silver club

She's still a lickin' and a tickin'. A few days ago she turned 50 or something...jeez, I've lost track. Friday, she and I decided to hit Aunt Suzie's for a lil' bit o' eye-talian food and then grabbed some lil' chocolates from the semi-new Chocolatier on 5th in Pork Slap. We ended up watching this B-movie titled, Rolling Kansas, which totally brought me back to my days in Lawrence-cough, cough. On Saturday I spent some time in Jackson Heights searching out the perfect Indian husband, but had no luck so I headed back to Brooklyn to get my groove on at Chrissy-poo's b-day party. After however many beers and oinking out on some delicious cake that a guest made, Chris brought out the pooh-ed out kitty litter cake that looked as if someone had taken a vacation from some serious scooping. Luckily, she was able to get all the cat hairs out prior to serving it up...

reunited

I was in Kansas a few weeks back for the big ol' family reunion, which happened to coincide with the Mexican Fiesta held in my ol' 'hood. Relatives came from all over the states and Mexico...even one from BoCoCa, Brooklyn that I hadn't seen in 15 years. Crazy to think that he lives just a few miles away and I haven't seen him in that long. One of the weekend's highlights was seeing mi abuelita play the violin in her mariachi group. She played a 45-min set and as always, blew everyone away.
My grandmother helped start up the first all female Mariachi group in the country--something the macho mariachi groups couldn't quite grasp. Ladies playin' instruments and actually bein' good at it? No way...
At the peak of the group's livelihood things were shattered, when half of the group was killed in the Kansas City Hyatt Regency collapse in 1981. Strangely enough, it all occurred during the last scheduled family reunion. All I remember from that time was waiting around various hospitals to find out if grandma had been admitted or not--not really understanding the severity of the accident. Years later she would recount to me that daunting period of time spent under the debris, questioning her god as to whether or not she would get out alive. She noted that if it weren't for a larger man that had fallen next to her that had taken the brunt of the debris, she probably wouldn't be here today. After all of her physical rehabilitation, abuelita was back on her feet and no sooner did she have her violin in her hand, she was out regrouping the mariachi. Maybe one of these days I'll get off my ass and start playing the violin again. Abuelita told me that I better get prepared for next year, because I'll be joining her--on stage.

mz. america

Lady Uffish is so patriotic sometimes it makes me want to cry. She and I decided to spend the 4th at her co-worker's garden party, and I was finally able to meet all of the fabulous people that are helping to make it a better place for you and me. After hitting the rooftop, where we were able to see all three fireworks presentations, we headed back down to the garden and were treated to not one, not two, but three wonderful firedancing acts. His was pretty amazing, as he was pretty cute too;)

not in my backyard

Chrissy-poo and I took a lil' walk over to the Atlantic Yards to catch a glimpse of it all before its turned into some megalopolis of buildings. I'd rather have art like this than some ginormous stadium with screaming, drunken sports fanatics....but that's just me.