Friday we slept in. We wandered around downtown El Paso (a very strange place). We ate at a fancy restaurant with individual purse racks and mints on a fancy platter. When we sat down the waiter asked us what kind of water we wanted. We should have replied, "Potable." The waiter would have responded in confusion at this unknown brand. We would have sighed and said, "Oh, just bring us some tap water."
The rest of the family arrived on Friday afternoon. We took Doug to Grandma Cuca's house and visited with everyone. At some point, Doug sat in gum, which we did not realize until he smeared it all over the floor of the car on the ride back to the hotel later that evening.
Saturday was the Bat Mitzvah for Chris' cousin. It started at 9:30 that morning. We were only 20 minutes late, which wasn't bad considering that we had four people sharing one bathroom, two power outages, and a belt crisis. The first power outage occurred when I plugged in my blow dryer without unplugging the mini refrigerator The second power outage occurred when Jesse, Chris' brother, plugged in the iron, while his wife Vanessa dried her hair. Chris then spent ten minutes recalling physics lessons and calculating the wattagge of all our appliances to ensure that the power outages would stop. Shortly after this, Jesse realized he had black shoes but no black belt. Chris found a thumb tack, which Vanessa used a poke an extra hole in the end of Chris' black belt so that it would fit Jesse. She succeeded, although there was hardly any belt left to tuck into the belt loop, causing the end of the belt to stick straight out.
I had no idea what to expect at the Bat Mitzvah and certainly did not expect a three hour service almost entirely in Hebrew. I tried to follow along with the English translations, but I was constantly distracted by the rituals going on all around me. Men were tucking their knees and bobbing their torsos as they prayed, the congregation joined in the readings with songs or chants a unexpected moments, and Chris' cousin paraded the Torah scrolls through the congregation so that everyone could touch with with the spines of their books.
Sabbath lunch was nothing short of comical, as was the dancing later that night at the Bat Mitzvah party (think Napolean Dynomite). We topped off the night by going to the very same Peter Piper's Pizza where Chris spent many Saturday nights as a child. I can now say with authority that the Pizza at Peter Piper's is much better than the pizza at Chuckie Cheese.
As I crawled into bed late Saturday night, I felt something wet. I looked down and saw a large yellow spot where Doug had been sleeping when we arrived at the hotel earlier that night. Ugh. We spent the next two hours washing the sheets and comforter, all the while ignoring Doug's playful antics. Luckily, everything cleaned up well. We finally crawled into bed at 3:00 a.m., only to wake-up five hours later, feast on homemade stuffed french toast, and drive 550 miles back home.
Who knew a trip El Paso would be so eventful.
No comments:
Post a Comment