Hot dog!

“I’ve never had a bacon-wrapped hot dog.”

My friend almost choked, even though he wasn’t eating anything at the time. He coughed and gasped for air.

“What?!” he finally exclaimed.

His reaction was as incredulous as Diego’s and everyone else’s in the comments to my Obama town hall recap.

Yes, I’ve lived in LA [county, Hacienda Heights isn’t in the city] my entire life and never had the desire to eat a danger dog or Salvi Dog or TJ Dog or Club Dog.

I remember my introduction to the bacon-wrapped hot dog: July 5, 1994.

I was 13 years old and caught up in World Cup fever. Mexico and Bulgaria were playing in the round of 16. I’d gone over to my friend Star’s house in Walnut to watch the game with her family. Her mom, Angelita, and tías were in the kitchen working on lunch while everyone else watched the game in suspense.

Star has the honor of being the first and only person to ever offer me a bacon-wrapped hot dog.

I looked at it like I look at cauliflower, with pure disdain and disgust.

“You’ve never had one of these?” Star asked incredulously?

“Nope.”

“Don’t you want to try one?” her sister, Miriam, chimed in.

“Nope. That just looks weird. I like my hot dogs plain. Just a little ketchup, mayo and maybe mustard.”

They shrugged their shoulders and asked their mom for a bacon-less weenie. I enjoyed my plain hot dog and chalked up the difference in hot dog preference to the girls’ Guadalajara origins.

Mexico and Bulgaria tied with one goal each. Bulgaria later won the game in penales. It was excruciating.

The events of that day have been repeated several times since. Every time Mexico loses in the Mundial or loses to the US I feel as crappy as I did 13 years ago. And every time I see a bacon-wrapped hot dog, I scrunch my nose and give it the cara de fuchi.

Simply put, no se me antojan.

Fotos, Política

Obama the Rockstar

“I feel like we’re at a rock concert,” Oiyan observed. Lisa and I nodded and looked ahead at the snaking line leading to a small lawn at Los Angeles Trade Tech College.

“Actually,” I noted, “it feels like we’re at an amusement park.”

I mean, who really goes to rock concerts at 8:30 in the morning?

But Oiyan was right, the town hall with Senator Obama was rather rock concert-ish.

For more photos and more on the town hall, click below.

Continue reading →

Preguntas, Sentimientos

Question of the week: Swoon

I currently do not have a crush.

Anyone who has known me for more than a minute knows this is weird. Chispa noted after I posted my 100 facts that in the nearly 10 years we’ve known each other, she’s never known me not to have a crush. Well, that was because most of the time we’ve known in each other, I was actually meeting lots of eligible young men. These days, most of the guys I interact with are ethically off-limits (married fellow grad students, undergrads in the program I work with). I just don’t get out that much.

I love crushes. Well, not the aspects that suck. You know, getting nervous around him and trying to analyze all his mixed signals (which you later learned weren’t mixed, but you just made things more complicated).

I love the beginning of the crush. I miss realizing that I like him and maybe he likes me too. That feeling makes me giddy. I’ve even been known to swoon, just ask anyone who was around late last summer when I met my last crush. It’s a nice feeling and I miss it. I think I might even be addicted to that feeling (which makes a lot of sense if you listen to Radiolab’s This is Your Brain On Love episode from last August).

I think I got addicted to it after my first crush. I was in first grade. My crush, Juan, was in second grade. Yes, he was Mexican and short. No, he did not have a goatee. I don’t know any seven year old who can grown facial hair. I liked Juan enough to get self-conscious about my appearance. The bad aspects of crushes start early on! I worried that he wouldn’t like me because my mom made me wear my hair in two trenzas (braids). I thought the trenzas made me look like a baby — nevermind that at 6 years old I was still a baby.

I don’t remember why I stopped liking Juan, but 20 years later, I’m going to blame the demise of my crush on my older brother. Danny and Juan became really good friends. (In fact, they’re still good friends after 20+ years.) At six, I understood that siblings’ friends were off-limits, or at the very least weird. Naturally, I stopped liking Juan. Instead, I became friends with Juan and when I was 14 I asked him to be one of the chambelanes in my quinceañera. It’s been a while since I’ve seen Juan, but he’s since had a child and gotten married.

La Pregunta: Do you remember your first crush? Tell me about him/her.

Política

Cars and candidates

“Están registrados para votar?” I asked my grandparents over dinner on Sunday. They shook their heads, despite having become naturalized citizens about five years ago (I helped them study for the test!).

“You should register them,” my mom suggested.

“I can’t, at least not for the primary election,” I informed my mom. “But they can register for the next elections in June and November.”

Then my mom turned to me and asked me what she’s been asking me since I was 12, “who should I vote for?”

“Well, I’m going to pick my candidate like I chose my car,” I responded in between bites of chicken.

“On color?” she asked.

“Yup,” I said and smiled. The main reason I chose to buy a Dodge Stratus rather than a Neon was because of the color. (To make me seem less shallow, I chose the Stratus after a weekend of driving my brother’s Stratus.)

“Obama?”

“Yup…”

Okay, so it’s not that simple. I’m not choosing Obama simply because I want to vote for the black candidate. I’ve voted for black candidates before (hello, Assemblywoman Karen Bass and Rep. Diane Watson). What black/brown divide?

“Actually,” I confessed to my mom, “I’m still undecided. But I know who I’m not voting for.”

I didn’t make my decision until this afternoon when I read the news about John Edwards backing out of the race. Hopefully I’ll be able to articulate my choice after the townhall with Senator Obama tomorrow.

Familia

Sixtyfive

“I probably won’t get to celebrate too many of these types of Masses,” noted Padre Roberto at the beginning of the Mass. Papá Chepe and Mamá Toni had just walked down half of the aisle in the small Huntington Park church. The church was filled with their family, a mix of generations. Even the priest was family. Padre Roberto is their nephew and ahijado (godson).

He’s right. How many couples get to celebrate 65 years of marriage?

My grandparents (and all their family by extension) are blessed. And we know it.

The ceremony was lovely. Padre Roberto spoke about the metaphorical wine in one’s marriage and the need to keep it replenished. Then Papá Chepe and Mamá Toni renewed their vows with the blessings of their children.

Following the Mass, we headed to La Verne for the reception for tacos and dancing and lots of pictures.

Lotería Chicana

Author Archives: cindylu