pedro

panzón makes his morning commute by kick scooter and bus, unless it rains, in which case coco and i take him in the sarcophagus, which is our beloved (and only) car. on a bright and sunny summer morning last year, as panzón arrived at work, he noticed two tree-trimmers and their tree-trimming truck right outside his building. he stopped, cautiously stepped off of his two-wheeled vehicle, folded it and waited for permission to pass from the street-level-tree-trimmer, who blew his whistle. the tree-level-tree-trimmer must have not heard the whistle over his chainsaw because while panzón was making a dash for the door below, after receiving a hand signal to do so, a cross section of the tree trunk whistled past his ear and hit him on the shoulder, barely missing his head, and knocking him to the ground.

at that moment, the tree-trimmers began to argue in spanish about whose fault it had been with a lot of pendejo-calling and finger-pointing. they, of course, tried to blame panzón, who surprised them by being mexican, but didn't get very far. by the time the tree-level-tree-trimmer had descended, and panzón had stopped seeing estrellitas (little stars), the street-level-tree-trimmer, who had a name tag that said pedro, offered him an ambulance. panzón refused the offer, figuring that if a tylenol at a hospital can cost up to fifty dollars, ambulance rides must be in the thousands. a co-worker took him to the hospital, where his cuts and abrasions were treated.

about a week later, as panzón was leaving for work, he opened the front door and saw pedro walking up our street towards our home. i thought maybe he had been fired and was seeking some sort of revenge. or maybe he felt terribly about what had happened and wanted to apologize. most of all, i speculated about how he had gotten our address. when they made eye contact, pedro got a puzzled look on his face and said, "hey, it's you! what are you doing here?". to which panzón responded perplexedly, "i live here. what are you doing here?". he was trimming a tree across the street.

the grand godparents

this weekend is ov's baptism and panzón and i are going to be his godparents, or as panzón announced proudly at the baptismal crash course we had to take in order to accept this honor, his grandparents. instead of elbowing him frantically like i did, the elderly lady giving the course was kind enough to agree with him, saying that both roles had a similar effect on a child's life, with one important difference: religion. after that, i sat very still through the rest of the course and kept drawing blanks when she asked simple questions about the sacraments, baptism and being a godparent.

i've gone to a couple of catholic schools in my life and have been submerged in baptismal waters three times, each in a different country. i didn't realize that this was considered sacrilege (i had always thought that i had been extra-blessed) until i tried to get my papers in order to get permission to get married in the church. the mexican priest who interviewed my parents and i was skeptical when i told him that i had been baptized in l.a., had my first communion in san diego and my confirmation in bogotá, colombia. my confirmation papers said i had been baptized in colombia, too. very sketchy indeed.

needless to say, i am not very religious, although i do find much spiritual value in certain symbolic traditions, like marriage (i felt illuminated inside santo domingo church in oaxaca, bursting with beethoven's ode to joy) and baptism (we haven't baptized coco yet, but that's another story). as for being ov's godmother, i can honestly say that mother will be the active ingredient with a touch of god here and there. i think panzón is going to stick with being grand.

tiny tragedy

yesterday was valentine's day and the sun came out in southern california to warm our damp hearts after a stormy month. we opened the blinds to let the sun pour into our living room and then left, enjoying a morning out at a sunday farmers market. panzón had to work, so coco and i spent the afternoon at my parents', watching the winter olympics, video-chatting with my sister, her husband and baby ov (who now crawls, by the way) and making a messy valentine card, which included gobs of glue and glitter, for panzón.

by the time we all got back home, which was past coco's bedtime, fafa the fish had ceased to exist. luckily, coco went straight to bed and didn't see him entangled in his fake plant, pale and motionless. he had been our pet for only two weeks and now he was being flushed down the toilet. i called my parents, who just happen to live close to the aquarium where we got the original fafa, and asked them to pick up a successor in the morning, while i took coco to the park.

panzón washed the fish bowl and put it back in its place, fake plant and all. this morning, coco was so busy getting dressed, eating breakfast and brushing her teeth, that she didn't realize her beloved fish was missing in his bowl. we had a great time at the park and when we got home, a slightly darker fafa was there to greet us.

here's to fafa the first. apparently the sun shone just a little too brightly for him.

piano

even though my musical instrument is the violin (see the violin), i have always had a deep admiration for the piano. maybe because my sister played it on sleepy afternoons, making it my siesta soundtrack, or because i listened to too much tori amos during my adolescence (i still love her first three albums, but have not even bothered with her last four) and listen to a lot of nina simone. i never acted on this feeling because i thought pianos were unoriginal and because, even though my hands are anatomically perfect for the instrument, i secretly feared my fingers would not be strong enough. also, i didn't have the passion.

how did i know i didn't have the passion? because i have seen the passion. okay, so i've seen it mostly in movies. in the young murderess of vier minuten (http://tr.im/NuDK), in the stuttering scatterbrain of shine (http://tr.im/NuE5), in the cowardly hero of the pianist (http://tr.im/NuEn), in the sexually repressed piano teacher in la pianiste (http://tr.im/NuEF), in the mute mother of the piano (http://tr.im/NuEM), and last but not least, in the playful child genius in amadeus (tee hee hee!).

sometimes i wonder maybe coco will have the passion. i have caught her sliding her finger yearningly over the tusks of elephants in pictures, producing a charming melody by jingling a set of house keys, stepping on her grandfather's feet as though they were pedals. will my piano fantasy lead me to repeat history in the form of a red piano for her third birthday? it is a toy, after all.

something's fishy

meet fafa, coco's first pet. we got him and his bowl (panzón and i took a minimalist approach to the interior design) on saturday at a local mom and pop aquarium shop. i think the rainbow fish by swiss writer/illustrator marcus pfister was influential in her decision to get a blue betta instead of a goldfish, like elmo's dorothy and pinocchio's cleo. also, they're overrated.

when we asked her what she wanted to name him, she said "coco". i told her to choose another name, since that's her occasional nickname (and official blog name). she couldn't think of anything else, so we named him fafa in honor of a little stuffed octopus we lost months ago at blockbuster. she still remembers him and i always tell her that he's happy watching movies like finding nemo (http://tr.im/MCdM) and the life aquatic with steve zissou (http://tr.im/MCe2) while eating tubs of popcorn.

meanwhile, the real fafa gets his entertainment from watching us while eating his daily dose of three tiny pellets.

fruity and loopy

before christmas, our fruit was homeless. mangos, bananas, pears and kiwis would roll around aimlessly on our counter top before wobbly settling on the drab skin-colored tile surface. fruit is supposed to brighten up a kitchen, but ours was far from looking like a still life, it was just still there.

my mom, who has always been keen on having a bounty of fruit on the kitchen counter (i think she equates a kitchen without a fruit bowl to a woman without lipstick), found this scenario a bit depressing. she also found the perfect solution just in time for the holidays: the fruit loop fruit bowl, handmade with a single piece of chromed steel wire, designed by anglo-swiss duo dan black and martin blum (http://www.black-blum.com). it was a christmas miracle for the displaced fruit!

i wonder if my mom will ever get me to wear lipstick on an regular basis.

la fonda

coco, panzón and i were recently in guadalajara, mexico, where we visited the children's museum, el trompo mágico (http://tr.im/LVN5), which means "the magic spinning top". we were surprised to see that it was not at all crowded for a saturday and coco fully enjoyed her experience at maroma (summersault), the pavilion dedicated to younger children. she filled her shopping cart with realistic mock fruit and then checked out at the market, carefully placed faux freshly laid eggs in their cartons at the farm, gave medical exams and vaccines to newborn dolls at the clinic, and cooked and served plastic food at the restaurant or fonda.

maroma is filled with the delightful drawings of cecilia rébora (http://crebora.blogspot.com/), a brilliant local children's illustrator. i especially liked the fonda's backdrop, a collage-like mural in which a turtle wearing a bow tie is enjoying his dinner. i immediately recognized the background photo as being one of my favorite restaurants in guadalajara (it's actually in the town of zapopan, which was swallowed by the city): la fonda de doña gabina escolástica.

a fonda, by definition, is a humble establishment that offers regional food at economical prices. fondas are usually managed by women (doña means lady), as opposed to street food stands, which are typically run by men. doña gabina escolástica's fonda is located near the basílica de zapopan, home of the famous virgen de zapopan, a small wooden statue whose romería is one of the most important pilgrimages in mexico. the fonda's decoration is simple, yet inviting: colorful papel picado (perforated paper), bright printed tablecloths, posters from mexico's golden age of film and lucha libre (mexican wrestling) paraphernalia.

although this fonda is famous for its pozole, which is a flavorful and very satisfying soup, the menu is full of delicious antojitos. my all-time favorite is the tostada de manitas de cerdo, which is pickled pigs feet on a refried bean-smeared tostada covered with shredded cabbage and tomato sauce. it comes in a deboned presentation upon request, but i personally prefer to gnaw on each of the tiny bones and leave them in a neat little pile on my plate.