Juan of Words

Mexi-Vocabulario: ¡Mitotero!

All up in the Kool–Aid without even knowing the flavor!

A ver, so… yo por andar de mitotero ¡mira nada más de lo que me enteré!

Mitotero, the only word in that sentence that stood out to me.  Mostly in telenovelas and variety shows is where I’ve heard it before since at our house metiche and chismoso were much more common.  And apparently there are a couple of different definitions of what exactly mitotero means.

El Urban Dictionary says -  being up, or getting mixed up, in business or information that has no relationship to you whatsoever.  Being up in the mix where you DON’T belong.  Prying into the affairs and business of others.

tuBabel says - chismoso, comunicativo.  

While La Real Academia Española offers the following definition - 1. adj. Am.  Que hace mitotes (‖ melindres).  2. adj. Am. Bullanguero, amigo de diversiones.  3. adj. Méx. Que hace mitotes (‖ pendencias).

Though the best explanation, I believe, is in a picture.  I hope mine in this post does a good enough job of illustrating the word mitotero. 

Why Spanglish Was a Bad Word for Most of My Life

Spanglish!  It’s a love-hate relationship I’ve had with the language.  Growing up it was Spanish at home, English at school.  In truth, I don’t even remember talking in Spanish with my siblings… and even now it still feels a little awkward to do so – like it is unnatural between us or something.  That’s probably because as soon as we all started speaking English we just began communicating with each other almost exclusively in that language.

No Spanglish son!

In college I thought my skills in Spanish were above average until I took the Spanish assessment for credit by exam.  They told me I was mediocre and I was shocked.  It wasn’t until I started that first class – Spanish for Native Speakers – that I realized just how bad my Spanish actually was.  All my life pos, esque, troca, parkear, and so many others had been perfectly normal.  Now all of a sudden they were grammatically incorrect!  ¿Cómo qué?  Even worse, I had never even noticed all of those accents over letters and couldn’t have cared less what they meant.  My parents taught us the alfabeto and we knew there was an ll, an ñ, a ch, but that was about it.  I could read, write and speak Spanish.  I just couldn’t tell you where the malditos acentos belonged.

Somehow I managed to learn the basics.

Then, working as a full time Spanish-language print reporter it became perfectly clear to me just how detested Spanglish was among some native español speakers.  There was cringing, head shaking, laughter, even utter shock at some of the words that would come out of my mouth.  I learned what coloquialismos and anglicismos were pretty fast.  Apparently the way I wrote and talked.  A pesar de todo, I decided to persevere and learn as much Spanish as I could… to improve my own skills in the language for myself.  I did and before I knew it I was correcting my own parents in their usage of their own first language.  La camioneta.  Estacionamiento.  Lo que pasa es que…. Yup, it’s safe to say I was full of myself!  Now, thinking about that just makes me feel ashamed.  Who the hell was I to tell them their usage of Spanish was wrong?  

¡Pinche mocoso!  I drank the Kool-Aid and was pretty much a language snob.

Después de eso, going back to work in the English market with my newly honed Spanish skills – not thinking, talking and sleeping in Spanish all of the time – I began to miss my coloquialismos and anglicismos.  I loved my Spanglish dammit!  It felt like home.  Like being in the Valley with my cousins, like hanging with the eses in my neighborhood, like all of the people that I had grown up around who were like me, cómo dice la India María “ni de aquí ni de allá”.  That’s what we were.  Part Mexican.  Part American.  And finally I realized that was okay!  I’ll probably never be as good at Spanish as the native speakers.  I’ll never fully grasp all of the rules about Spanish accents… but you know what, I can maneuver Spanglish like nobody’s business!

¡Ajua! – 100 Year Old Keeps Young Playing Nintendo DS

Kathleen Connell 'Kit' of East Renfrewshire in Scotland

They say you’re only as young as you feel, and apparently 100 year old Kathleen Connell of East Renfrewshire in Scotland, better known in the gaming world as just ‘Kit’, doesn’t feel a day over 80!  According to her Brain Training Nintendo DS game, her level of skill is that of a 64 year old, something the ‘Nintendo Queen’, as she has been nicknamed now, spends time every evening trying to improve.

Kit, who just turned 100 last week, reportedly began playing video games at the age of 96 and credits consoles like the Nintendo DS with keeping her sharp and healthy.  According to various media reports, Kit’s collection of 10 DS games includes My Word Coach, Left Brain Right Brain 2, Easy Piano and Brain Training.  The 100 year old spends two hours playing her DS every evening before breaking for tea.

“The Nintendo has been a great help to me, it’s absolutely amazing. If there’s any secret to a long life it’s to think positive and keep your mind active,” she told the media.

Watch her talk about her own gaming experience in this video: 

Q’Viva The Chosen – Jennifer Lopez Returns to Her Roots

In the previews and the first episode of the brand new Nuyorican co-produced ‘Q’Viva The Chosen’ Jennifer Lopez proclaims ”This is like being able to really, really go – I am Latina and this is who we are… isn’t it fabulous, isn’t it amazing, doesn’t it bring tears to your eyes and make you want to dance, smile, and stay up all night?”

In truth, JLo, La Diva del Bronx, and her now ex-husband Marc Anthony are hoping this new collaboration of theirs will do precisely that for viewers of their new Latin American talent search show on Univision.  Or at the very least, have them tune in to watch.

Q'Viva The Chosen

Now y’all knew I was going to write about this!

After Saturday’s first episode, and after so many weeks of constant promotion about Jennifer and Marc’s reunion for the show, it turns out the former Latino First Couple of entertainment might be on to something.  From the Brazilian Capoeira dancers, to the Puerto Rican twins that captivated Marc, a very steamy Argentinian tango, and a lovable pair of Mexican Quebradita dancing siblings, ‘Q’Viva’ is all about celebrating the best of Latino culture and entertainment straight from each country.

Contestants submitted videos of their respective talents to the show’s producers, these entries were reviewed, the best of the bunch were presented to JLo, Marc and their third wheel, producer Jamie King, who then selected performers to assess in person.  Jennifer and Marc then travel to the various countries where the performers live, surprise them with an impromptu visit, the performers audition before the super stars, and if they are impressed with what they see the talent gets airplane tickets to Los Angeles.  There they will compete with the rest of the Latin American talent sent to California and ultimately the top tier of performers will all be a part of “the biggest Latin American entertainment show in history” in Las Vegas, Nevada.

An advertisers dream no doubt.

My favorite part about Q’Viva, however, outside of the tremendous talent being showcased, is just how much more access we get to Jennifer herself, in Spanish no less.  The American Idol judge has certainly improved her bilingual skills since Selena - anyone remember that Cristina interview from the 90s? – and in way, this feels like JLo connecting to her Latin American roots like she’s never done before.

Jennifer Lopez in Peru.

“It’s probably going to be the biggest thing I’ve been involved in yet,” Lopez reflected at one point.

Ms. Lopez, I think you might be right.

¡Mexico Lindo y Querido!

It doesn’t take much to send me flying down memory lane about the good old times we used to have in Mexico.  Life there has always seemed so much simpler than life here, at least for us who have always gone down there to visit only, never to live permanently.  Every time we get to reminiscing about those times we can’t help but compare how carefree everything is in Mexico.  What to eat and what to eat next are about all the hustle and bustle you have to worry about when you’re there… and even then, not so much because usually your family will get deeply offended if you don’t accept their offer to eat at their homes.

¡No me vaya decir que no, porque me voy a sentir mal!

The air feels fresher.  The water looks cleaner.  It’s like you’re literally one with mother nature there! Por lo menos, in the serros of El Sauz it still feels like that.  We’ve gone back to Mexico a few times over the last couple of years, and after talking about “the old country” over lunch today, I couldn’t help but want to share these pictures with all of you.  They always just put a smile on my face!

cielitolindo.mp3 (you have to play this track before reading) 

Entrance to El Sauz

This is the entrance to our ranchito in the serros - quite literally the mountains of Cerritos, San Luis Potosi.  Until a couple of years ago all the roads were dirt and rock.  Those paved streets are brand new!

Now with the brand new streets. No more dirt roads here.

As you drive in you start seeing houses on either side, but everyone has at least one third of an acre of land for their houses.  Electricity and running water are still pretty iffy, though, going out sporadically for hours at a time.

La casa de mis padres en El Sauz.

Here is our family home, which our parents have had since they began their lives together over four decades ago.  We used to have a stick kitchen in the front of the bloque rooms, but we tore it down after we got a propane-powered stove.  The room on the right is the new addition.

Massive nopalera in our plat of land.

Had my mom had the opportunity to live longer periods of time in Mexico as an adult I know for a fact we would have all kinds of fruit and vegetable trees in our terreno – lemon, oranges, aguacate, etc.  Since she hasn’t… we do have lots of matotas de nopales like this one.

Trucks like this one, de mi hermano, are obviously 'del norte'.

Anyone that comes to El Sauz from el norte can easily be spotted if they’re driving around in trucks like this one.  I will say, though, that a lot of people have much nicer trucks now than they did when we were growing up.

El Guey con El Maguey!

Downside to only visiting Mexico every couple of months or years: your property starts to look like this.  As a kid this is what I hated most… having to help my dad clear the brushes from the land with talaches and machetes.

Clearing the brushes from the terreno.

It’s still not my favorite thing to do, but I can make myself enjoy it now… and it’s easier now to handle those tools.  That’s me in the gray sweater and the cap.  Those fires in the early morning smell so good.

Ahhh... I can smell the clean air and smokey wood in those serros.

Well, it’s not like they have dumpsters or dump sites for this stuff in El Sauz.

Told you we have to heat up water for baths.

Heating up cold water for your bath is still regular practice in El Sauz.  At our place we use a water tank at the top of the house to run the shower, but there is no water heater connected to it so the water is cold.  I learned the hard way why taking a bath with only the shower is a bad idea.  Uuyy, I still get shivers thinking about that cold shower I took in record time.

After a long day's work.

Once night falls it’s all about hanging out with family and getting ready to sleep by relaxing.  Some of my fondest memories of Mexico are of staying up late with my cousins, sitting around a fire, and telling each other tall tales and scary stories.

And the next morning... las botas de mi pá, with somebody's nail polish, LOL!

Boots are probably a good idea for El Sauz.  While we do now have some paved roads, most of the rancho is still nothing but dirt roads and walkways.  I can’t tell you how many brand new pairs of shoes I ruined over the years as a kid.

I promise we were actually working.

I hope my brother doesn’t kill me for sharing this picture.  It’s one of my favorites of us together because you can really tell how well we have always gotten along.  Though it doesn’t seem like it, we were actually working, digging a hole to make barbacoa before heading back to Texas.

My mom and my uncle getting the cabrito ready.

My mother, on the left here (notice the rebozo), recruited the help of my uncle to prepare the cabrito.  She obviously didn’t trust any of us to prepare it.  ¿Porqué sera?  Notice the serros in the background off in the distance.  Ahh!

My brother's creation. I love this picture!

Last, but certainly not least, this is one of the tanques de agua in El Sauz.  The one that used to be right next to our house was dried out when we went for this trip.  That’s my oldest nephew laying on the ground with the shades.  My brother added the cool yellow graphics.  ¿Apoco no les gusta la foto? 

We should definitely make this into a post card!

Now it’s you’re turn.  Share your stories and/or memories of Mexico, or your own country.  I would really like to hear them!

¡Pásame el Pan… Pan Bien Mexicano!

Got a sweet tooth?  Get ready to eat your heart out!  First things first, I am a sucker for pan dulce - just thought it would be appropriate to make that disclaimer.  My favorite is the one that’s just sweet enough.  Not too sweet.  Not too flavorless.  Unless it’s bolillo bread then all bets are off.  Bolillo bread is like an open canvas, ready to be transformed into whatever tasty goodness your pancita desires.  Think tortas de jamón, fajita, pollo, or just big chunks of this bread dunked into a hot cup of café con leche… mmm, ya me dio hambre.  But I digress.

The other day we found this panadería called El Boillo Bakery about 20 minutes from our house.  We’d seen it before, but had never stopped.  This time, though, our appetite got the better of us.  It must have been cold or raining.  That is the perfect weather for Mexican sweet bread.  Either way, here’s what ja-pen!

El Bolillo Bakery

El Bolillo Bakery is pretty intimate.  I don’t know if it’s a major chain, but they do have a couple of different locations here in town.  They’re always busy, but never crowded… at least the few times we’ve been to this particular location it’s always been pretty painless.

That's how I like it! ¡Pan bien mexicano!

¡Miren nomás!  Just what the doctor ordered… or in this case, the Juan!

Y acá... so much goodness in there!

We haven’t tried those cakes yet, but don’t they look good?  ¡Qué bueno que ya vienen los cumpleaños de febrero!

Ya que estabamos ahí, ¿pos qué más?

So, of course, before you know it there I am greedily stocking my platter with as much bread as it can carry.  ¡No me disrtraigas, Anjelica!  I’m a little busy here!

Personal size tres leches cake.

Nom… personal-sized tres leches cakes!  Scratch waiting for the birthdays.

Tell me those cookies don't look good!

Cookies like these are too sweet for my taste, but perfect for the kids.  Girl Scout cookies, who needs them?  These are much cheaper too!

La Abuelita Chocolate Machine - Score!!!

Okei… a little confession here.  When I saw this Chocolate La Abuelita machine – yes, I said machine, like automated y toda la cosa – I literally gasped!

“Look!  It’s an Abuelita hot chocolate machine!!”

For Valentine's Day too, eh!

These heart cookies are a little early, but they did catch our eye.  ¡Qué romantic!

Gracias por su preferencia.

I can’t remember the last last time somebody thanked me for my preferencia.

Calling this one the Ballet Folklorico Mural.

Anjelica really liked all of the murals on the ceilings.  I hadn’t even noticed them.  Les digo, siempre ando bien distraido. 

Chocolate covered strawberries and wedding cake!

Finally, this one is just for your enjoyment.  I don’t know about you, but I’ll take pan dulce and La Abuelita hot chocolate over anything they sell at Starbucks any day!

This is not a sponsored post.  I did not receive any compensation for the content of this entry.  All of the opinions are my own.