Juan of Words

Father to Son: A Birthday Wish for Today …and Tomorrow

Today Edgar is nine!  One year away from 10 and way too many more years than we have actually felt go by.   Por más que me pongo a pensar, the truth is it escapes me where all the time actually went.  He’s no longer just a kid, one who’s simply satisfied with simple explanations.  Now he asks questions and insists with them, he likes to wonder about the world and how it works, and doesn’t have a problem sharing lo que piensa all of the time… to anyone.  He protests when he doesn’t like something.  A few times we’ve actually had to call his attention on it, and remind him who’s in charge here.  We are.  I think.

Pa mi cumpleañero

He’s excited.  We’re scared.  Scared that we’re not ready for his teens.  Scared that we’ve not done the absolute best job we possibly could have.  Scared that one day we’ll wake up and he’ll be on his way out the door.  Starting his own life, all grown up, and never to be our “baby” anymore.  Pretty soon he’ll want to drive.  Pretty soon he’ll want to plan his own Saturday night.  Pretty soon he’ll be yelling and screaming about “how it’s not fair.”  Pretty soon he’ll be falling in love… and then having his heart broken.  Pretty soon!

I’m definitely not ready, but what I do know is last night when he came over to us like he does every night to kiss us goodnight and tell us how much he loves us in that sweet little voice I made a mental picture of that instant in time, froze it in my mind, and tucked it away at the bottom of my heart.

This is exactly how I want to remember this moment.

¡Feliz cumpleaños mi papito!  I love you.    

Donde Cabe Uno, Caben Dos: Life Lessons for Adult Children

Donde cabe un mexicano caben cien. That was the variation of this popular dicho we grew up with. I think in actually it’s supposed to go something like this: donde cabe uno, caben dos. This weekend while we were working on the house we all lived in for nine years with my parents I couldn’t help but be reminded of this popular saying over and over again. The house has been in the family for a long time and for reasons that I won’t even begin to go into ahorita está en un completo estado de desmadre.

Padre e hijo

Suffice it to say when you get a renter make sure you know who you are renting to.  A lot easier said than done.  But hopefully now we’ve learned a very valuable lesson.

Anyway, when we came back from vacation, from making all of those great memories and spending so much quality time together, we had to face the reality that there was a whole lot of time and money that was going to be required to get this house back into shape.  Estabamos un poco dumbfounded at the bad luck.  I mean we hadn’t even taken a real vacation in years, but as they taught me in French class c’est la vie.  So off we went planning and budgeting to try to make things happen as soon as possible.  The very first thing we had to do was replace the back fence on the property.

Okay.  No problem!  Only contractors want way too much money to put up the fence and I haven’t the slightest clue about how to do it myself.  The last time I tried my fence started out pretty even on one side and progressively became more slanted along the 48 feet of property we had to cover.  By the time I noticed it was coming out crooked ya estaba bien cansado and my response was “oh well, fudge it,” which in hindsight is probably one of the main reasons we’re having to do it all over again… only this time under the supervision of mi papá.  I’d kind of been hinting around about him helping me, and by that I mean talking to my mom about it (she seems to have a way of getting him to do things, lol), without coming out and directly saying “can you help me?”

No sé porqué pero como me daba cosa to ask my dad who’s already in his sixties to give me a hand.  Finally, I just broke down and asked him.  He, of course, said yes.

The plan was that we’d show up on Sunday and knock out the fence in one day.  Go ahead and laugh.  It’s okay.  Llegamos temprano, and we started right off digging the holes for the 4×4’s we would need to put in to support the new fence – after we had already knocked down the old one.  My luck, desde luego, was that out of all of the rainless-drought-inducing days we’d had this summer – and we’ve had plenty believe me – this particular Sunday was the one day the rain would not let up.  Entre breaks in the heavy down pouring we tried our best to get as much done as we possibly could.  We did it… well at least put in the 4×4’s that is, but by the end of the day our shoes and pants were covered in mud, we’d both slipped in the mud trying to work, every single item of clothing we were wearing was drenched in very cold water, including my chones, and now we were facing the dilemma of how to cover up 48 feet of a barren property line.

We figured that one out too, and despite my complete exhaustion at the end of the night when I hit the bed, I was happier than I had been in a long time.  As a kid I’d always been more of a momma’s boy and rarely went out to do real hard labor with my father.  That was my older brother’s job and he was good at it.  Besides when was I ever going to need to know how to do all that stuff?  DOH!  This weekend, though, I really felt like we were making up for lost time.  No pude evitar feeling a little sad about having missed out on all this father-son comradery, but as we were working, having an actual conversation and telling jokes, I couldn’t help but feel a little extra joy in my heart.  I still feel it today, and the fact that we have to go back and work on it some more this week doesn’t even bother me at all.

In fact, I’m actually looking forward to it.

I might not be a kid anymore, but hey… it’s never too late to make up for lost time!

¡No Te Dejes! Learning To Fight My Own School Yard Bullies

Ay chinelas ya me frego...

It’s always hard to give kids advice about bullying.  In my day the answer was real simple: ¡dale unos buenos chingasos pa’ que ya no se meta contigo!  Tempting as this advice might be for me to give, también sé that this day and age that’s just not going to fly anymore.  You never know what that could lead to and if you’re kid will be the one that comes out more affected than the bully.  And the fact of the matter is it’s just not the same when you are a boy being bullied.  We are expected to be able to fend for ourselves, to know just what to do to stop a bully, to give them a good punch in the ribs without being seen or catching them after school when no teachers are around.  The thing is it isn’t always that simple.

For me, the advantage was that I had an older brother who was much tougher than me, y por supuesto much more feared than me by others.  Still, my goal was always to take care of my own problems without having to involve him at all.  I didn’t want him fighting my fights!

That kid that gave me my first real beating at 12 can vouch for that.

There was no way I was going to have mi hermano jump in and fight him for me – besides by this time he had already grown tired of always having to stick up for me; I know because he told me – so instead there I went trying my best to throw my punches guajoloteros all over the place and just being pushed up against the wired fence around our dirty green pool at the Bali Hai apartments.  As much as I fought back, he was stronger than me, and after about five minutes of getting my head knocked around from one side to the other he grew tired and just left me there breathing all hard and angry at how I’d just been humiliated in front of all my friends.  I walked away with my head in shame, but for the first time he (my brother) looked at me like he was just so damn proud of me for fighting my own pleito. 

After that I learned to not get into a fight willingly with anyone bigger than me.

My brother, on the other hand, looked at any opportunity to fight with someone bigger than himself as a chance to prove how strong and tough he was.  One time when we were both in middle school, a group of cholillos cornered me in the gym and were just about to beat me up for not having any money to give them – I rode the bus on a free pass and my allowance at this grade level was still the same as it had always been, a dollar a week if I was lucky – when in comes mi hermano.  He didn’t threaten any of them or say anything to them.  Instead he just walked in, looked around, and then asked me with a quick lift of the chin “what’s up?”  I nodded my head from right to left a couple of times and everyone backed away.  He waited in there with me while I got all my stuff together and we walked out.  After that they knew whose brother I was and nobody ever messed with me again.

For as much as I hated his “tough guy” ways, they sure did come in handy when I needed them.

Nowadays the recommendations range from speaking up against bullying, walking away, telling an adult about it, or just traveling in packs to avoid being cornered like I was.  Instead of the chingasos comment that wants to slip out of my mouth I’ve often gone for the “tell your teacher” approach… then again, if I’m being completely honest, I have also recommended a good push every once in while.  La mera verdad is the problem has thankfully never been that serious, but as many of you already know bullying is definitely a serious issue.

DISCLAIMER
This blog post is a personal account and in no way is meant to make light of the seriousness of bullying.  For more information and resources about bullying and how to help a child who is being bullied visit http://www.stopbullying.gov/.           

Ghosts, Goblins, and an Online Costume Contest for Halloween – Submit your pictures!

Here are some of our favorite Halloween costumes to date

Halloween has always been my favorite holiday!! For one, you get to dress up in whatever kind of costume or alter ego you want to.  Then, you can actually walk or drive to complete strangers’ houses and expect them to give you candy just because you’re wearing a costume… or once you’re closer to my age, because you’re escorting a cute kid around.  At the Bali Hai apartments, when I was a boy, they actually used to drive all of us kids in one van to the more upscale parts of town to collect more and better candy.  It was so much fun and the decorations there bien elaboradas.

Now that we’re adults, it’s just not the same.  Costume parties are fun and all, but the candy in a bag just doesn’t have the same thrilling effect anymore.  That’s why I’m so excited to announce the Juan of Words – Online Halloween Contest! That’s right amigos y amigas, I’m hosting my own online costume contest sponsored by Ford en Español, a member of the Ford Motor Company familia… and the prizes for this photo contest are way better than candy.

I’m talking actual dinero!

So here are the basics.  Anyone can participate.  I mean anyone, so long as you are 18 years of age and can legally claim a prize in the United States.  All you have to do is visit my Juan of Words Facebook Page (LIKE the page if you don’t already), click on the ‘Halloween Contest’ button on the left hand side below my profile image (it has a star next to it), upload your costume picture with a description, and then ask your friends to vote for you!  Or you can click on the link above that says Halloween Contest!

The top three people with the most votes by Halloween Day will win one of three prizes:

First Place: a $300 Gift Card
Second Place: a $125 Gift Card
Third Place: a $75 Gift Card

That’s it!  No other strings attached.

Voting will close at 11:59 p.m. on Monday, October 31, 2011, and winners will be notified shortly thereafter.  Así es que ya saben, GO!  Get creative!  Snap a picture of your best Halloween outfit/costume and get your friends voting.

That extra money would be great for my Christmas shopping if I could actually compete!

¡Buena Suerte a todos!

Empacho: The Act Of Overstuffing Your Face

El Botija... funny in theory

Lately things had been going so well.  Rather than greedily scarfing down as much as food as possible as fast as possible, like I normally do, I’d been making a conscience effort to pace myself when eating.  You know, chewing rather than only swallowing mouthfuls at a time.  I’d even finally noticed that all the Valentina salsa I eat just makes me feel hungrier and therefore eat more, and I had been trying to steer away from getting immediately back up to serve myself seconds.

I’d done all this for two main reasons.  One, of course for my health and to try and lose a few pounds.  I mean ya sé que para llegar a ser el mismo flacucho de antes no va ser nada facíl, but I’d hoped this was at least a start.  Joking around about being el Botija is one thing… having the shoe and the rest of the outfit actually fit is something completely different.  And two, because I’d noticed Edgar eating just as fast and almost as much as me in smaller portions.  He’s even taken to pouring Valentina salsa on a plate and dipping anything from crackers to chips in it.  At first it was cute, then I started feeling all guilty and stuff when I saw all those commercials about getting fit and moving y quien sabe cuanto más… you know the ones with First Lady Michelle Obama and Beyonce, even the damn little cartoon characters Maya and Miguel!  I’m surprised they haven’t brought Dora La Exploradora into the mix yet.  Well anyway I thought I should set a better example.

Yesterday though I just couldn’t help myself.  My sister had made a big old batch of her always just right pico de gallo – with jalapeño peppers and avocado mixed in; my parents had barbecued fajitas de pollo, beef and sausage; and my mom had made her special chile de molcajete.  I tore it up, even though I had already had a full serving of Kung Pao chicken moments earlier, and topped it off with some homemade gingerbread and coffee.  When I walked out of the house I was stuffed.  ¡Empachado! The shirt I’d bought several months earlier and finally fit into was now once again feeling like it was going to rip down the middle of my panza at any given moment.  We stopped at the grocery store and walked around a bit picking up healthier food for the rest of the week, but not even that helped.

I didn’t remember what the remedios were for empacho and I was too lazy to get up and research it, too lazy to even look them up on my smart phone.  Instead I lay in bed imagining myself in el Botija’s clothes having to have it let out on the sides, with my panzota as hard as a rock, unable to sleep and thinking how and why I didn’t stop myself.  In the back of my mind though I could still hear myself saying “it sure was good though!”

I guess I need to try harder.