My BLOG Still Reaches Out

I am impressed that my BLOG, "michael a horvich cares," dealing with my experiences traveling on the Dementia/Alzheimer's path with Gregory, still serves a purpose as an archive of information to others.

As I said in my closing post, while I will continue to be supportive of others on the Dementia Path, my life must take a new direction if I am to adapt to lessons learned from Gregory's experience, from his passing, and from my continuing to be alive day to day.

This came across my e-mail today and is what prompted this post:

Buenos días, me llamo Susana Munier. He encontrado su blogspot y me preguntaba si era posible colaborar con usted aportando por supuesto contenido de valor. Soy psicóloga, trabajo en una clínica en Sevilla y estoy especializada en el manejo de las emociones y el estrés tanto en el adulto como en el niño. 

La idea de colaboración que había pensado es redactar un artículo que ayude a sus lectores y sea interesante para ellos sobre estos temas, donde pueda aportar esa parte de conocimiento que tengo, con un enlace a mi clínica (si le parece bien) y así conseguir un poco más de repercusión en internet.

De todos modos me puedo adaptar a sus necesidades y tratar otro tema diferente sobre el autocrecimiento y que conozca bien. Gracias por la atención!😊.

This is the translation:

Good morning, my name is Susana Munier. I found your Blogspot and I was wondering if it was possible to collaborate with you by providing valuable content of course. I am a psychologist, I work in a clinic in Seville and I specialize in managing emotions and stress in both adults and children.

The idea of collaboration that I had thought of is to write an article that helps your readers and is interesting for them on these topics, where I can contribute that part of the knowledge that I have, with a link to my clinic (if it suits you) and thus achieve a little more impact on the internet.

Any way I can adapt to your needs and try a different topic on self-growth that you know well. Thanks for your attention! 😊.

This was my reply using the skills I still remember from taking "Spanish Business Letter Writing" in college which uses many courtesies which English letter writing does not.

Querida Señora Munier,

Muchimas gracias para su e-carta sobre mi blog. El blog ya no existe dia por dia. Solamente asiste otros como archivo de informacion. Gregory, mi esposo, se muerio hace cinco años y mi vida ha muvado en otras directiones. 

Con mucho affectiones,

Miguel

This is the translation:

Dear Mrs. Munier,

Thank you very much for your e-letter on my blog. The blog no longer exists day by day. Only others attend as an information file. Gregory, my husband, died five years ago and my life has moved in other directions.

With much affection,

Miguel

 

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. 

Past Lives

Do you believe in past lives? I am not sure one way or another but every now and then an experience or situation rings so true, so comfortable, so right that I feel perhaps I have lived it before in another time or another place.

One such wave of emotion swam over me today as we were sitting at Nuevo Leon, a restaurant in the Pilsen area, a Mexican neighborhood of Chicago. I think I was one of the few Norte Americanos in the place but I was so at home ordering our dinner in fluent Spanish, answering questions from the wait person, and requesting extra napkins. "Necesito más servietas por favor."

When ordering the Guacamole appetizer and on being asked if I wanted it "¿En el estilo Mexicano?" I replied, "Si. Si. Si. ¿Como no?" just like anyone else in the room would have done. Mexicans never say "Yes." They always say, "Yes, yes, yes." "¿Como no?" means why not or of course.

Gregory and I had spent the afternoon at The National Museum of Mexican Art, also in PIlsen. We visit the museum every year at this time to go through their Día de Los Muertos exhibit, The Day of the Dead." This is a holiday that parallels the Catholic All Saints Day and the North American Halloween.

Mexican families honor their dead ancestors by creating an alter, "Oferenda," that is decorated with marigolds, candles, holy pictures and objects, and all of the favorite foods and drinks of the departed. When I was standing in front of an Oferenda, studying the pictures and objects that were dear to the person whom it celebrates, I felt awe, thought, "Here is someone's life." and decided that this year I would build an Oferenda for my mom who died last March.

The holiday is a celebration of life and of death as part of the cycle of living and dying. It is believed that the departed come to visit, enjoy the sights and sounds and smells (although they cannot eat the food or drink the beverages they can enjoy them anyway.) The grave plots are also decorated and the family will picnic with their family and their departed loved ones.

When I am surrounded by the Mexican culture, it is as if I have arrived home. I am so overjoyed at being able to speak Spanish, tell a joke to a native Spanish speaking person and get a laugh, and even dream in Spanish. I will never forget the day at the University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana, in an advanced Spanish class with Professor Kronik (who brought the language to life for me) when I realized that I was no longer translating from Spanish to English, I was thinking in Spanish.

Perhaps in a past life I lived in Mexico and dreams on day of being able to speak English. Dream come true?