Sweep-up Saturday

This is the day I get to sweep up all the leftover thoughts from the week...

The first leftover thought is about my seafood lunch with Maureen.  She was a much better luncher than I , only partaking of thin clam chowder and water.  I was not able to hold with my decision to eat only a shrimp cocktail, so had a grilled swordfish taco which comes with beans (also thin) and salsa..and some iced tea.  So I ate better than if I'd chosen that tempting fried oyster sandwich which is big as a barn...but more than I needed still.  And much more than I could have today, for I have gone on a breakfast to dinner fast, daily, in support of MoveOn.org's effort (actually a large coalition of religious leaders across the country) to move the legislators who are locked  up concerning the budget of the USA. We are not supposed to talk about our fasts, but I am only talking about it in hope of convincing others to join publicly and make some dent in the way our country is being run. Our national priorities are frightening.

And, the money I do not spend on bread, cheese, produce, tortillas, cookies, ice cream, and so forth between eight am. and five p.m. can be calculated and sent to the Episcopal Relief and Development as an offering for Japan.... And now on to another sweep-up topic:

Once, when I was about thirteen years old, my mother was very very expectant with my sister no 4.  This was the early summer of 1942, and my mother was just worn out with the heat, with  lots of ungrateful girls about.  So my father, who had to make a business trip down into Mexico, invited us two older daughters, I who was thirteen, and no. 2, who was eleven, to ride with him and Sostenes (Sosthenes, isnt that a wonderful name?) Berdeja I think, his cohort, down to Monterrey and to Victoria, which is the capital city of Tamaulipas.  Now, in spite of proximity, we girls had never really been down into Mexico since we were very small children, so we were glad to go.  I guess my mother and grandmother decided that no. 3, aged seven, would be okay there with them in Brownsville  while they waited for the baby to come.

So, as soon as it got dark one summer night, off we set across the border at McAllen/Reynosa, and into deepest Mexico.  Why at night?  Well, the nights were only about eighty degrees hot as opposed to nearly 100 during the day.  And there was no air conditioning.  So my dad almost always chose to drive by night.  My sister no. 2 immediately became carsick as she often did on trips, and we had to pull off the road. I remember the pleasant air, the darkness, the lights from the car, as two incompent men helped a sick child to feel better--then back on the road. I loved riding in the car at night; we'd made many trips to Laredo in the night time.

I particularly remember our coming into a town late at  night; it was a big town, and though it was PITCH DARK, there were scores of people milling about in the streets.  My father stopped and a young girl came up to the car window. "Why are all these people out on the street at this hour?" he asked.  Because the town cinema had just let out, it appeared.  "And what town is this?" he asked.  "Cadereyta," came the soft reply.  I well remember her lovely soft voice saying that beautiful place-name.

I looked up Cadereyta this morning on the wikipedia and found that it is the "Capital of Brooms" of Tamaulipas --or is it Nuevo Leon?  It's Nuevo Leon. Now that's synchronicity in action.  Good to think of it on Sweep-up Saturday.  Confirms our belief in Jung, no??    Hasta manana, YAZZYBEL who cant find the chart of making diacritical markings on the computer, or I could have put the proper accent on the  first-syllable O of Sostenes Berdeja. Yes, and the tilde in manana. Sweep it up.