I found myself doing multiple sudoku puzzles a day and that doesn’t even include the Wordle, Connections and mini-crossword on NYT.  If that sentence doesn’t make sense to you, count your lucky stars you have not been sucked into your phone.  I knew I had a problem.  Then one Sunday evening I inadvertently took Uncle Ed’s phone home.  When he couldn’t connect with his lifeline, Paula sent word out and I realized I had the prized possession.  When he came to pick up the phone, I told him I would have brought it to pickleball in the morning, but he told me he had to do his Duolingo.

Duolingo!  I knew he kept up on his French using an app on his phone, but I didn’t know the name of the app.  I decided to investigate Duolingo knowing sudoku was taking over my life, and I needed some intervention.  Just like an addict who can’t go cold turkey, I realized I had to replace my addiction with something better.  Learning a language seemed rather noble, at least better than punching numbers into a 9x9 grid for entertainment.  So, I downloaded Duolingo.  Decided on Spanish. And got started.

Now, I took German from Mrs. Servoss back in the day and she was a great teacher.  We conjugated verbs, studied vocabulary and translated passages.  “Ich gehe ins Kino” took me a semester to learn and I was very proud of that. But let me tell you, today’s language learning is a whole new ballgame.  Of course, Duolingo has a free version which works just fine if you can handle an advertisement every ten minutes telling you to upgrade to Super Duolingo.  I was strong for about three days and then decided the five bucks a month was worth it to lose those ads.  Besides I didn’t want to slow my progress down. And I was making progress.  “Mi esposo es intelligente” only took one week!  “Mi madre es bonito.”  I could go on all day.  “Yo bebo leche.”

Don’t ask me to speak to an actual Spanish-speaking human, but my Spanish vocabulary is up to 152 words and I’m learning about masculine, feminine and verb tense while constructing sentences.  I feel much better about myself after a Duolingo session than after playing sudoku.  However, there is one hang-up, and his name is TheAceOfSpades.  He is #1 in the Bronze League and I’m #2.  I edge ahead of him and then go to bed for the night only to discover the next morning he has passed me up again!  I have never been a night owl, but this just might keep me awake.

So, I’ve overcome sudoku only to be sucked into Duolingo.  Somehow, I’m OK with that.  La Vida es Buena!