Futbol Americano

Juana, our beautiful cleaning lady at work, recently moved her family out of one of the worst areas of our city to an apartment complex in the burbs. Her kids switched schools and are thriving. There's a cafeteria with a million and one choices for lunch. They've made tons of friends, have been invited to birthday parties and, for the first time in their lives, can play outside. It's a world of difference.

The other night, her oldest son (who is ~12 years old) came home and announced that he wanted to play football.

Juana was visibly shocked when recounting this story to us. "What do I do? Football is for gringos!"

Ansel in Distress

Okay, so I'm not a great photographer (yet!) but I wanted to share the silhouettes of the boys that I hung on our staircase. From this vantage point, they look like twins.



Got what I wanted! And they look great next to our deliberately tea-stained (i.e., faux aged) needlepoint family portrait -- complete with Stinky the cat -- where we are all rendered as stick figures and the hubby has a ball and chain tied around his ankle. Pure Americana kitsch.