Mother's Day

Today was Mother's Day in the US. I call these days Hallmark Card Days, but it is always nice to make it a little special :)

I am the lucky mother of two of the best daughters ever! they are beautiful, intelligent and just plain great. Lizzie came over this weekend, Sandy  lives a little too far to make it to California, but she tries to come as often as she can :)

On Saturday, Lizzie took Marvin to dialysis, and then when we came home we tried to decide a place to go eat. We settled for GBurgers in La Habra. It was great! The burgers tasted really good, I had the Caprese Burger with tomato, avocado, fresh basil,mozzarella and garlic alioli, Lizzie had a cheese burger, and we shared garlic Parmesan fries.

When we got home, there was a package waiting for me, it was a dozen chocolate covered strawberries from Lizzie!

For dinner we had breaded pork and croquetas. Lizzie brought some cake from Extraordinary cakes in San Diego. I ate a slice of banana cake. Very good. We each also had a chocolate strawberry :)

Sunday morning, Marvin woke me up saying breakfast was ready. I also heard some voices, I got up and Jeff was there too! He had stopped by on his way from central California to San Diego. He brought some great cookies too. http://shop.brownbuttercookies.com/ He didn't stay for breakfast because he had a gig in San Diego, but it was nice to see him.

Marvin had cooked chocolate chip waffles in a buttermilk batter and crisp bacon, and freshly squeezed orange juice from our orange tree. It was yummy!

Sandy called to wish me a Happy Mother's Day. I was so happy to hear from her , she said she was going for a bike ride as the day in SLC was very nice.

For an early dinner Lizzie made guacamole for an appetizer and also deviled eggs. Marvin cooked green beans, boiled potatoes , garlic mayonnaise, and fillet Mignon. For dessert we had raspberry chocolate cake. Delicious dinner!!!

All in all it was a very nice Mother's Day. Thanks Lizzie and Sandy and Marvin for making it so special :)

A story about my mother

Since tomorrow is Mother's Day in the US, I think I will write a little anecdote about my mother.

It was in the early 40's I think . At that time, my mom and dad were pretty wealthy, they travelled a lot, we had a nanny and a chauffeur and lived in a beautiful house in one of the best areas of Barcelona. My paternal grandmother (yaya) lived with us and when my parents travelled, or partied, she along with the nanny, took care of Nuri. I wasn't born yet.

They usually travelled with another couple that were their best friends. He was the owner of a big textile company. They travelled in style.

This particular time I am writing about is a trip they took to the Canary Islands and Northern Africa. By the pictures I have of them, it seems like they had a great time. In Africa, they met this Emir with his court. He was a Muslim prince from Sahara, and he totally fell for my mother. He offered my father 10 elephants and some other stuff (jewels and money) in exchange for my mother. My mother told us this story many many times. She said the prince was very good looking and seemed very smitten with her. He invited the whole party to his place for dinner, he lived in a Palace. They were impressed.

My mother said that sometimes she wondered how her life would have been had she gone with the prince. She called him "MI PRINCIPE AZUL" (which in Spanish fairy tales is what prince charming is called).

my mother is next to the prince, she was blond at the time.

 

I asked my mother to tell me this story many times, it was always my favorite :)

 

When my mother and father had some disagreements or were mad at each other, sometimes my father would say he should have taken the 10 elephants, and my mother would say she should have gone with el principe azul!

 

I might have been a Muslim princess... ;)

 



5 de mayo

In my early days of working at Jersey School we always had a big celebration for  the "5 de mayo". The teachers would teach the kids some Mexican songs and/or dances and we invited the parents to watch the performances. Most teachers wore Mexican dresses and a good time was had by all.
The parens made the outifts for the kids and I taught them the dace :)

Nowadays they don't do anything for the 5 de mayo, because it "interferes" with teaching/tests/reading/etc. In the beginning I didn't know exactly what 5 de mayo was, or cared. What I enjoyed was the fiesta mood, the fun, the colors. Parents also brought homemade tacos, enchiladas, etc. Some of the best Mexican food I ever ate. Of course now they don't allow home cooked food in the schools anyway.

My aide at the time was Maria Delima, she gave me the dress I'm wearing.

 

Today I cooked dinner at home, my delicious enchiladas suiza and refried beans.

Before that we had guacamole, and nachos.

And I had several Coronitas!

No Margaritas today.

It was all good!

May 1st

Just to start the month right, I will write and tell you what's been going on in  La Mirada.
On the 23rd I went to get my hair  highlighted and shaped, looks good, since I started having it done with highlights, it doesn't show my "bald" spots, it seems my hair looks thicker too, so it's worth the $$$.

Thursday Norbert came over to fix the automatic garage door, nice of him :), he also did a couple of other things  and got the SSR started. Late we went to El Torito ( I got 2 courtesy free meals - Lizzie knows why). I had not been feeling very good but I really wanted a Cadillac Margarita, so I had 2, and we both had shrimp, beef and chicken fajitas. They were yummy!

I also had some tests done and I am happy to say my diabetes is well controlled, and all the tests came out fine. I also had a mammogram -no results yet. This Friday I am going to the podiatrist. I still have a cough :(

Marvin has been feeling pretty good lately, and he's been driving the SSR to the grocery store and to get a haircut, he also went and had all the vehicles detailed and washed :)

I saw some interesting movies in April. "Magic Valley" (2011) original title was "Buhl, Idaho" but was changed to Magic Valley. It's an Indie, the director is from Buhl. Sad movie, but the landscape brought some memories.
"Hello I must be going" (2012), and "The Guilt Trip" (2012)

And here's the books I read in April:

Jess Walter - Beautiful Ruins

Susan Isaacs - Goldberg Variations

Anthony Capella - The Food of Love

Sarah Strohmeyer - Smart Girls Get What They Want

Katie Fforde - A Perfect Proposal

Polly Williams - Afterwife

Marvin's birthday

On Sunday, April 21st, Marvin had his 73rd birthday.

I have been sick all week with a bad cold and cough. I was glad Lizzie came over and she and Marvin, who was feeling well, did all the shopping for the celebration. I bought a birthday cake.

Marvin's brother and sisters and Lee came over, also David and Iris and their son. Rick and Christina and their baby Jameson were going to comer  but because of my cold, they wisely decided to come visit another day when I felt better.

We  missed Sandy and her family, they were having a nice time in Missouri attending Marty's brother Kevin's wedding.

We had a nice spread of sandwiches, we made paninis, had  different salads, and cakes. We all enjoyed it. Lulu was not too excited to spend part of the day in the kennel because Mary and Dewey's little devil poodle makes such a racket when Lulu comes around!

 

Here's everybody

 



 

and today Marvin got a gorgeous bouquet of flowers from Mia

It was a wonderful celebration!

No title

I haven't written lately because I have nothing much to say. The days go by fast, but mostly  I am always doing the same things...feeding and playing with the dog, taking Marvin  to dialysis 3 times a week, going grocery shopping, doing some housework, spending time gardening and enjoying the nice weather, cooking, reading, soaking in the Jacuzzi, watching TV and being in the computer way too long!

Such is the life of a retiree!

And it is true..the less I do the less I want to do..

Just for fun, I decided to have this text checked for spelling, grammar etc. And these are the results..

Spelling and punctuation are correct. But I have 3 critical issues: wordiness, writing style and vocabulary use.  My score is 63/100

LOL not anymore! ;)

This is the end of my random post, it is now 2:59AM

Tristan's visit :)

It's always nice to have Tristan visit us. It's been a short stay, he came in Tuesday and is leaving tomorrow, but we enjoyed every minute of it.

We didn't do much, I told him he could do whatever he wanted and I gave him a few  choices if he wanted to do them. He was not very interested so that's what we did.

I picked him up at the airport, after I took Marvin to dialysis. He told me he saw a woman at the airport drinking an In'N'Out milkshake and he had a craving for one, easy. There was an In'n'Out in Bellflower Blvd  and we stopped and had one each. Then we went home. Lulu was crazy happy to see him, jumped and peed all over!!! Then I went to McDonald's to get chicken nuggets for lunch.
After I picked up Marvin, they spent some time bonding out in the garden, he also played basketball. I cooked spaghetti for dinner and baked some brownies.

On Wednesday he woke up after noon, Tristan decided he wanted Jack in the Box for lunch, so we both went to get it. After lunch the 3 of us went to Best Buy to get stuff for Tristan. I think he got 10 movies :) Then we went to the grocery store to get some snacks and stuff. For dinner we went to Panda Inn, which has become a sort of tradition, we had Phoenix chicken and Panda Beef, and Chinese pot stickers. Was very good :)

After we got home we watched some basketball, played with Lulu etc. After Marvin went to bed,  Tristan and I got to talking about movies and music etc, and we ended up talking till 3AM.

 

Today I took Marvin to dialysis, surprisingly enough Tristan was up, Lulu had been scratching his door and jumping up to the door knob and woke him up. When I came home, we went to Chipotle for lunch, he had 6 chicken tacos, and we ate them at The Habit where I had a cheeseburger and fries.

 

I had asked him if he wanted to go to the beach for a while, maybe eat at Ruby's, but he was too lazy to go anywhere, so we just hung around and chill.

He was surprised that Lulu would go straight to her kennel every time I went out of the house, I told him I always give her a treat so she's learned to do it. I guess Tristan wanted a treat too.

We all have had a very good time!!! :)