Feliz Compleaños

It was Raquel’s granddaughter’s birthday and we were honoured to be invited to join the festivities. The party was to start at 3 pm but it didn’t seem to be jumping enough at the time, for us, so we waited a while. Most Mexican activities start later than planned, so I thought going early wasn’t a good idea.

In the meantime, we watched the setup of the bouncy castles, tables and chairs and all the other things associated with a four-year-old’s birthday party. Rosalie wanted to try the bouncy castle but I vetoed that as I remember a few years ago she nearly broke her neck on a trampoline. I was tempted to let her try this time since the trampoline incident had been hilarious.

I was a little apprehensive to go over, as we knew no one other than Raquel and Omar. Also, no one except Raquel and her son Lalo Jr. speaks English. We readily accepted the offered tacos, although I could only manage one.

The whole thing turned out fine, as we were left alone with Raquel. We enjoyed all the babies; said how cute they were and the Mums and Dads smiled their appreciation. We watched the bigger kids trying to maim themselves on the bouncy castle. Altogether, a fun afternoon.

Lalo Jr. does our dental work every year but he had a problem remembering us. Of course, he has a lot of clients and can’t remember everyone.

These are upper-middle-class Mexicans, and like most places in the world, there is a hierarchy. As we were waiting to join the festivities I noticed a little boy standing on our side the gate looking in. It reminded me somewhat of me as a kid. I wasn’t sad or upset about being on the outside looking in; it was just the way it was. Some have money, some don’t, you just keep pushing until you get to where “they” are; or not, your choice.

Raquel had to leave to babysit another grandkid so we gave our thanks and went home. Later I noticed that they were starting to bash some pinatas. We hustled over there and had fun watching the kids beat the hell out of these things. They always let the little kids go first and in the end, the heavy, older kids move in and demolish it once and for all. In the video, the guy pulling the rope is Lalo Pimienta Jr., Raquel’s son. The stocky guy in the blue shirt is Omar, and the tall lady behind Rosalie is Susanna, Omar’s wife. I did some misspelling of the video title which just shows that even I aren’t perfect.

Rosalie, in the meantime, found Omar and Suzanna’s new baby at which point Suzanna walked off and left us to babysit. It was nice that they trusted us enough to leave their three-month-old baby with us. Eventually, Omar came by and relieved us of the lovely little bundle and we went back to our casa to spend the rest of the evening.

But we weren’t quite finished, Lalo Jr. along with the little birthday girl Lua, came by with some birthday cake for us. We wrecked our fasting but what the heck it’s only once in a while. They also brought us a goodie bag of candies, that we will hand out to the kids in the neighbourhood, who didn’t get to attend. In the meantime, the adults were having fun now, in the bouncy castle, giggling like a bunch of kids. All in all a very fun day.