Habla Un Poco Espanol

Saturday there was much to do. SIE was here overnight Friday to Saturday.

How does one little person have so much energy!!!??? He was going full speed from about 5 pm till almost midnight. We tried to go to bed at 8 pm and we turned off the lights and got into bed. He made sure we both had flashlights because it's pretty dark in the country. Mine had a smaller beam, so it became the moon and his was the sun who kept eating my moonlight. Then that hungry sun made him hungry (although he'd been eating almost non-stop since arriving). His parents had dropped him off with a lot of good food. They'd brought a roasted chicken which he loved, but only after asking if it was a real chicken or if that's just what we call it. Yes, I lied. "Oh, we just call it chicken." Sorry. I couldn't face the dead meat issue. Besides he loved it after that.

By then it was 9 pm and I made the mistake of saying we could play "animal hospital" in bed quietly for a while. His imagination is so fast and he loves role playing. Isn't four kind of young for that concept? For the next hour it was, "Now, you call me doctor, and say, My pet isn't feeling well." "Now you be the nurse that helps me. Say, Doctor, this pet needs an exray." At 10 I told him we had to go to sleep. But then we had to read 3 books, two of which we'd already read earlier. He still wasn't tired. I told him he could watch a video, but we'd have to turn off the lights. One amazing thing about him is that he is a master of staying awake until a video is over. This video gets stuck and needs help fast forwarding, so after he woke me up twice to fix it and I realized it was midnight, I told him we just had to close the dvd and wait to fix it in the morning.

All the time we were in bed, he was on one side with my pillow. I had to wait till he was sitting up and not paying attention, to switch pillows. As soon as the dvd went off, he climbed over me to switch to the side near the wall and stole my pillow in the process. At least he was holding still, so I knew he'd be asleep soon.

We didn't wake up until 9 am! The first thing he said was, "Turn off the lights; it's too bright!" Less than 5 minutes later, he was awake, alert, and back to role playing. He's so funny and fun.

It took me about two hours to get the house under control after he left. Later, I decided to watch the debates. I couldn't believe how long they went - like 4 hours? But I did mannage to stay awake for it. It kept saying it was broadcasting LIVE, but New Hampshire time is 3 hours ahead of us, so just how LIVE could it be? Plus they'd already played some of the comments on the evening news. I wish I'd counted how many times Hillary said, "I have 35 years experience with making change." How come no one asked her how old she was 35 yrs ago and point out that they too could make change being, in fact, older now than she was 35 years ago? And also point out that just because she says it over and over doesn't make it true. That's what G. Bush has been doing for eight years....

OK, all this to say: I didn't make it to Mass this AM. I ended up going to the 1pm Spanish Mass. There's a large migrant population here in Washington, as you could guess because of all the orchards and all the berry picking needed. So I decided to go to the Spanish Mass at the Woodland parish. The Spanish Mass is wonderful. It is such a spirit boost. I would recommend it to anyone who feels like church has become boring and/or hard to sit through. The music is most wonderful. The children are gorgeous and no one cares if they make noise. The priest, whose 1st language is English, speaks very slowly and clearly. I was able to pick up at least some of the sermon. I guess it helped that it was the Epiphany - El dia de los tres mago y Jesuchristo. But even with the responses written I had a rough time keeping up with the congregation. They seem to talk so mucho rapido. And we didn't have to sing "We Three Kings of Orient Are", which I bet was sung in every gringo church in the county today and I cannot sing without thinking about exploding cigars. I might go again next week. Amen. Adios.