the meanest mom of the whole stinking town...

Someone said it’s 14c or 57f inside the house. I wish I knew for sure what it was in my bedroom!

On Thursday, last week, I felt like I fought with culture/time the WHOLE day. The first thing that happened was M—‘s English teacher Louise phoned me asking her where she was. M— (19) is usually pretty good about getting to class, so I don’t generally check up on her. She was 47 minutes late to English. I went upstairs, and there she was “getting ready” as teenage girls affectionately call it. I alerted her to the grave situation, and she said, “y que?” the equivalent of “so what?”
She has grown up around Americans all her life, and would presumably know what our standards and values are, so this shocked me. I asked her what an adult does if they aren’t going to be on time to something and she said, “you don’t go?” (what a severe answer!)
“You phone the person to advise them you are running late.” I recommended. She immediately said, “would you call my teacher and tell her I’m late?” And I said, well, the reason I know you aren’t there is because she called ME, worried.
Later that day, my friend Danielle, said to me “You know what they say, ‘You’re not a good Mexican if you aren’t an hour late’ ”
At 4 o’clock (American time) we were supposed to have a town party at the local school. A workgroup had come down and built an extra room. My littlest kids didn’t have school that day, and at 9 am were asking me to go. “We’re going to miss the party.” “There won’t be any food left” etc. I had ABSOLUTELY no idea, why they were asking to leave so early... I said, "we don’t need to be there till 4", and then they produced a note from their teacher that said parents should show up at 12. Sleuthing, I found out that those parents were ones helping out with the event/cooking food. They asked them to be there at 12, so that they would really show up at 1, and then the food would be ready by 4. I explained to the girls that we didn’t need to leave, but they wouldn’t listen. The told me it’d be all my fault, and that I was no fun. So I started sending them to their room for a few minutes every time they asked/complained to me about the party. Eventually, I got a text at 3:40 asking us to bring a few things. I decided to get ready to leave the house, when I got another text “YA” (already). By the time we got there, 4 on the dot, the festivities had already started, but nobody had left. It seemed like EVERYONE came. It was nuts. There was a steady stream of people till 5 when we left, and even then there was chicken left over.
A couple days before that one of my girls WAS responsible and called her guitar teacher telling him she’d be late. That was all she did. She thought she could still show up like an hour late and he’d be waiting around for her. I told her that when you call someone, they think you’re on your way, or that you’ll be like 15 minutes late.

(side note on the party. While we were waiting in line for food, some little boys (3rd graders?) were jabbing their forks into the bag of RAW chicken. I told them they had better stop in my best Spanish mom voice, and that they’d get sick when my little girl, E— 9 whispered in my ear in Spanish, “they speak English too”. I gave them the same speech in English, ending with “I don’t want you to get a tummy ache.” ***ALERT FUNNY THING.*** And the little boy said, “I don’t get tummy aches. ever.” Later on we bumped into him again, and I guess I had made a friend as he inexplicably introduced me to his older brother. I guess mean people can make friends?)


FUNNIEST THING:
The little girls teacher told them "have whichever sister is living with you bring you and the whole family to the party"
-WHICHEVER SISTER??? wow, we have really confused their school, with all the different chaperones they see with the kids, picking them up from school, or I sound like a nun.