Cinco de Mayo

Last year, [2009], on the 5 May, I was in the USA with a newborn grandson and planning a wedding! Since I’m in the process of moving my blog from a local South African platform, I thought it a good time to read a few back entries. This is a partial repost of exactly 1 year ago.

Wed 5 May 2010, 22:475 May 2009

Today, 5th of May is Cinco de Mayo and no, it is not Mexican Independence Day, however, it should be! It’s not an American holiday, but it should be. Mexico declared its independence from Spain at midnight, 15 September, 1810. It took 11 years before the first Spanish soldiers were told and forced to leave Mexico.

Why Cinco de Mayo? And why should Americans savour this day as well? Because 4,000 Mexican soldiers smashed the French and traitor Mexican army of 8,000 at Puebla, Mexico, 100 miles east of Mexico City on the morning of May 5, 1862. And the celebrations abound throughout the USA.
Some of you will at least have heard about it, if you watch Ellen on the Series channel.

Below, Sage getting ready to go out this past Saturday. And next, later in the day, holding baby Jed. I snapped quickly, before he fell over. These kids think he’s a doll :) And she had a bad cold last week and has breathed all over the little pumpkin, so he’s now got a bad cold and very blocked nose.

Right is Zak.. he ADORES little Jed – even though Jed looks as though he’s about to cry. He’s really a “gassy” baby and although he’s good as gold, when he needs to burp, he tends to hurl it out.

My gadgets, some of which I realised I’d photographed on a table covered with a cloth that I’d painted many years ago as a gift for N, are pictured below. I love the Hibiscus design and I’m inspired to start planning my next painting project. Planning is a huge part of my vocab lately. Pity I don’t seem to finish anything.

So the first pic is my lemon squeezer which is so neat and simple it’s ridiculous (although the price is NOT). I should have opened it and photographed it but it’s merely a large ‘straining’ spoon joined to a lever of a solid spoon. Press the 2 sides together with the 1/2 lemon inserted and it squishes the juice out and keeps the pith and pits out of the juice. The egg timer is my new replacement. It’s the size of an egg – place it in the water with the eggs (cold water) and bring to the boil. The red goes dark when it’s at the required consistency (i.e. soft or medium… to extra hard). When the dark red line touches the 2nd last white line, it has the consistency of the egg written against that line.

And below is a T-bag squeezer. Open it up and it covers the cup opening as a lid and keeps the string of the T-bag in the centre while it continues brewing. Which is then lifted out and clipped over (folded) which in turn, squeezes out the T-bag. A mere $3.49. (Not a lot in dollar terms.. but multiply that by 10 which is the rate I got my dollars.)

I’ve been trying to post something since Saturday!! Believe me folks, this is not a holiday, for those of you think it is. I love it, but it’s really hard work. My child is exhausted and I’m not so young any more, so I’m not as helpful as I used to be. So many of you are sending me wonderful messages regarding my fun holiday. It’s fun, but I’m going to need a holiday by the time I go back to SA. In the interim, I hope my kids can have a few days break while I’m still here. They can take the baby and at least I can look after the 3 older ones. In the middle of it all we’re trying to get organised for the wedding. All wonderful celebrations and happenings and I wouldn’t have it any other way. But the amount of work is EXTREME. And Sage keeps me on my toes. Today I became her flavour of the month. Which means that I’m the one that can (is allowed) to do everything and not her mom or the 2x a week nanny. In fact so much so, that I had to sneak out the house to do grocery shopping this morning and that, only after I’d promised her a surprise. (And this is after I complained and said they have to stop giving the kids gifts for every little jaunt out of town. Seems like that’s my fault entirely – or almost! LOL). Even Daddy, the hero, only got a cursory hullo in passing when he came back from work.

Here are some arb  tweets which came up this afternoon (5 May 2009), in my 5 minutes I managed at the time. I have lots of other interesting breaking news, but NO more from me tonight… I can’t keep my eyes open.

1. TechCrunch Follow The Money: Bookies Favor Apple For A Twitter Buyout (I haven’t seen that happen yet.. have you? :) )
   
   
2. ev Forgot to pack cuff links for black-tie event. Fortunately, wife is a majician and fashioned some out of things laying around the hotel  (ONE OF THE FOUNDERS OF TWITTER – check the spelling of magician! Just for fun LOL)
   
3. Twitter_Tips Mistakes in Twitiquette: 5 of the least obvious errors: http://cli.gs/Pd64Tv
   
4. grandparentscom RT @ryan_gpcom: Any grandparents out there done something fun outside w/ ur grandkids lately? Please tell us about it: http://bit.ly/8n7Ty