Papas con brillitos

Papas con brillitos:

Literal translation from Spanish: "Potatoes with sparkles"

Neo demanded the other day "potatoes with sparkles". It sounded odd I thought, but then again it could be interpreted as avant-garde, I could think of Breton or Dalí demanding to eat sparkling potatoes.

But she didn't want them in the metaphoric way, she very much wanted to eat them, so she pulled me back from my reverie: "I want to eat potatoes with sparkles!"

In my home town, where we had just been, we have a true delicacy: boiled potatoes sliced covered with chili powder, salt and lime juice. I thought that maybe in her creativity she saw the chili powder on them as sparkles, so I offered to make them for her.

"No!, not that. I want the sparkling potatoes I had at my friend's house!"

"Which friend?" I asked

"My friend from when I was a baby!"

We had recently traveled back to the city in California where we lived when she was born, and met with a group of moms and kids we used to see every day. I thought about it until I remembered her eating any sort of potato there. And it suddenly hit me:

At J's house she tried a new type of potato chip: "Pringles"

So, the forensic linguist in me traced her thinking process:

pringles -------> sprinkles -------> sparkles -------> brillitos

From now on Pringles shall forever be known as the chips that sparkle!

Neoism

pi·ya·mas pa·ra na·dar: (from Spanish, well sort of.) noun.

1. Literally: Swimming pajamas
2. Bathing suit
3. Neo's own (and apparently necessary) concept coined to call a garment for which she already possesses not one, but two names.

Cutting corners

I was a late bloomer in the maternal instinct department. I remember fondly playing with Barbies, always setting up a story with career, house, and great friendships, I guess my definition of success back then included being a journalist moonlighting as an ice-skater living in a pepto-bismoed house and sports car and a white horse in the living room, yes, the horse had to be in the living room.

I can’t remember really enjoying cuddling a doll as it was my own baby.

Later, I remember being in school in a class about vocations (yes I went to catholic school) and they talked how you felt a calling to the type of life you wanted: married life, career life, religious life, and I seriously asked about having a calling to be celibate, you see I defined myself as a plant.

So, Fast-forward to me reproducing. Got lucky. The kid is everything I’m not.

Thank God.

Now, once I was actually contemplating the idea of me having kids I remember thinking about all the cool staff I’d do. They’d call me by my name, wear vintage rock tee shirts, boys would have long hair and girls would do, I don’t know, something equally outrageous.

My kids would identify Mozart and Beethoven’s music in their toddler hood just by listening to it, and know all Beatles songs. And I would read high literature to them every night, something in the lines of Proust’s In search of lost time… In French…

Fast-forward a little more to me cutting corners.

Neo’s watching Hercules for the n-th time.

Can’t name Beethoven’s symphonies but can demand for Apple TV.

The husband asked if she can go to sleep in the pony tail he did earlier today, in the hopes it’ll look good enough in the morning for school.

“Are you kidding me?” I asked

“You don’t waste good hairdos like this one… You have to get at least two good days out them if not more…”

Oh yeah… Someone is going to call social services on me…

Or my mother…

Welcome to the wrong side of the border

It's inauguration day, not of the new President of our former home, but of our blog! As a bilingual, biracial couple raising Neo down in Mexico, we're enjoying the beauties of a cultural existence the likes of which my forefathers would not have likely imagined.

I am the wetback gringo who moved south of the border -- the same one who passed sophomore Spanish with an average D. Clever thinking, right? If my teacher could see me now...

My wife, she's the intellectual of the two - brilliant poet, writer and deep thinker. Neo, is the little bundle of joy who loves to spout expressions like “Quiero washa mis hands” – yes, the true epitome of Spanglish.

Now if only the misses and I could stop picking up Neo’s expressions, we might continue to be taken seriously in our professional lives! What this blog will contain, only time will tell, but expect a mix of Spanglish scattered throughout!

The Wetback Gringo saying bienvenidos a nuestro blog!