Carme´s 21st bday

Like some, Carme is not one to age gracefully. not to say she is showing many of the normal signs of aging physically, but she will not go to the next age without kicking and screaming like a spoiled little brat. So for the 13th year in a row, she is exhibiting her inability to count or age past the year 21.

For her birthday, the whole family (Joaquin, Carmen, Johnnie, Natalia, Noelia, Carme, Alex and yours truly, packed in two cars and made a trip north to a horse farm. I would like to call it a dude ranch but since I didn´t see any "dudes" around, we will just call it a horse farm. The horse farm is nestled within the mountainous region situated more inland past Olot (where my Detroit born friend, Julie, lives with her hubby and new born child). The cool thing about driving on the backroads, and there are plenty of them, is you never get bored and never run out of beautiful terrain to gaze at. The good and bad part about the terrain is that everything is green. Bad in that, there are few fields of wild flowers or blooming trees in the spring that makes Virginia so beautiful this time of year. But it is good in the winter time when I am not subjected to the bare and sleeping trees along I-64.

We took our car and Natalia took hers and we flipped for who would ride with the kids or with her parents. I am not sure if we won or lost the bet when we decided to take the kids.

When we arrived at the farm, we were greeted by this mangy little dog. I named him Peter. I am not sure why but I have a talent for giving human names to animals and imitating what I think their voices were to sound like if this were a Disney movie. Peter just sat and watched us as we exited our cars and made our way to the horse drawn wagon. Peter then nodded as to say, "I´ll be here when you get back, punk" and despite being no bigger than one of my shoes, I felt a tension had started between us like I called his mother a bitch or something.

We saddled up and took off in our 2 horse powered covered wagon. Something just did not sit right with me when my mind wandered back to times of the Wild West, with my nerves on permanent standby as I expected Native Americans to come out and scalp the likes of all the pale faces in sight. I felt sorry for them as my Negro heritage and closely cropped hair were free passes from the tomahawk. Then my ears filled with words in Catalan and Spanish and it ruined my vision. Sigh.

Still since we were moving at the speed of nothing, I imagined how the early settlers must have been excited when paw rigged up four hours rather than two. Now we are cooking with heat! Still I was left with two horses, taking turns filling the air with smells of their rear while they walked and took care of what was left of breakfast. Good thing the width of the carriage was wide enough to keep the wheels from getting stuck in that horse made mud. Still at our slow pace, I got to take some beautiful pictures of the mountain range with its new fallen snow. Wait...it´s freaking April, it´s still snowing up here?

So we made it back to camp and I looked around for my new menace, Peter. He was nowhere to be found but then again, the little thing could have been jumping up and down behind another mound of freshly ground poop and I still would not be able to see him. Normally, you have to check under your shoes when you walk thru a land mine fiend such as these, but if you stepped in a pile (being if you were not already retarded to the point that you did not see, smell or feel it´s presence) you were going to be losing a shoe in it if not knee deep.

We made it to the hall to eat and sat down for a typical 2 hour lunch full of tasty plates and active kids. Why we have chairs for them will never understand. We let the kids roam thru the landscape of mud holes and horse droppings as we entertained ourselves with a widow view of Alex running thru the field like it was a slalom course in the Olympics.

Just then without warning, Peter approached the window, eyeballing me some kind of fierce. I was not sure if he had the ability to break the large window but I quickly acted like I did not see him. I swear I could feel his heated breath on my shoulder as he sat and watched me down my butifarra and navy beans. When I finished my meal, I slowly glanced over my shoulder to see if he was still there and he had left. Without incident. I felt safe again from Mighty Dog.

When stepped outside for some fresh air (just a saying because there was nothing fresh about the smells that filled my nostrils), the kids all begged for a chance to ride the donkeys and ponies. Again we dodged and leapt our way across fields of well fertilized grass to make our way to the fenced area. When we arrived, the donkeys were in no mood to deal with Noelia's smack of their ass. I was waiting for a swift kick in response to the impolite handling but it never came. Also the sky was threatening dark clouds so we had to work fast. 5 minutes into the ride, Alex’s donkey decided it was now or never and let go something fierce. I imagined a dump truck pulling up to haul off the remains of the morning hay. I could vividly hear the beeping of the large truck as it backed up to scoop up the droppings. Boy was I having fun. Then without warning, something fell from the sky and hit me in the back of my head. I had to fight to keep consciousness and my balance. No way was I to fall into a pile of depleted nourishment without a shower and a change of clothes. I struggled with the birds tweeting around my head. Then I realized what hit me...a dime size piece of hail!!!

As I ran to cover, leaving my child atop the beast of burden screaming and crying, I honed my ninja like skills with the hail falling and the mounds of almond joys to negotiate. Joaquin seemed to be making a sport of this as his new bionic knee replacement surgery was being put to full use. I would have made it back first but Joaquin cheated by hitting me with his walker.

Finally we had had enough of the pelting and decided to make it back to the cars and check for any windshield damage.

Happy birthday baby.