Fiesta!

There was a Fiesta today. An end of the year party merged with Cinco De Mayo. We had homemade cookies that were like the soft sugar cookies with sweet, no semi, chocolate chunks. We had two quesadilla makers going and pumping out crisp pockets of melted cheese onto glass platters. We had mint chocolate chip ice cream, melting as fast as we could eat it off paper plates with plastic forks. We had spicy queso with tortilla chips.

I sat with Natalia Solis and Jenny Runk and Inandra Harris. I disdainfully informed them that I wouldn't have any spicy queso, because I liked to eat healthy. They began to object before I rolled my eyes and pointed down to my heaping bowl of ice cream; then they knew it was okay. We told stupid stories and jokes. Stupid lines from Xenon on the Disney Channel, mysteriously telling people not to get on the plane at an airport, new meanings of Acabar and Bacalao, and the drawbacks to mispronouncing "Comparto tu pena."

Then the Piñata. Dangerous to have inside, with high school male atheletes no less. One year Sra. tied it to the delicate ceiling panels and brought down half the roof. She's smarter now. Once, secretly, she climbed up into the ceiling, to the rafters, and tied a thick cord around a steel beam. Now we reach up with a yard stick and shift the panel. The bungee slithers down, and we attach the Piñata to it. This one's no weak necked burro. Es una estrella grande y magnifica.

First a few girls swing at it. They are sweet looking, blonde girls who helped organize the party. We let them take lot's of swings; none of them do too much. The one holding the Piñata rope raises it higher and then lower. He taunts them by poking them gently in the face with a ray of the star, then sending it flying to earth and they strike out at it. More often than not, they hit only rope.

But the class only lasts so long. We call in the heavyweights, the atheletes. Sra. tells them that they are not to let go of the bat, no matter what. She's taking a risk doing this, don't make her regret it. She has to tie the scarf around their eyes, spin them around and make them dizzy. She's five foot tall, like I am. They go down on their knees so she can reach.

They kneel with the baseball bat as though she's knighting them. It's quite a picture as Sra. stands on the toes of her size 5 shoes to make the knot. Someone laughs that theyre the same height with the boys on their knees. She yells at them in Spanish, and we all laugh, no matter whether or not we heard the joke. We love her, and we love each other, or at least don't like each other in a way that's so well understood it's close enough to love. We laugh, and I'm happy. Not for the first time, I wonder if these aren't the happiest days of my life after all.

Chocolate begins to fall as they swing. It's sweet, no semi.