The Serrano’s New Year’s Eve
Alright – I know that many of you are recovering from some sort of new year’s celebration. Perhaps recuperating from an all night binge – Ashlee this better not be you because if Jose wakes me up to go to church in the morning – then you are going with me – there’s no doubt about that. So, my idea of New Years includes one of the following options:
Loser Version – staying at home with Ben & Jerry’s watching Dick Clark’s Rocking New Year’s Eve on television and going to sleep at 11:00 – after the ball drops in New York.
Single Version – going to the bar with friends – and praying that you are not the designated driver – (of course if it were me, I would be… damn my natural aversion to alcohol)
The Couple Version - going out with another couple – or having a small get together – in my version most likely there would be some sort of card or board game – as that’s really the only way that I know how to make long amounts of time pass.
And then there’s the Serrano Version. Now, I’m sure that after you read the exciting events of the Serrano family gathering, you’ll want to model it for your very own new year’s celebration next year. And all I got to say is … if you speak English, can I come too?
First of all, Jose in a day long miff, walks around the house and complains about how I’ve been on vacation for 2 weeks and haven’t done anything. He cooks pollo gisada (*spelling is most likely way way off). It’s this chicken in a sort of tomato type sauce. Any suggestions that I offer are met with – no, Spanish people don’t like that. However, I did feel a bit better this year, as his nephew said he was bringing barbecue and Jose said that Spanish people don’t like sweet things – to which I responded just because he didn’t like sweet stuff doesn’t mean that everyone doesn’t like it --- I figure the Spanish people don’t like has been a little technique that he has developed to keep from eating foods he doesn’t like. Anyway, so no one really eats during the day, sort of snacking in hopes of having a good meal in the evening. Around 5:00 p.m. – no one has arrived, Jose doesn’t know when anyone is going to arrive, and I’m getting very hungry. By 6:00 p.m. – no one has arrived, my hunger has emerged to the point that I will chew off someone’s arm for nourishment if allowed, and Jose still has no idea when someone is coming. So, I go ahead and eat – which for those of you who know me is about 2 hours later than my regular dinner hour. Anyway, it is now 7:30 and Jose’s brother (with his sons whom I refer to as the demon-spawn have arrived – and any work I had done in organizing Elijah’s room and getting toys into baskets has been destroyed in a matter of minutes) has arrived and his friend Moses, with his two kids. The first hour of their arrival time was spent with Jose and the crew sitting around in the living room and speaking Spanish to each other. Occassionally I’ll hear a word that I think I know or that I want to know, and I’ll ask what that means. After about an hour, the effort becomes too much and they all move into the Jose’s living room – where they can sit and watch Spanish television and talk in Spanish – and I put on the Law & Order: CI marathon and settle back to enjoy my loser version of new years sans dick clark – and unfortunately ice cream or chocolate. I’d have had chocolate as I sent Jose to town for some earlier – to which he balked because of my diabetes – so he returned to the house with hard candy – HARD CANDY – which in NO WAY SHAPE OR FORM addresses the CHOCOLATE craving – Thank god Elijah let his chocolate covered ice cream bar melt – and I was able to suck down the chocolate shell – wasn’t enough though. The upside was that Jose told me that Moses was bringing cake – cake is always good – I love cake. But then I remembered… at every single Spanish gathering in which cake was served it had some weird raspberry filling in it – which ruins a perfectly good vanilla cake with icing – ruins it – so when I saw the fruit on the cake – my heart sank as I’m pretty sure that the cake will be fruit filled – at which point they should just call the damn thing a cobbler. And . . . because no one else in his family has arrived, and no one is answering their phones (I’ll lay odds 10 to 1 that they are out at walmart doing some last minute Christmas shopping because they know that we buy gifts for their kids and they don’t for Elijah or Isaiah) that I won’t be able to eat any of the cake until tomorrow – at which point the icky fruit filling will most likely turn into some gummy bear type substance – so perhaps cake bits will be easier to suck off of it then.
The final aspect of what can only be described as my utter joy is that the kids are so wonderful. First of all, they are the only ones who speak English – so you can imagine the intellectual edge my conversations have for the evening. Secondly, they are destructive in a way that only boys can be. This year, I took all of the toys that Elijah got for Christmas that I wanted him to have past this evening and hid them. They have improved somewhat since they’ve gotten older – but still – they are an annoying bunch of kids all in all – and I dread the post party inspection to see what was broken or what not.
So there is such joy in the evening that I’m sitting here and writing in my blog. Had a brief moment of panic as Moses Jr. was reading over my shoulder for a minute – but then figured that I didn’t really care if everyone in the free world realized that I didn’t really think this was a good time. And thus far, my greatest moment of joy has come from Jose’s comment that this may very well be the last Serrano family new year’s celebration – as he’s a bit irritated that it’s so late and his family hasn’t appeared. And that would suit me just fine. I’d be perfectly happy just treating this evening like any other in the year --
