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| 24 dicembre 2003 |
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| Copyright 2003 Daniel Charles Thomas email: tijuanagringo@yahoo.com |
| Tijuana, Baja California, México |
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| Crowded sidewalks. Xmas gift to you for read. Christmas season in Tijuana has been, as usual (after four previous Decembers), a feast of crowded sidewalks. All the key downtown streets around the cathedral and second and third and Constitution fill up with tables, booths, stalls, everywhere someone selling anything to do with holiday holiday holiday both religious and profane, sacred and commercial. Ten times the usual number of sidewalk vendors have filled every possible space, and then the spaces inbetween, too. For the last month they arrive in early morning, unload from old trucks or vans, set up and then spend the day selling to the passing crowds, who are, as usual, dense, but now Even MORE So.... Will they fold up wings early tonight in order to be gone for Christmas eve? I wonder as I write this in the morning internet café. Tonight I will see yes. But they'll be back tomorrow through New Year's at least. Only the merchandise may subtly shift before the mobs of vendors melt away into January and the street of Guadalupe return to traffic. This is the revolving of the year reborn a baby in winter. I hold these truths to be self evident. We shall see spring again and again far beyond my small life, or brief gesture of words and electrons here. This page is nothing. Shoot goes on next year, too. -------------------------- Christmas in Mexico is a very European festival, much like in the United States. Gifts are given and exchanged, bonuses are paid to workers, people go on vacations to visit family and friends and everyone gets together to eat and drink and go to concerts, parties, etc. But it is all done with very latin style and grace, in Spanish. The most obvious difference visible to a gringo eye is the greater importance given to the Nativity Scene . El nacimiento. They are set on display all over town in shop windows and public buildings, and every home wants both the sacred birth display and the German green tree. Shortcuts to the point of my subject. It is early. I still need to xerox and staple. Tomorrow Michael and I are going to go spend the day with our mutual family, his mom (my aunt) and my parents, the cousins, etc. Today and tonight we stay in Tijuana. Nina M. invited us stop by and visit this evening. Christmas Eve, n'est-ce pas? Oúi. Her house has a fireplace. Wonder if I'll burn down the city tonight! No. Not this noche de paz, this sacred night. We will give her a copy of the book. The chapbook. Every Christmas now we've put together a little chapbook of poems for a present to give to peoples... there have now been five. This year it is part one (Arrival) of Moctezuma. Twenty-four poems. Should you have a mind to open a present and read, you will easily find a readonly file short cuts to the subject where I point . There . Other. Same. -- Mike? -- -- Yo? -- -- You asked Nina about going to the misa del gallo -- midnight mass (mass of the rooster) -- tonight? -- No. She's with her brother, tonight, remember? -- Oh, yeah... heh. She invited us to visit her and him at home... maybe we should take some champagne. -- Oh yeah, on our beer budget? -- Uh-huh.... |
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| this yellow building is now an internet café |
| Have a very merry Christmas and a happy 6th/7th day/night of Chanukah |
| Chanukah oh Chanukah come light the Menorah let's have a party we'll all dance the hora.... |
| Allah Akbar! |