Summertime!

 It hit 90 degrees on Saturday!  We gave in and turned the AC back on.  

I have a new pink sequin sheath to wear to the 3/20 wedding.  Since I, as godmother of the groom, have been asked to be a Communion Minister, I felt a dressy pink mask was in order.  At the butcher shop,  a lady behind us at checkout had a black sparkly mask on. When I pointed to it and asked where she got it, I received a mostly Spanish explanation.  I determined it was from the flea market area near the Hidalgo bridge and cost $3!  Our cashier further translated and told us the Chinese store next to the money exchange store.  

So Saturday off we went to find this place.  Ted and I both asked at the flea market.  My lady just shook her head no, which probably meant she didn’t sell them.  Ted hit pay dirt!  His lady pointed to the strip mall right behind us.  She said to walk around to the front and the store is there.  Sure enough I got a pink sparkly one and a black sparkly one for the rehearsal dinner.  I bought Ted a black silk one.  

She was right about the “Chinese” store.  Virtually everything was Made in China.  It was Dollar General on steroids.  With my mission accomplished, we headed back home. 

Church was a bit chaotic!  A wedding was just coming out.  So there were lots of people still there and their cars take all the parking spots!  Tom dropped us off to get seats while he parked the car.  Then a young girl, beautifully dressed in a red gown, and her family came in.  She was celebrating her Quincentara (15th birthday).  This is as important to an Hispanic girl as a Bar Mitzvah is to a young Jewish boy.  A reception at an event center would surely follow.

Mass started 10 minutes late.  Father kept his talk condensed but it was Blessing of the throats (St. Blasé feast day) and I wondered how this would work.  He couldn’t put the candles repeatedly against individuals’ throats.  He said it would be a blanket blessing but then he couldn’t get the second candle of the X to light.  An usher finally got it lit and he held it up while reciting the blessing.  He said Ash Wednesday will be very different in that each family will receive a small bag of ashes to take home and have a family blessing and placing of the ashes.  I sat there thinking “is this the nose of the camel under the tent” in trying to destroy our religious freedoms and tradition or simply the sign of the pandemic times.    If I knew for sure the virus wasn’t deliberately set upon the world, I would go with the latter.  

Our stop at Cheddar’s proved too long a wait so we went next door to BJ’s and got right in.  From there we went back to Mission West, hopeful this show had not been cancelled.  The show did go on and was very good.  There was probably 75-100 people, masked and socially distanced, in a hall that could hold several hundred.  From there we came home from what had been a beautiful, fun filled day.  

Our time here is a bit different this year but we are making the best of it.  In all honesty it wouldn’t be much different at home.