to brown.

Pescadores (or capri pants, formerly known as clamdiggers in the United States) are one of those words that I love, because I intuitively knew what it meant, without having someone explain it to me. Simple, see? It’s a garment of clothing that fishermen could wear, and it’s plural. And like that, synapse A sent a small charge to synapse B and I figured it out. Clickety click went the little wheels inside my head.

Now, I don’t love pescadores only because I was able to figure out what they were. I also intuited that jardineras, in addition to being corn, carrot and pea succotash (this I could not figure out on my own) were overalls, because of their relationship to the word for gardener, and you will not catch me wearing overalls any time this century, despite having figured that out. And if you do, you are welcome to look at me, cock your head to the side and say, “really? overalls?” in the language of your choice, and hopefully one that I speak, otherwise I will wonder and be confused and have to ask google and all my other friends to figure out what it was.

So my love for pescadores is not purely linguistic, although if you compare then to another word I really like, ornitorrinco, you’ll see how good pescadores are. If you speak even just a tiny bit of Spanish, you can break the word down, figure out it means fishermen, and then think about what they could wear. Ornitorrinco? Whatcha got there? Friends, believe it or not, that is a duck-billed platypus, not to be confused with an otorrino, which is an ear-nose-and-throat doctor, try not to get these confused, though context would be a handy tool.

Pescadores are my beloved pants because they signal the arrival of spring, something that has been slow in coming in this hemisphere, despite the rapid-fire four-in-a-row sneezes of late. Two nights ago I had to cover my face (not my eyes, silly) with a scarf on my way home from Las Condes on my bike, and even wear wind-proof gloves. I’m getting ready to do my monthly cactus watering, and thinking about how this time last month, I thought that by this time this month I’d have to step up the watering because it would be so warm. (side note: see? I can take care of things! (provided they do not require much care)).

Not yet, says the universe, and so my pescadores hang in the closet, there is nary an ornitorrinco in sight and I pull on wool socks every morning before going out. It’s still too cold to drink iced coffee, to cold to leave the windows open in the evening, and too cold to bare my shins to the world. Or maybe it’s just mother nature’s way of telling me I have not one iota of fashion sense.

Será (oh well).