Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 539, Spending Time with Family.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 539.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Support this podcast by becoming a Learning Guide member.
You can receive an 8-10 page guide for each of our current episodes by going to our website and becoming a member of ESL Podcast.
You can also support these free audio files by making a donation at eslpod.com.
This episode is called Spending Time with Family.
It's a dialogue between Klaus and Marcia about spending a lot of time with your family, something that can be a good thing, although sometimes it can be a difficult thing.
Let's get started.
This is the busy season.
Do you think I have time to stop to smell the roses when I have work coming out of my ears?
It's true we're busy, but you get too wrapped up in your work.
How old are your daughters?
They're six and nine.
Right.
Before you know it, they'll be grown and you'll have missed out on their childhood.
Take it from someone who knows.
Don't take your family for granted.
I know you're right.
I need to spend more quality time with them.
Just as soon as the busy season is over.
So, I should see you as a cautionary tale?
Yup.
Consider this a public service announcement.
We're at work with Klaus and Marcia.
Klaus says to Marcia, go home.
You need to spend more time with your loved ones before they report you missing.
Your loved ones are the people you love, usually your close relatives, your family.
To report someone missing means to go usually to the police to officially say that you don't know where this other person is, so the police may start looking for that person.
Klaus is joking here.
He's saying that Marcia has been away from her family so much that they will think that she has disappeared.
Marcia says A busy season is a time of the year when there is a lot of work to do, more work than normal.
Marsha says do you think I have time to stop to smell the roses when I have work coming out of my ears?
To stop to smell the roses, or to stop and smell the roses, means to relax, to take time to do things that are perhaps not very important but that are very pleasant.
There was actually a song, I think in the 1970s.
You gotta stop and smell the roses.
That's all I remember, just that line.
I think that was Mac Davis.
Remember him?
No, me neither.
Marsha says, I have work coming out of my ears.
The expression to have something come out of your ears means that you have too much of something.
You're overwhelmed by all the things that you have or things that you have to do.
In this case, Marcia has too many things to do.
Klaus says, it's true we're busy, but you get too wrapped up in your work.
To be wrapped, W-R-A-P-P-E-D, up, means to be very involved in something.
Thinking about something so much that you forget about everything else.
You're absorbed.
Typically, we use this when we're talking about work or some commitments.
Klaus says, how old are your daughters?
Marsha says they're six and nine.
Klaus says, right.
Before you know it, before you realize, they'll be grown and you'll have missed out on their childhood.
To miss out on something is a phrasal verb meaning not to be able to enjoy something, to lose or waste an opportunity.
Don't miss out on the sale on televisions anymore. at the store.
Don't lose the opportunity to take advantage of it.
Klaus is telling Marcia not to miss out on the childhood of her children.
He says, take it from someone who knows.
This expression take it from someone who knows, or take it from someone who plus another verb means listen to my advice.
Learn from another person's experience.
If somebody asked me about the freeways here in Los Angeles, I would say well, take it from someone who drives a lot on the freeway.
They're terrible, which is true.
Claus says, don't take your family for granted.
To take something or someone for granted means not to appreciate something or someone, to think that you'll always have this thing or this person in your life and so you don't make any effort to keep it, him or her.
That's to take something for granted, to assume that you will always have it.
Marcia says I know you're right.
I need to spend more quality time with them.
Quality time is a period of time where you're truly focused on another person.
You try to get as much enjoyment from that other person as possible.
Marsha says just as soon as the busy season is over, meaning I'll spend time with them as soon as the busy season is over.
Klaus says, time slips by while you're not paying attention.
To slip by means to pass almost without noticing, to happen without you realizing it.
Time goes quickly.
You don't even realize how fast it is going by.
It is passing.
Slip, as well as the word wrap that we talked about earlier, have a couple of different meanings.
Take a look at the learning guide for some additional explanations.
So Klaus is saying to Marcia, time slips by while you're not paying attention.
He says, look at me, consider me, for example.
I worked my butt off to get where I am now.
To work your butt.
B-U-T-T off is an informal expression meaning to work very hard, to put a lot of effort into doing something.
Klaus says.
This is a phrase we use to talk about something that we were able to achieve, but it had a lot of negative consequences.
Some athletes use drugs, steroids, to become champions, but at what cost?
They could be hurting their body.
Klaus says, He, of course, is exaggerating.
They're not strangers.
They know each other.
They're married to each other.
But because he has spent so much time away from her, they don't know each other as well.
They're not as close anymore.
He says, He says, meaning I almost don't know them or I don't know them very well.
Claus says you don't want to end up like me.
To end up means to become, in this case, to result in after a long period of time.
Marsha says, so I should see you as a cautionary tale?
A cautionary tale is a story about something sad or dangerous that has happened to another person, and it makes you want to change your own behavior.
You start thinking about that, and you think, oh, I don't want that to happen to me.
A tale, T-A-L-E, is another word for a story.
Cautionary comes from caution, meaning be careful.
So it's a story that warns you about something bad that could happen if you're not careful.
Klaus says yup, which is an informal way of saying yes, yup.
The opposite of yup is nope, N-O-P-E.
Those are informal ways of saying yes, yup, and no, nope.
Klaus says, yep, consider this a public service announcement.
Consider here means think about this in a certain way.
Think about this statement.
Consider this, meaning his story, a public service announcement.
A public service announcement, sometimes abbreviated PSA, is an advertisement on the radio or television that is not for any product or service.
It's not somebody trying to make money.
Instead, it's from the government or from social groups that are trying to get people to change their behavior or to give them information they need to know.
For example, there might be a PSA, a public service announcement about getting a flu shot.
It tells you about the importance of that.
Here, Klaus is sort of joking, saying my story is like a public service announcement.
It's giving you information you need to know.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Go home.
You need to spend more time with your loved ones before they report you missing.
This is the busy season.
Do you think I have time to stop to smell the roses when I have work coming out of my ears?
It's true we're busy, but you get too wrapped up in your work.
How old are your daughters?
They're six and nine.
Right.
Before you know it, they'll be grown and you'll have missed out on their childhood.
Take it from someone who knows.
Don't take your family for granted.
I know you're right.
I need to spend more quality time with them.
Just as soon as the busy season is over.
Time slips by while you're not paying attention.
Look at me.
I work my butt off to get where I am now, but at what cost?
My wife and I are practically strangers, and I barely know my children.
You don't want to end up like me.
So I should see you as a cautionary tale?
Yep.
Consider this a public service announcement.
The script for this episode was written by someone who works her butt off, so don't take her for granted.
Dr Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us next time on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2009 by the Center for Educational Development.
