Cultura, Fotos, Mexico

31, El Cargadero, Zacatecas & tamborazo

During the fiestas de San Rafael, the patron saint of El Cargadero, the ghost town comes to life with migrants who have returned for the festivities. I’ve never been there for the feasts in October, but 4 years ago my parents went with Papá Chepe and Mamá Toni. During the day, they went through the bureaucracy of signing over the grandparents’ house to my mom. In the evening they joined the festivities in the Plaza del Migrante or watched the borlote (commotion) from the balcony. My grandparents’ – well, now mom’s – house overlooks the main plaza. This was great for people watching, but not great for making international calls.

My dad called me one evening during the trip. Even though he was inside the house with the windows closed, I could still barely hear him. It wasn’t the connection; the background noise of drums and horns from down below was drowning him out.

The sound was familiar. I’d heard it several times before at anniversary parties, weddings, birthday parties and any other special occasion. Pretty much every big party on the Zacatecano/maternal side of the family featured a tamborazo zacatecano.

I must confess, I’ve always been ambivalent to tamborazo, which sounds a bit like a marching band^[1] sometimes. It might just be the Guanjuato/paternal musical influence, but I never warmed to the music. For backyard parties, the tamborazo was always too loud. Sometimes, the horns and woodwinds sounded out of tune and the musicians weren’t that good. There was no singing; and after a while songs started to sound the same. Like the rest of my cousins, I was usually glad when the band took a break and the DJ played pocho-friendly music. Despite my ambivalence, I danced, especially if my 91-year old tamborazo-loving grandpa pulled me out to the dance floor. I love dancing with Papá Chepe and will take every opportunity I get while he can still dance.

I feel a little bad for feeling this way. I’m supposed to be proud of my culture and champion it, right? Even if it hurts my ears?
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Cultura

#aztlanreads

Yesterday afternoon, I noticed some of my Twitter contacts naming fiction and non-fiction works by Chicana/o writers and scholars. As is the custom on twitter, they added a searchable hashtag: #aztlanreads.

First it was just 3 or 4 people chiming in, but it’s grown. It’s obvious, there are hundreds of texts out there by Chicana/o writers. Xicano007 said #aztlanreads will be the perfect way to show others that we do indeed read and write. Annemarie Pérez, a recently minted PhD in English, replied that it could also be useful to anyone at a loss for finding Chicana/o texts. She added that it’s neat to see how the same texts have influenced several people as they’re mentioned again and again.

I added a few contributions including my blog’s namesake Spilling the Beans: Lotería Chicana by José Antonio Burciaga. Then I pulled out his collection of poetry Undocumented Love/Amor Indocumentado which includes one of my favorite poems, “Bilingual Love.” I’m not sure I’ll be adding books to my reading list any time soon or going back to re-read old favorites.

The #aztlanreads list is growing. You don’t have to be on Twitter to view it, but you do need a Twitter account to join the conversation on Twitter. (Your account can be private, but your tweets won’t show up in the #aztlanreads database, only to your approved followers.)

Check it out and add your favorite texts. There are no rules. You can add edited volumes, prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction, texts you read in your Chicana/o Studies classes, lo que sea.

There’s chatter of starting other lists such as #aztlanfilms and #aztlanmusic to highlight the work of other Chicana/o creatives. Maybe if we get crazy, we can add an #aztlanblogs.

Hah.

Deportes, Fotos

31, Dodger Stadium

There are a lot of empty seats in Dodger Stadium these days, kind of like when I took this photo, but that was after a game.

Fotos, Los Angeles

31, Venice (CA) & dogs at restaurants

Mondays are always rest days for me. At least that’s how they’re set up on the schedule. If I skip a run or have to rearrange my week, I might have to run on Monday. Not today. I took advantage of my rest day and margarita Monday deals.

Sean and I had dinner at Kay n’ Dave’s in downtown Culver City. They have $3 house margaritas on Mondays. We sat outdoors along the sidewalk since the inside was a little noisy. All was cool until a pair of twenty-something women clad in yoga gear sat at the table beside us. One of the women had a small dog with her on a leash. I was a little annoyed and tweeted my distaste: There should be a no dogs section on restaurant patios. Just because we’re outdoors doesn’t mean I want to eat my dinner next to your dog.

Here’s the thing: I don’t dislike dogs. I really like my family’s dog, VR, but I’m not about to bring him to a restaurant. That’s just… rude.

I’ve never been at a restaurant where someone brings their dog near the tables, so I don’t know what’s the normal protocol. I also didn’t know that Kay n’ Dave’s was dog friendly. The waitress fawned over the dog while the women snapped photos on their iPhones. Later, another waiter brought him a bowl of water. The women ignored the dog’s whines of hunger when their food arrived and gossiped about never giving up a dog for a man (surprise, surprise!). Otherwise, the dog was well-behaved and bothered us less than the womens’ “likes” every third word.

Is bringing a dog to a casual restaurant with outdoor seating normal… for the Westside? Should we have said we were uncomfortable and that one of us is allergic to dogs?

Cambios, Fotos

31, Rancho Park & maintaining

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been tracking everything I eat. I did this, along with tallying up the points value of those foods, while I was trying to lose weight with Weight Watchers. As I got the hang of eating the right foods, I stopped actively tracking as I continued to lose weight and eventually reached my goal weight and WW Lifetime status

I’ve been in maintenance mode for a year and a half. I’ve been semi-successful. I gained 10 pounds back. The first 5 came back pretty easily. I alluded to that in February. The next 5 came back in the late spring/summer.

I’d be dishonest if I said the weight gain didn’t bother me. I explained this to Stacia in the comments of her post on pre/post pregnancy self-image.

I don’t have a pre- and post-pregnancy view of my body image. I think I have a three (maybe four) broad views. There’s the me I knew for so long as always overweight, which I still thought was beautiful. There’s me as I lost weight over the course of a year. There’s me at my low weight. And me now about 10 lbs above that. If there’s a time when I’m most stressed about my looks, it’s probably lately…

[Stacia replied and asked if it the stress was wedding related.]

Nah, it’s not about wedding stress so much, at least not yet. I think it’s more about some pants not fitting and feeling like this extra weight is keeping me from improving and being a stronger runner. I also think this anxiety about any weight gain probably is going to be with me for a while. I’ve never lost a significant amount of weight and everything you hear is “it’s gonna come back… plus some!” I don’t want to undo the work. And frankly, I did feel more confident and better about my body 10 lbs lighter… but I’m a stronger runner now. Strange.

I’m not actively trying to lose weight while training for the Long Beach Marathon, but I don’t want to gain more. Enter tracking sans points and limiting eating out to weekends. I didn’t realize I was snacking so much, especially when bored at work and late at night after dinner. I don’t think snacking is bad, but I need to eat more nutritious snacks and reign in my sweet tooth. After all, I do want to get back to goal weight, the wedding pressure is no joke.