La Cena de Las Papas

I always Google Translate all the Spanish emails I get from Birdie and Deevie's school room mothers, and some of the attempts at translation are pretty funny. "La Cena de las Papas" was at first "A Potato Dinner." I clicked on the "other possibilities" and it became, "A Dinner of the Pope." And then the body of the email kept saying things that "las mamas" (or "the breasts") needed to do. The breasts need to prepare potatoes for the Pope? Ugh!

Anyway, thanks to the babysitting of our lovely fellow consulate neighbor, I was able to go to Deevie's "Dinner for the Parents" last night, hosted by the parents of one of her classmates. Some of the finer points of the wonderful evening:

1) Holy hotel lobby! That's what the living room looked like, with the dinner tables set out on the patio, under the glorious purple, flower-scented Guadalajara evening sky. Full service staff was on hand in formal uniforms.

2) Beginning time for the dinner...NINE P.M.?!? I still can't get used to the late night events around here. We started eating at 1045, and introductions around the room started at 12:05am. I finally got home just before 1am -- on a school night.

3) After initially feeling extremely intimidated by the gorgeous, very dressed up moms I saw at the school, I now love, love, love the parents around these parts and have only been treated with the upmost kindness and warmth. For one thing, they are so involved in their kids school and activities, many of the moms dropping off and picking up their kids every day. Deevie's teacher (from Minnesota, this is her first year in Guadalajara) has taught 20 years in the States and in her introduction she hit on the fact that as an educator, it is so wonderful and refreshing for her to be so in-tune with the parents of her students, working together on the kids' behalf. "I don't know where the parents are in the States. But I never saw many of them when I taught there!" she said. I chimed in and said, "They were working!" (Like me!)

4) I sat at the greatest table of parents. (N, by the way, was not with me. He was rockin' out at the Aerosmith concert, you see. :)) To my right was a couple from Argentina, who had moved to Guadalajara in June. The father, named Pedro, spoke very good English, and helped translate things I didn't understand, and together with everyone at the table, kept me laughing most of the night. "So is Spanish that different between Mexico and Argentina?" I asked the table. "I mean, can you tell that he is not from Mexico?" Pedro turned to me and said, "Can you tell when someone is from England?" Aha. Of course. I've never thought about these things before, as lame as that sounds!

There is so much more to tell, but overall, it really was a wonderful evening. I'm sorry N missed it. We met up at home and compared notes on our evenings. He'll get to experience another Cena de las Papas TONIGHT when we head out to attend the one for Birdie's class....starting at a las 9 de la noche.