A mexican wedding

This month has been filled with travel. At the begining of April I went to San Elizario, Texas which is right next to El Paso. While driving on the highway towards San Elizario I could see Juarez, Mexico. Daniel, my husband, really wanted to go over to Juarez but it is just to dangerous over there right now. Right now the an average of 10 people are dying everyday in Juarez, and the cartel seems to run the city.
While in San Eli I met Daniel's family, explored the history of the city, and went to a wedding. The wedding was a traditional Mexican wedding and the party lasted until 4:00 in the morning! My endurance isn't quite what it used to be but I made it and had a lot of fun.
The ceremony started at 2:00 pm at a catholic church. I couldn't understand what was going on because the ceremony was in Spanish. The ceremony lasted over 2 hours and I thought it was over a total of ten times because people would stand and clap during the ceremony. In my mind the ceremony was over but then everyone would sit down and the priest would continue with his ceremony.
After the ceremony we ate dinner and the dancing started. Daniel and I did not know the traditional way to dance so we observed at first. After a pitcher a beer and an hour of observing we felt that we had it down. It felt like we were doing awesome but who knows what it looked like to people who were watching us. There was also a dance which had steps to it. Everyone would follow eachother in a circle around the dance floor. Everyone would go forward, but then start dancing backwards! Daniel was on his second pitcher of the night by this time and he was having a hard time figuring out when everyone was dancing backwards. In front of us were three larger women who looked like they could dance right over Daniel without missing a step, leaving him unconscious on the dance floor. I figured I saved his life about five times during that dance, pulling him out of harms way by his belt.
At around 2:30 in the morning everyone left the dance hall to gather around several fires outside and eat 'Menudo'. Menudo is a red chile based soup with Hominy and tripe. Tripe is intestines which can come from a cow, sheep, goats, or pigs. I tried the tripe and found it apetizing though the texture was off for me. Some people had full pigs feet in there soup, this seemed to be the older crew. All of the younger guys who were about my age and younger did not like the full pigs feet.
The Menudo party lasted until about 4:00 in the morning and by this time I thought I may pass out, even though the Menudo seemed to send me a second wind.
In Texas I obtained an agave plant (agave is what Tequila is made out of)
This succulent is related to the aloe plant and grows to about 3' tall! Because this plant will probably die in the Utah winter I could not plant it outside and allow it to grow to it's full potential. This pot will allow it to get pretty close.
While I was away my garden started to grow. I have had a lot of problems with transplanting though. Almost all of my plants which I had started earlier this year are dying. My pea plants all died, but I planted some seeds in my garden. It has only taken a week for them to sprout and they are doing quite nicely. I guess sometimes you just have to start a veggie from seed outside. Since peas are conditioned for cold weather it is okay to start them this early. Next year I will probably only start my pumpkins, and pepper plants inside because they require a longer growing season.
My grapes still look like sticks coming out of the ground and it scares me that they may be dead. There is an older vine around the corner from my house that I have been watching, This vine still looks dead as well so I'm not worried about my grapes as of yet. I hope they have survived!

ashes ashes we all fall down

Today a man shot both of his parents, his cat, his dog, and then himself. They say it's possible he had a complete mental breakdown. I wasn't on scene but I was told it happened over a course of a couple of days. The man first shot his parents then lived in the house for a couple of days before doing himself in. I know it's tragic that his parents were shot, but what compels a man to kill his cat and then his dog? He had fur on his hand indicating that he had pet the dog before he killed him. What was going on through this mans head while this was going on? I can tell you the last thing that went through his mind....it was a bullet.

Yesterday was the day I finally got my hot water pressure back. The plumber arrived at around 8:30 in the morning to check my pipes. When he came back up stairs he held in his hand two little pipes that were almost completely clogged up with some brown wet looking substance. The plumber stated that, "Both of your nipples are clogged up so I will have to replace both nipples." So yes, I chuckled inside, because I'm immature, and told the plumber he could replace my nipples. After the "nipples" were replaced I turned on my water to check. The pressure was back and it was so exciting, I couldn't wait to take a nice warm bath. I paid the plumber which was relatively painless, under $100.00, then sent him on his way. I immediately went to the bathroom to start filling my bath. The hot water rushed out like Niagara. When the bath was almost full I jumped in. Seconds after jumping in I realized that I had failed to completely take all of my clothes off. My sports bra remained on and by this time was completely soaked! I couldn't believe how distracted I had become with the rushing hot water that I had failed in taking my sports bra off. All in all the bath was pure ecstasy and prepared me for a day of relaxation.

Since the weather was horrible outside it was not going to be a garden day.
Later that night it hailed. I was laying in bed watching my favorite TV show....'Bones'...when I heard, what sounded like, someone knocking on my roof. I went to the front room and saw tiny bits of hail falling from the sky. When it stopped hailing I ventured outside to check out the damage. My crocuses did okay, the flowers had drooped and were covered with hail, but the green long leaves poked out of the little white balls. It looked like someone had dumped a bunch of packing material into my flower bed. My bleeding heart persevered and I was happy to note that the leaves were not torn. The look of my bleeding heart shooting out of all the tiny little white balls was awesome. This is the second year I have had this bleeding heart and it is much stronger then it was last year. In a perfect spot this plant does really well. This area of my house gets no sun at all and I would consider it a "deep shade". The shade is produced by the side of my house it is not spotted with sunlight like it would be if the shade were produced by a tree.

This morning the sun came out and it promises a beautiful day. Too bad I have to spend it at work! Of course warm weather is a plus when your work primarily consists of driving around and being out is the elements. I am a police officer and bad weather means traffic accidents. I am not a fan of traffic accidents, I'd rather spend my shift doing other things, so good weather is a good thing.