The path not taken

Milked w/ Jose this morning. His native tongue is Spanish but he can understand some English. I speak English but my Spanish is what I remember from high school. We were able to communicate enough to figure out that neither of us is married nor has children. I asked him "¿Cuántos años tienes?" He replied, "Twenty". I said I was "sesenta" (gratefully, he acted surprised). He said it was cold (there was frost on my windshield this morning) and I (wearing a t-shirt) spread my arms and said, "Hace calor!" Today was a scrub day so I asked Jose to foam one side of the parlor. "¿Cómo se dice 'foam'"? I queried. Jose puzzled over it but said nothing. Mike, who had heard us, went into the utility room and came back w/ a Spanish-English dictionary. He looked up "foam" and said "espuma". I thought it sounded like I was telling Jose to spit and when I repeated it to him, Jose gave me a wierd look (could have been my accent). Supplementing my request w/ hand gestures got my message across. Despite our language differences, I talked more today with Jose than I did with Scott the former herdsman all year long.