Fiesta Redux

It’s Monday morning and we’ve just completed a weekend that was mostly in the high 90s. I see that yesterday topped out at 98, but I think I saw 105 on the truck thermometer at one point in my travels. The good news is that it didn’t put a damper on our fiesta on Saturday evening. We had a marvelous time, as did most of the attendees from what we have heard. Everyone got into the Mexican theme, wearing Mexican hats and attire, and it was hard for that not to happen. The entire property was decorated in bright and colorful Mexican party decorations that I had spent a week putting up. We had a Mexican food truck on site as well as a Margarita truck serving Margaritas and Mocktails. The chips, salsa, guacamole and queso flowed freely while the tacos, quesadillas and street corn were being prepared. The Mariachi music blared thanks to Faraj and his audio set-up for use both before and after the dance troupe arrived. The Traditional Mexican dancers numbered a dozen with their brightly colored dresses and outfits and at least three changes of costume along the way, including one set where all the young women dressed in while chiffon and had let their long dark hair down to flow around them as they swirled. It was all quite spectacular and enthralled the audience, who sat in the shade sipping their cool drinks while the dancers moved across the upper driveway (which turned out to be a perfect stage for the event). After the formal dance performance, the dancers then invited the guests up to don colorful skirts and sombreros and taught them the simplest of the dances for them to experience just how difficult the routine could be. Everyone participated and everyone took their spin on the dance floor.

We had arranged the party to last from 4pm to 9pm and it was just the right amount of time with the last guest leaving on the stroke of 9. That left two hours for Kim, the crew (Rosario and Cheli) and I to break down the tables and chairs and get the place cleaned up for the most part. That left Sunday to attack the decorations and put everything back in its place. Sunday was even hotter than Saturday, so I got started on the break-down early before the heat built too high. The 10-foot poles came down and the cabled banners got rolled up and labeled for future use (I am hoping that I did it well enough so that I don’t have a tangled mess like some Christmas lights I have packed away in the past). Then all the 150 or so hanging paper fanned disks came down as did the large sun-shielding tarp I had put up between the garage and house. The tarp proved to be an effective shade maker at the key hour of the dancing. As for the paper fanned disks, I had planned to toss them, but it seems that Rosario feels there is a market for them, so we have boxed them up (at least the 130 or so that were in tact) and she will take them away to whatever flea market she frequents when she leaves this morning. We threw in all the Pom-poms, flags and crepe paper banners that we had left over. Rosario and Cheli also took away the extra food from the food truck, since they have big families that appreciate the leftovers. We now have three bins of fiesta decorations just like we have multiple bins of Christmas decorations. They will get hauled and stored down in the utility rooms down below, awaiting next August, when we expect to have another summer fiesta.

There is no doubt that there is a cost and an effort to putting on a party like this, but its something we enjoy doing while we can. We know there will come a day when it is too much for us, but until then, we like being the center of the party program for our friends and family. I don’t know that we entertain more than anyone, but amongst our friend and family we certainly are at the top of that list. I believe our families on both sides have come to expect it of us and we are happy to oblige. It fits nicely with Kim and my feelings of liking being of service. We also like being inclusive. There is nothing fancy or exclusive about our gatherings. We embrace the cultural and ethnic diversity and equally enjoy inviting a broad spectrum of people who all get thrown into the same melting pot for the duration of the party. We like inviting all of the people in our lives including folks like my trainer, our Gyrotonics instructor, my stretch therapists, and our dog sitters. We encourage people to bring their kids and at this particular fiesta we had a dozen ranging in age from 3-17. The rest of the crowd consisted of 18 family members, 12 hilltop neighbors, eleven non-neighborhood friends, and another 10 folks that touch our lives day to day. That made for a total of about 55-60 at the gathering overall and only about 10 who said they were coming and then no-showed. Added to those 55-60 we had a dozen dancers who we invited to join the festivities and partake of the food and Margarita trucks. They especially noted to Kim hows much they appreciated being included and not treated as “the help”. It’s all a part of what we believe makes the festivities so special.

We enjoyed that whole fiesta program so much that we decided when taking down the decorations to store them for next year on the theory that we will try to hold a similar fiesta every year at this time. Everyone seems to like that idea, including the dance troupe, who come up from El Cajon. When we do holiday gatherings they seem different than this fiesta. The fiesta feels more like something we do for no reason other than to celebrate life and everyone in our lives. That somehow makes it even more special. It was our first fiesta but will certainly not be our last. The title for next year is already Fiesta Redux.