An awesome Easter

Well, I have got to be the laziest of bloggers ever!

Sometimes I wish that there was a way to download my brain and I could share it with the world without having to actually type everything I see or hear or experience.

Yes, Iammetx is lazy.

Anyways, I had a great weekend!

On Friday, I didn't not have to get up early to get my girl ready for school.  They had the day off for the holidays.

On Saturday, my aunt threw a super birthday bash.

Iammetx was there in all zebra print.

It sounds ridiculous, and I really said that to be funny, but what I actually wore was just a shirt with Zebra print, some tight blue jean pants, and some zebra print press on nails (which I later lost somehow, lol).

There was all sorts of dancing that I participated in.  The funniest part of all the dancing was when my cousin's husband decided to do some break dance moves and failed miserably at it.  How I wish I had caught all of that on tape!

It was so funny watching a non-professional do a combo of the worm dance and finish it off with a back spin.  All on rough cement!

That guy must have woke up with scratches all over his belly and back, ha ha!

Never drink and dance!

And I learned that lesson the hard way!

While I didn't really drink that much, I had a rough time going to sleep that night.

I somehow ended up pulling an arm muscle and so my arm was killing me all night long.  I swear all I did was just bob in place while pumping my hands in the air, but apparently I'm so out of shape that that was enough to send my arm into painful spasms.  Ouch!

Then on Easter Sunday we woke up to lots of menudo, barbacoa, and some very delicious tamales.  After having spent such a painful night with an overstretched arm, I knew I should be careful with what I ate, but I couldn't resist with such good food!

I can always start my diet and exercise tomorrow, right?

But the morning fun was short lived as all the relatives took off early to their homes.

We found ourselves alone and with no one to celebrate Easter with, so I asked my husband if we should take the kids to Falcon Lake to celebrate Easter there.

He had a better and more convenient and cost-effective plan.

He gathered up his friends and we decided to go to our local and favorite fishing spot...the river!

I tell you, at first I really wasn't up to it.  My painful arm had kept me up all night and now I found myself wanting to just sleep, but I'm glad I decided to go.

We had four other families join us.

They brought their four wheeler, a motorcycle, and a paddle boat.

In short, we had a blast!

Some of the guys climbed up a very tall tree and dove into the river from there.

I actually got to go into the middle of the river on the boat.

It was very scary indeed, as the river was very swollen and that boat kept tilting to the sides like it was going to flip over!

I had brought my fishing pole, and so I threw the line from the boat, but the current was so strong it kept pulling the line with it, and the guys paddling the boat weren't stopping long enough for me to fish, so I just gave up on the idea of fishing.

One thing I learned, though, is that the Rio Grande River water level rises and drops constantly.

A few weeks back, the water level was about 10 feet lower than what it was today, maybe even lower than that, as I'm sure we'd have been way under water if we could actually stand where we were fishing a few weeks back.

And of course, like always, I forgot to bring my video camera.  It would have been awesome to video tape from the boat from the middle of the river, but unfortunately, forgetful me, forgot to bring it.  I did, however, bring my cell phone and was able to video tape a little from the banks.  Here is a small clip of that day:

Unfortunately, for some reason, the audio wasn't working, so I had to substitute some music using the Youtube audioswap "I'm feeling lucky" button.  There wasn't much to hear anyways.  It was too windy and you know how that sounds when you record from a cell phone.

Anyways, the kids had a blast too.

We did the egg hunt there on the banks (a little higher up of course).  Some eggs had money and candy in them, and my daughter was lucky enough to find an Easter egg with $21 in it.  She was one happy camper!

A note of warning, however:  The river is not a place to be horsing around!

Unfortunately, some of the families that were there were horsing around too much and we almost had some major accidents that almost ruined our holidays.

For one, one of the guys thought it was a good idea to jump from the boat in the middle of the river.  Major no!

The current is too strong, and you couldn't hear it in my video, but there were some pumps turned on in the Mexico side, and the pumps suck water from the river creating an eddy that can pull you under and drown you.

What ended up happening is that the guy dove into the river and the current pulled the boat over him, so when he came up to catch some air, he slammed his head really hard on the bottom of the boat and split his head a little.

Fortunately, there were four other guys there to pull him back on the boat.  He was bleeding from his head, but it was not a big cut, fortunately, and asides from being a little light headed, he was ok after that.

My husband was one of the thick heads that also thought it was a good idea to jump into the middle of the river.  It was a good thing he had a life jacket on, even though that might not have saved him if an eddy pulled him under with the pressure from the pumps.

According to him, he thought it would be easy to jump in and quickly swim to the boat, but the river is treasonous!  Don't trust the river waters, people!  People have died trying to cross these waters, but they do it in order to reach the American dream, not just for fun!

So he says he jumped into the water and as he started swimming, he said it felt like the water was weighing him down and no matter how much he tried to swim, he felt like he was swimming in place and couldn't reach the boat.  In the end, he finally made it, but not before giving him a major scare.

We normally don't go out into the middle of the river, but this time it happened that way because one of the families brought a boat, but even being on the banks is dangerous in and of itself.

Last time we were swimming there, I was lucky enough to see a water snake pop it's head up a few feet away from me, so that's another risk to look out for.

I'm sure many people think it's crazy to go out to the river and swim there, it being so dangerous and all, but asides from me trying to get the point across that it is not as dangerous as the media makes it sound, violence wise, it's not really a bad place if you exercise some caution and don't horse around.

I usually don't wander more than 5 feet into the water away from the banks, and that's what I would recommend to anyone wanting to visit and swim and fish.

Also, having a look out is always a good thing.  While the snakes around here aren't really that dangerous, I'm sure getting bit by one is not going to be fun either.

And, finally I was able to fix up a video of the road we take to get to the river.  Here it is for your viewing pleasure:

That was a fun video to make, even though I spent like two days making it because, silly me, didn't save my work, and so the first time, my computer shut down on me because it lost power, and the second time, the program I was using froze on me. 

At least now you know that you can fool me two times, but good luck fooling me a third time, ha ha.

Which remind me of how I ended up my Easter holiday.

After we finished at the river, I went over to a friends house who celebrates (not sure if this is an actual way of celebrating Easter or not), but she celebrates "Easter annihilation".

Easter annihilation is basically Easter for drunk adults, lol.

A couple of her friends came over to her new apartment, which is just down the road from my house, and they made some delicious burgers on the grill. 

I swear, those burgers didn't need any condiments.  They were so delicious, you could just eat them like that!

Once the burgers were done, it was time for the egg hunt.

It was an egg hunt in the dark, and apparently, the first to be able to go out and look for eggs was anyone who was willing to chug a beer first, first one to finish got dibs.  Those who chose not to chug a beer had to wait until the last participant finished chugging their beer.

I chose not to chug, even though I did have one beer.

Then the disaster began as a bunch of semi-drunk adults began cracking their newly found eggs on each other, but that's one of those things where you had to be there to understand just how fun it was.

After that was over, I mingled a while before going back home.

Since I rode my bike to her house, I had to ride it back and I had a laugh doing that because there was one other person out there on his bike and I found it so funny when the neighbors dog started barking at our bikes, the poor guy almost fell of his bike!

Then he grabs a rock and lifts it up like he's going to throw it, and the poor dog is tied up running back and forth as far as the rope allows him, and the guy is all talking smack to the dog telling him, "Come on!  Come at me you little bitch!" and the dog does this little jump and the poor guy almost falls off his bike again!

It was so hilarious because you'd think that dog was within reach of the guy, but he was really more than the width of the road away!

And, no, the guy never threw the rock at the dog, but he TRIED to ride his bike holding the rock up in the air like he was going to throw it if the dog came at him.  Almost like as if he thought the dog would see his raised arm and back off, ha ha. 

Yeah right! 

That poor dog just wanted to chase our bikes, but he was tied up so all he could do was bark and run back and forth.

Well, that's all for today.

I'll be back soon and hope to share some more about my life on the border.

Take care!

Our home

I remember when I was younger, I couldn't wait to get out of here.

There were several reasons why I wanted to leave.

For one, I was embarrassed of my home town.  I felt I was better than the people who lived here and to me, there was not much to really brag about.

We had no mountains, no beaches, no clubs, and in short, no life.

Yet, when I got to college, I was amazed at how other people were amazed about where I came from.

Some people thought I came from Mexico because I spoke Spanish.

Other just wanted to hear me describe where I was from, and when they would hear about how close we lived to the border, they just found that fascinating.

"It must be awesome to be the link to two worlds!"  One guy exclaimed.  "Imagine that!  I bet you never saw it that way, but, you are the glue that holds these two countries (Mexico and the USA) together!"

He was right.  I never saw it like that.

As time went on, I would hear other people talk about where they came from.  They made their home towns sound like paradise, and a small part of me was jealous.  I wish I could describe my home town like they did, but I just didn't see how.

But there's a saying that says that you don't know what you have until you lose it.

Something similar to that happened to me, except, I didn't lose it.

What happened was that I didn't know what I had until I had to defend it.

It was when I learned the meaning of "coming in touch with your roots".

So maybe we didn't have mountains and beaches and clubs, but we had culture and pride and history.

We had, and continue to have, like Hannah Montana likes to sing, the best of both worlds.

Not only was there the rich American culture of English speaking residents, who loved their American football and pizza and patriotic holidays, but we also had the Spanish speaking residents, who loved their futbol (soccer), Mexican food, and Mexican holidays.

On top of that, we have our own language - Spanglish!

I remember this one guy from Jamaica who got up from his table of friends and came and sat down at our table of friends and just stared at my group of friends, as we talked amongst each other, in awe.  When we asked him what he found so interesting, he would just start laughing in amazement claiming that he had never heard someone who could switch so easily between languages like they were one and the same!

So in time, I learned to be proud of where I came from, and my eyes were opened to just how lucky I am to have come from where I do - the Texas/Mexico border!

Here, my friend, romo0012, highlights just some of the beautiful history we have here on the Texas/Mexico border:



La Lomita, a few years back, was experiencing some major controversy when they wanted to build a wall that would have locked these historic building behind border walls and on the Mexico side.

People who lived here, who would also have been locked behind these border walls, decided to protest, and I had the honor of actually participating in this protest, and I say honor, even though it was unfortunate, but honor because I have never seen our communities so united to defend what we saw as an atrocities.


Here is a video and map to the rally against the border wall that took place in La Lomita Park in Mission, Texas back in 2007:




View Larger Map

Now, look at how close those houses are, and to think that these are the people on the front line fighting a border wall.

Don't you think they'd be in support of one if they were really scared for their lives?

Alas, that is all I have for today.  I haven't really done much but laze around the house.

The most interesting that has happened is that I've been seeing many baby snakes out lately.  That's about as scary as it gets, as I have to walk these roads to get to my mothers house, and sometimes you just can't see these snakes in the dark!

But, until next time...