aiyo vey

so i was trying to explain to my mother that Dave made this incredible tofu dish with soy vey. I did my best to describe this soy sauce like seasoning, explaining that the yiddish phrase "oy vey" is similar to the malayalam "aiyo." They are both articulations of exasperation, as expressed by Little Old Ladies, withered and weary. I imagine my mother will be one of those LOLs in a couple of years, if she didn't always scrunch up her nose and chuckle in playful self-deprecation, keeping herself young at 54.

Even though she is completely tone deaf, she manages to speak with the musical lilt common among Hindi-glots. Her English is precise, although my aunt in India often argues that 30 years in this country has "yankified" her accent.

But she doesn't always pick up the vernacular very well. For example, she would say something like, "take a pill" instead of "take a chill pill," a favorite expression of ours back in our gum smacking mall rat days.

And as I tried my best to explain the pun soy vey, my mother tried her best to understand: "Soya vey? Soya vey?"

I gave up after a few minutes. But the attempt left me chuckling.