Last night I joined Pachuco3000, Chimatli, El Chavo, El Random Hero, Wendy Carrillo (who goes to USC, boo!) and Leticia of Thats So Paisa for the monthly bloguer@ gathering. We met up at La Carioca in East LA for beers and $2 waters (really, they charged us for water).

After talking about Halloween and Día de los Muertos plans, I learned that Chimatli had also just finished reading Gustavo Arellano’s new book, Orange County: A Personal History.

“You’re from the same place, right?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I told her. “Well, my mom is from the same place, El Cargadero.”

“Did you grow up in Orange County too?”

“Oh no.”

We both liked the book and discussed some of the things Gustavo wrote. I don’t have time to get in to a full review (I should be packing). However, I can say that I really enjoyed the autobiographic aspects. As I learned more about Gustavo and his family, I learned more about my own family history and roots. While everything felt so familiar to me, Chimatli found some things curious, like how Gustavo addressed his grandparents.

“Do you call your grandparents something like that too?” she asked.

“Yeah. I call my mom’s parents — the ones from El Cargadero — Papa Chepe and Mama Toni. But on my dad’s side, the Guanajuato side, we call them Grandpa and Grandma.”

I never thought this was odd. It’s easy to generalize your personal experiences and make them seem normal. But Chimatli made me wonder. Could such labels be associated with gente del rancho? Wendy chimed in and suggested that the labels may correspond to the role your grandparents played in your upbringing. Perhaps the mama/papa was emphasized because the grandparent played a surrogate parent role or lived with you.

Or it could all just be a family thing. So I went to the expert on my family, my mom.

Mom admitted that all she and her cousins addressed their grandparents as Mama ____ y Papa ____.

“Mama Toni’s dad was Papayito. I don’t know where the -yito came from. [His name was Juan.] There was your Mama Chila, Papa Chepe’s mom, too.”

I’m still curious, thus the question of the week.

La Pregunta: How do you address your grandparents?

I love looking at my site statistics. That’s how I find out someone linked to me (WordPress isn’t always updated) or that someone in Arizona spent an inordinate amount of time going through the archives.

The best part of stats is the search words. I’m surprised at the words or combination of words that most people type in to a search engine. While most people get here through something expected like funny Chicana/o t-shirts or costumes, there are some words that just make me scratch my head.

This week I got: super hot Chicana p*** (rhymes with corn)

Really now? I mean, I may be super. I’ve been called hot once or twice. I’m definitely a Chicana, no doubt there. But p***? Dude must have been disappointed (yeah, I know my gender bias is showing). All he got here was a question of the week post on telenovelas (see the comments).

La Pregunta: Do you get puzzling searches?

I’ve been craving chocolate cake (with or without flan on top, fine by me) or cupcakes. And yes, that might be a hint.

La Pregunta: Do you have a sweet tooth? What’s your weakness?

When you’ve been blogging for a while, you realize something. People quit blogging all the time. Some of my favorite bloggers no longer post or took long breaks from their blogs. They’re off becoming attorneys or working on their dreams of becoming professional writers. Sometimes, we just realize that we shared too much and need to take a step back.

Anyway, one of my favorite bloggers was the <a href="http://dailytexican.blogspot.com/&quot;Daily Texican. He stopped blogging when he moved to Seattle for law school a few years ago. One of my favorite DT features was the “cholo word of the day.” DT defined Caló, Spanglish, or common Spanish phrase (e.g., chota, Entiendes Mendez). He’d also use the words/phrases in clever sentences and translate them for non-Chicana/o consumption. I loved the translations.

In honor of DT, I’m focusing the QOTW on Caló and Spanglish.

La Pregunta: Do you use Caló and/or Spanglish words/phrases in your daily life? What’s your favorite Caló and/or Spanglish word/phrase(s)? If you’d like, define the word/phrase a la DT (see above for an example).

A few weeks ago I was hanging out with a good friend who is having an amazing summer. Still, she confided that something was missing: the summer romance.

I smiled to myself and didn’t say anything, but it made me think of this list written in the big loopy handwriting of a young woman. The summer romance is on there too. Making out on the beach at night. Falling love. Champagne trick? I’m not sure…

I didn’t make my own list or tried to fulfill that list. If I did, a trip to Salamanca, Guanajuato would be on there. I’m missing Salamanca more than usual, mainly because I usually visit around this time of year (except for 2005, I visited in December). My summer just doesn’t feel right without a visit to Guanajuato and looking through pictures won’t suffice.

La Pregunta: What do you need to make your summer feel complete? Or, what’s your quintessential summer activity?