Marc from North Carolina

My friend Marc came to Vancouver to run the Vancouver Marathon and visit. We met in New York a couple of years ago. I always enjoy showing foreigners my town. It's like having these really nice clothes that you can brag about. He was lucky to have a few days of sunshine, though on marathon day Vancouver showed it's true colours: grey, wet, windy and cold! ayyyy, poor Marc, when I drove him to the Stadium at 6 am it was a very miserable day, I let him of the car and then went back to the arms of Morpheo in my warm, comfy bed, hihihi.

He ran 42.16 km (26.2 miles) in 03:42:43, not his best time according to him but to me it sounds awesome, I think that I will never run for that lenght of time, my knees would be dust afterwards! After the race we roamed around the stadium for a little while, listen to the band and then went to celebrate with some strong Margaritas!! later that night we went dancing until 2 am.



The following day we went skiing to Whistler and I am so impressed with Marc that he didn't just dropped dead. At Whistler we met this really cool old guy who taught us how to ski, yes, I've skied before but one hour of Teo's lesson was more helpful than all the other courses I have taken. Marc had only skied once before and by the end of the day he was able to go down pretty smoothly. So if any of you are coming to Vancouver to learn how to ski, I'll be more than happy to recommend Teo to you.



It was a lot of fun to have Marc coming to Vancouver, we can talk and talk and we like a lot of the same things. I took him to Yaletown and we found this really funky store where he bought the coolest pair of shoes and shirt.


After a few days in Vancovuer he went camping to the Garibaldi Park for a true Canadian experience, camping in the snow! how cool is that?


So I hope to see you soon! I really enjoyed your visit! the guy from North Carolina visiting Carolina del Norte, jijiji, o sea, YO!

ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER

For many years I felt sort of liberated not to have to do the whole mother's day thing, though since my mom died I kind of avoided it and with time I started to think about it as a nuance. But the truth is that I would love to have that kind of nuance in my life. This year, on the 30th of December, it will be 18 years since my mom died. Well, losing my mom left a huge hole in my heart. The wound has healed but the space will always be there. I miss her terribly. I wish she was around so I could take her to an overcroweded, overpriced restaurant, buy her flowers, sit and talk and perhaps listen and sing all those Chabela Vargas and Elio Roca records that she loved and we grew up with. I wish I could have a fight with her or a simple short heartfelt phone call to/from her once in a while. But that is not going to happen so I will use this blog to give her some sort of a homage on this day.

She was beautiful, a bit nuts and crazy, I think excentric. Definitely ahead of her time, for god sakes, she fed us soya meat 30 years ago! did not eat carbs. Sometimes I think that she knew she was going to go early as her way of raising my sisters and I was, to say the least, "intensive". At the time I did not understand her but as I grow older I see that many of the lessons were for me to be learnt many, many years later. It is rather odd really.

She collected quirky little toys, liked to sing, was very affectionate, loving and playful, though sometimes the games not all that fun, like putting pillows over our heads or squeezing the head. She cleansed our eye balls with lemon, arggh! a bit of a nut I told you. Her standards were high and she was determined to raise strong women. She was direct and now I know that she carried a lot of sorrow in her heart. It sucks to know that I will never have those woman-to-woman conversations with her.

She loved us, she loved my dad, she loved her family particularly her youngest brother German (who died last year) and her youngest sister Lourdes, she adored both of them. She loved the waves and being buried in the sand. She loved to sew.

From her I learned the true value and meanining of friendship, she had friends that were part of her life since they were children. She had this admiration for Manguito and great love for her and all the rest of that group of remarkable women.

Mom and Manguito, her best friend. Her friends. Gorgeous her.


She used to drive us to music school 3 afternoons a week for years, she learned it too; if there was a lot of traffic and an ambulance went by, she would accelerate and drive right behind the ambulance to arrive a little early all the way to the IMAN (by the Olypmic Village - we lived in Satelite!). She treated all the maids and workers with love and respect and dignity. Once she got a perm and they curled her scalp, really! so a lot of her hair fell off and she looked liked a chicken. We started calling her "pollo". She was a tough cookie, never complained of being tired or sick, I only saw her in bed twice: after she had a mini-breakdown once I got lost in an Independance Day parade downtown and when she had a histerctomy. I wish she had cried and gotten sick, maybe then she wouldn't have died.

She sang with Mariachis in the Puerto Vallarta sea wall; got thrown out of a Garibaldi bar as she opened the bar swing doors imitating a western movie and the bouncers thought she was another "drunk gringa"; she danced flamenco at some crowded bars, she said that as long as it was love gender didn't matter; she was a chemist working at the INAH (National Institute of History and Antropology) and when she got tired of science she started a business selling artisan cheese. We ate together at the table everyday. She used to spike our breakfast shake with rum or whatever was at hand. She loved shoes and was not very good applying her make up, though whenever my parents went out on a fancy date, she always looked gorgeous. She wore heels everyday and was always really well put together. She read alot and loved to travel.

She had dignity and she had fire. She loved life. She was compassionate. She wanted us to be the best, whether we were maids or presidents. She loved us so much, of that I have no doubts. I now know that things were not rosy at all for her the last few years. She seeked refuge in religion, I wish she had done some things differently, but what consoles me is that I really feel that she did the best she could, the best she knew. As a teenager I sometimes felt that I hated her as we failed to see eye-to-eye in some issues, totally normal, but I can only imagine how a parent must feel when a child tells them that you hate them. I was fortunate enough to have the time and chance to straighten things up with her. The last two weeks of her life I was with her and we had so many wonderful conversations.

She was so sick, she was in a lot of pain. The chemo and radiations did a number on her. She lost her hair and got so thin. Her arms were bruised by the radiation. She could taste everything that she ate and the flavours were very intense for her. She knew she was dying but waited for my sister and I to go back home at the end of the school semester. We spend a really beautiful, quiet Christmas together. She was in pain but her eyes had this spark and sweetnes that to this day comforts me when I think about it. I was with her when she died. She lost her sight at the hospital. She was a bit mortified, but when the machine flat lined, she had a smile in her face. I think she went in peace and that to me is the most important thing. When I die, I want to have that look of serenity and peace on my face.

She died of a fulminant cancer at age 51. My mom left an immense hole that has become part of me, part of my life. I am so grateful that she was my Ma.

I still miss her.

So wherever you are, know that I love you, always.

Last picture with my mom. December 26, 1988

MOTHER'S DAY - MAY 10TH

In Mexico, Mother's Day is always on May 10th. In Canada it will be celebrated on the 14th as it is the weekend. My friend Cato just told me that Mexico today is dead as everyone is with their mothers. How nice. Some people complain about dates like this as hyper-commercialized etc, etc, and it is true,as the consume, buy moto drives the occassion. I always feel sorry for the mom's that get any kind of household appliance ... just to make them work more the rest of the year. Unfortunatelly I guess that for thousands of mothers, this is the only day when husbands and children show any kind of consideration or give them any kind of special attention, so even though it is a commercial day, well, at least thousands of women have at least a day to look forward to.

So, If you are lucky enough to still have a mother don't buy her a blender or any of those damn fricky gifts (unless she is a total gourmet cook), she should have the awesome appliances anyway. Write her a poem, do a dance, offer to clean and cook for a week, don't bitch/complain/demand for a day, tell her you love her and send her to the spa, massage her feet, or do something for her that she wouldn't do for herself, but something special, OK.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to all my friends with children: Lorena, Edith, Mathaba, Betty, to all my cousins, aunts and anyone that is a Mom. Keep up the good and brave work of mothering!

RUNNNNNING

This September is 20 years that I live in Vancouver. Most of that time there has been the Vancouver Sun Run and the Vancouver International Marathon, two events that I had never attended, mainly because they are way to early (for me) and because it is usually raining and miserable, so Sunday's it is always better to sleep in, yummy!

But this year my sister Beatriz and 3 other friends, Marcela, Daniela and Bryan were running in the 10Km Vancouver Sun Run. So I made a big sign and went to cheer them on! WOW! I was really inspired by all the 55 thousand runners and walkers that took part on the event, which is also a fundraising for literacy.



Bryan and Daniela crossed the line way before BB and Marcela. It was the first time that Bea had run so we all suffered with her training stories and knowing that the girl was getting up early and going out in the rain and cold to keep up with their training. Both Bea and Marcela finished the 10 K run in a little more than 1 hour! Imagine! that is awesome. Maybe next year I will try that myself, but I will just walk, I have very bad knees. It was a wonderful experience to go an cheer on the athletic people of my town and I am glad that I left the comfort of my wonderful warm bed to participate in an event that is so ingrained in this culture.

So good for you!!
Las corredoras

It was also lots of fun to see people dressed up and running, it added to the fun and cheerfulnes of the event. Two friends were running dressed up like PacMan and another one had a plastic "fat lady" custome. A couple of women where dressed like cows and I say an old guy, I am sure 200 years old running at turtle speed, but running nevertheless.






2 weeks later....
My friend Marc from North Carolina came to run the Vancouver International Marathon! 40 km!!! oh my God. We drove the route that he was going to run and I WAS tired just from driving, and he ran it in 3 hours and 25 minutes (I think!). Unbelivable, this time I also went to cheer on the athletes as I have a better understanding of the passion and commitment required to do it. I'll post more about Marc's visit to Vancouver soon.

ACCENT REDUCTION

On April 22 I went to an accent reduction class. Why? well, because I have an accent...or people say I do. It bugs me that everyday I get asked the dreaded "where are you from?" at least twice! I don't hear myself having an accent though. Anyway, the class was taught by a speech coach named Andy Krueger a native of San Francisco, CA. He said he was going to teach us how to speak "american" and I almost had a heart attack but I stayed in the class nevertheless. There was a Rumanian that new everything, Ran, my Israeli friend, a woman from Brazil, one from Peru and the other 10 Asians. Ran and I were the donkeys of the class, worse than the japanese, korean or chinese, yikes!!
We were taught how to position the tongue and open the mouth to create the right initial sound and how to accentuate the first syllable in order for the rest of the word to just "roll out", and guess what...it works!!
We are supposed to practice everyday until it becomes second nature, however, the practicing part has been a little difficult as we are required to speak V - E - R - Y slowly in order to get all the positioning right, so it takes a LOOOOONG time to say anything and you sound quite retarded, so I am thinking, do I prefer to sound like a "foreigner" or a "retard", hahaha. So I am being retarded but all on my own, perhaps walking down the street, driving around or just alone in my place...now...that is a pretty pIC-t - u - r -- e!