Happy Birthday to Me

Click the picture to hear the birthday song
"Estas Son Las Mañanitas"
"These Are The Mornings"
which is serenaded at one's window.

See the lyrics below.

And at the bottom read the story

These are the mornings
That did sing the King David

Today for being your saint's day 

We sing them to yo

Wake up, my love, wake up 

Look it has already dawned
The little birds are already singing
The moon is already set
How beautiful is the morning
When I come to greet you
We all come with pleasure
A pleasure to congratulate you
The day you were born
All flowers were born
In the christening row
The Nightingales sang
It's already dawning
Daylight already gives us day
Get up in the morning
Look its already dawn
If I could bring you down
The stars and a star
In order to show you
How much I love you
With jasmine and flowers
This day I want to agree
Today for being your saint's day
We come to sing to you

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Manuel M. Ponce

Las Mañanitas lyrics © Peermusic Publishing

My 75th birthday is today, March 27, 2020. Besides the usual Happy Birthday songs, I love "Las Mañanitas" sung in Spanish. You may know that I am fluent in Spanish, majored in Spanish in college, taught it to Junior High students for a few years, and have traveled to Mexico often. For some reason, the Mexican culture is part of my blood. I adore speaking the language, dream in Spanish, and especially enjoy being able to tell a joke in Spanish to a native speaker! Not an easy task.

Meanwhile, I am repeating here an essay first written on October 1, 2010, about my early days studying Spanish in High School and an adventure in Mexico, maybe 55 years ago by now although in the essay it says 30 which is when I first visited Mexico!

Pulgas Vestidas or Dressed Fleas

When I was in high school, every year a trip to Mexico was offered by the Spanish Club. Miss Erickson (RIP,) my Spanish teacher and the trip chaperone, would pass out the multi-paged mimeographed itinerary for the trip. I can still see and smell the 8.5x11 rough-grained multi-colored paper on which it was printed. Every year I would take home a copy and memorize it. My family was not able to afford me the experience but I dreamed anyway.

One year Miss Erickson brought to class some souvenirs she purchased in Mexico on the previous year's trip. One item, in particular, caught my attention and my fancy. In a ⅛ x ¼ inch handmade paper box were glued two dressed fleas. One was dressed like a groom and the other like a bride. You could barely tell what was in the tiny box without a magnifying glass. I was astounded. I was amazed. I wanted a dressed flea of my very own.

Flash forward some thirty years. Either for my "running away from home - late" or my "midlife crisis - early" I had quit teaching, was waiting tables at Jerome's Restaurant at Clark and Arlington in Chicago and decided to take off on my dream trip to Mexico.

I took Amtrack to Fort Worth, Texas where I spent a week with my sister and her family. I proceeded to San Miguel de Allende for a stay which lasted for a month and a half and then took the bus to Mexico City where I spent another three weeks. Besides being lonely, by the end of my time in Mexico, I had just enough money to fly home so my adventure ended after two months.

While in Mexico City, eating amazing food and taking in all the cultural sites I could, I was on a quest to find "Pulgas Vestidas." At every little souvenir shop, I saw I asked, "¿Se vende aquí pulgas vestidas?" "Do you sell dressed fleas here?" And at every little shop I received the same quizzical look and the reply, "Never heard of such a thing." Remember this is 30 years after Miss Erickson had purchased hers.

One day, well into my stay in Mexico City, I was walking around on a Sunday afternoon when I passed a gift shop that was closed but had interesting items on display in the window. The shop was dark, the windows dirty, the displays dusty. I was about to turn and continue my walk when I noticed an almost empty shoebox in the corner of the window. The box had seen better days and at the back of it was a stained, curled sign that said "PULGAS VESTIDAS - 50 Pesos." Oh my God (or OMG as the tech-savvy say nowadays) I had found my dressed fleas. There were only two tiny boxes in the bottom of this shoebox and they were a boyfriend and girlfriend, not bride and groom ... but EURECA, success! 

I probably laid awake all night waiting for the Monday morning opening of the shop that housed my treasure. I was waiting in front when the owner unlocked the door, I spent my 100 Pesos and gingerly carried the bag containing my prize back to my hotel room.

Some stories end happily. Perhaps the moral of this story is: Never give up. Or perhaps: If you work hard enough and wait long enough, your dream will come true. Both my Dream Trip to Mexico and my finding Pulgas Vestadas finally had happened and continue to hold an important place in my reminiscences. 

Visit my Pulgas Vestidas at Michael's Museum at Chicago Children's Museum at Navy Pier. 

Day of the Dead 2018 - Día de los Muertos

See below for an explanation of the holiday and how it is celebrated.

DAY OF THE DEAD / DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS
By Michael Horvich

Day of the Dead in Mexico represents a mixture of Christian devotion and Pre-Hispanic traditions and beliefs. During the pre-Hispanic era, death did not exist. Death was seen, instead, as simply a transition, a voyage through time and space towards true life. 

The celebrations take place on two days. The souls of the dead children arrive on October 31st. As they depart on November 1st, their place is taken by the souls of the adults.

On these days, the deceased are believed to receive divine permission to visit friends and relatives on earth and to share the pleasure of living once again.

While Día de los Muertos is similar to Halloween and occurs at the same time, the two holidays are worlds apart.

While the deceased are represented in skeletal form, the celebrations are not macabre, but rather portrayed with love, humor, and affections by both artists and participants. 

On both days, the living and the dead are reunited at grave sites and home altars that are adorned with flowers, candles, sugar skulls (Calaveras,) skeleton figures, and the favorite food and drink of the departed.

The altar includes four main elements of nature: 

1) Earth is represented by food and it is believed that the souls are fed by the aroma of food. 

2) Wind is represented by a moving object, usually tissue paper flags (Papel Picado.) 

3) Water is represented by a glass of water (and possibly beer and alcohol)
for the souls to quench their thirst after the long journey to the altar. 

4) Finally, fire is represented by wax candles, one for each soul remembered and an extra one for the forgotten soul.

The dead are never forgotten because once a year they take their places beside the living to enjoy their love and the fruits and flowers of the earth.

A wonderful animated film "COCO" by PIXAR (2017) clearly explains Day of the Dead with a touch of humor, sorrow, adventure, mystery, and great visual detail. A highly recommended watch for children and adults!

I haven't written here on the current state of affairs of children being removed from their families at the Mexican border by the U.S. Department of Immigration under executive order of President T-Rump (who has recently tried to "put out the fire" he himself has created!

I am sure you have heard enough about it! But I would like to make this HOMAGE to these children and their families.

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN by Kurt Bestor out of frustration over the horrendous civil war and ethnic cleansing taking place in the former country of Yugoslavia.

SEE FULL HISTORY of this piece at: http://kbestor.blogspot.com/…/prayer-of-children-story-behi…

PRAYER OF THE CHILDREN

By: Kurt Bestor

Can you hear the prayer of the children
On bended knee, in the shadow of an unknown room?
Empty eyes, with no more tears to cry
Turning heavenward, toward the light

Crying, "Jesus, help me
To see the morning light of one more day;
But if I should die before I wake
I pray my soul to take."

Can you feel the heart of the children
Aching for home, for something of their very own?
Reaching hands, with nothing to hold on to
But hope for a better day, a better day

Crying, "Jesus, help me
To feel the love again in my own land;
But if unknown roads lead away from home
Give me loving arms, away from harm."

Can you hear the voice of the children
Softly pleading for silence in a shattered world?
Angry guns preach a gospel full of hate
Blood of the innocent on their hands

Crying, "Jesus, help me
To feel the sun again upon my face;
For when darkness clears I know you're near
Bringing peace again."

New San Pancho Park

Very walkable from the guest house is a park. There used to be nothing special about park until recently. Coke put in a major playground with creative equipment which will have a grand opening celebration on 2/25, the day after I leave. The water fountain is in place (think I'll avoid that.) A concrete skateboard ramp is three quarters finished. And murals are being painted on the long wall in the park These photos show some of the art work and in fact an artist painting a new one.

More Mexican Color

A Moment of Normalcy

SPOILER ALERT, GRAPHICALLY DESCRIBED,

DISTURBING IMAGES AHEAD. 

Today I took an afternoon walk out to the beginning of town at the highway and back again to the guest house where I am staying. Not to long a walk but filled with color, people, and comings and goings.

On the way back, I stopped for a cold drink at what looks like a park but is really a shack of an outdoor restaurant at the front of someone’s home (property.)

I ordered a tangerine soda with a glass of purified ice and rested from the walk, sitting at a white plastic table with green plastic chairs sitting on the dirt ground under a green vinyl tarp.

Two dogs stopped lying in the entrance to the restaurant and came over to investigate me. Offering my hand to one then the other, I asked, “Are you going to let me pet you or are you going to bite me.” The answer was a rousing (although the dogs didn’t move much and at that moved slowly.) 

So I petted each one a short while and then realizing that I had nothing to feed them, they ambled back to their stations at the front gate.

Several people came through to buy a bag of chips or get a drink. There was a large rotisserie machine with maybe a dozen golden brown chickens doing their dance in the propane tank driven flames, their juice dripping down to the bottom of the box cooking the green onions, ancho chiles, an small new potatoes waiting there. Smelled delicious. Several people stopped to pick up a chicken with accompaniments to take home for dinner at the cost of 100 persons or $5.00 US.

I made a mental note of the chicken because they smelled delicious and how bad or unhealthy could a cooked chicken be? When asked about the operation of the owners of the guest house where I am staying, their reply was, “I wouldn’t if I was you … they do not have running water!

Now we get to the graphic part. 

A young man came into the restaurant to get a sandwich and Coke. I tried not to stare but also didn’t want to ignore and look past him. 

He must have been in a terrible fire. His arms were patches of scar, light jigsaw puzzled with dark. Both hands had no fingers left but rather were healed stumps of flesh.

He walked with a little limp and one can only imagine what his body must have looked like.

His face was missing both ears (although he had his ear buds in place and was listening, I would guess, to his music.) He had no hair, no eyebrows, little left of his nose, stretched brittle cheeks and chin. His eyes had what looked like refashioned eye lids and his mouth had what looked like refashioned lips done in a way that his large teeth dominated.

My heart broke, ached and at the same time it feared and revulsed. How could or should I relate to this fellow human being who had stopped by for a bite to eat? I certainly did not stare but I did not look away either.

He came over to where I was drinking my tangerine soda, the only table in the restaurant. He put down his “torta” (a Mexican sandwich made on a special French bread type roll but bulbous rather than long and graceful) and a bottle of Coke, pulled out a chair, and sat down.

I looked him in the face (read what you will into that) and said, “Buenos Tardes.” He replied in kind and asked me if I could open is soda to which I replied, “Sure” as I did so.

“Hot isn’t it?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied as he began to eat his Torta amazingly held somehow between what he used for hands. I began to explain in Spanish that I was visiting San Pancho from Chicago where it is very cold during the winter.” He looked a little puzzled so I asked in English, “Do you speak Spanish.”

He admitted that he only knew a little, so I switched to English. He knew of Chicago with the incorrect understanding that it was freezing there all year long. I explained that during the summer it was hot like here, during the winter it was very cold if not freezing, and in the fall and spring in between some what cold and or warm depending on the day.

Amazing, here I sat carrying on a normal conversation in a normal fashion with a fellow human being who in so many ways was as normal as I was, but in so many ways, not normal at all. A monster I am sure as perceived, avoided, and feared by many.

I felt good that perhaps I had shared a moment of normalcy with him as I picked up my empty soda bottle and glass, said “Goodbye, nice talking with you.” and left past the two dogs standing (or sitting really) guard at the entrance to the restaurant.