an extraordinary mother's day

When I was seven years old, my grandma picked me up early from school and took me downtown to the one and only fancy hotel in El Paso. She had a big grey perm and wore sunglasses that would have put Jackie-O to shame. I scuttled across the shiny marble floor and up the “grand” staircase in my plaid school uniform skirt to the upstairs ballroom where every prom, wedding reception (including my parents), and philanthropy luncheon since the hotel’s construction had been held. 

I clearly remember sitting down at seats that had been reserved for my grandmother and I located on the right side of a long runway. We were some of the last people to slip into the crowded room of powdered faces and hair sprayed Junior League bobs. My Mom told me I was coming to watch her help out at a fundraiser. I suppose I had expected her to be handing out awards or giving some type of presentation.

Someone hit the lights and the catwalk was illuminated. A model came down the aisle in a suit, then another in a summer dress, then another in a bathing suit. This continued until a tall, pale woman with black hair piled on her head and a floor length beige dress that reflected against the lights stepped out. The crowd ooo-ed as the pretty woman began to strut. As she passed by me, she broke character for a split second and winked at me. My grandma leaned forward and whispered, “Doesn’t you mama look pretty mija?” My jaw hit the floor. “That’s Mommy?” ...where were her sweat pants?!

Today, I went to the last performance of Evita at the UTEP dinner theater. After over two decades of devoting her whole self to raising me and running our home, she has taken this past year to go back to school to do some of the things that she had always wanted to do. At the beginning of the year, my mother tried out for her first musical and earned a much coveted spot in the show.  

Giving birth to a diva daughter who was a natural ham, my mother has designed costumes, baked cookies for, and attended every show I have been in since I was bit by the theater bug in the second grade. In a nut shell, she was the ultimate stage mom. Today the roles were reversed as I ran in straight from my flight from L.A. and into the seats that my mother had saved for my dad and I. Again I found myself positioned on the right side of a stage with lights dimming. The beat started and actors filled the stage for the first big dance number. A shrouded figure in a black mourners head piece playing the mother of Evita stepped into her route and turned her face towards me. It was as if I could hear my seven year old voice say “...that’s Mommy?” echoing in my head. 

Overwhelmed with pride for this woman’s courage and talent, I found tears streaking down my face and into the creases in my cheeks made by the huge smile I had on my face. I didn’t stop crying literally until intermission when I could sneak backstage for a hug. 

Here is to the woman who instilled in me an obsession for shopping ("always check the sale rack first"), showed me by example how to be a lady ("lipstick. always."), taught me to demand of boys to respect me as much as I respect myself, and forever engrained the mantra “when you feel like sh**, look like Barbie” into my head. Thank you for designing and making me the dresses of my dreams, telling me your secrets, making countless matching mani/pedi appointments, taking me on shopping sprees, believing in me, building me up, and letting me know when I need to come back down to planet Earth. 

You are one hell of a lady Norma Price.

“I like you for always. I’ll love you forever. As long as I’m living, you’re baby I’ll be.”

     --Lita

The Boo Behind Fratland

                     Yesterday, after a full day of lunching on Hawaiian french toast and studying in the grass, my friend Sara Beth and I walked from campus to our sorority house on the row. We were stuffed, but there was an In N’ Out burger truck that our sorority had stationed at the back of a fraternity as a prize for winning our philanthropy event about a month ago. It was originally just for the boys, but because of the amount of people that were still at Coachella, the philanthropy chair announced that Theta was allowed to partake in the nom-nom-merriment. Free food from the most famous burger joint in California... we could definitely find room in our stomachs for that! We skipped to the parking lot in the back of the frat to find the smell of animal style grilled onions cooking, several sun kissed Theta sisters, and frat tank clad SoCal boys balancing their longboards and food. 

After scarfing, chitter chatter, and making friends with the supervisor of the truck “Jerry”, I joined the group of Theta lovelies strolling back to our house. Not to anyones surprise, after only 5 minutes of sitting at the study tables, myself and 3 other of the Theta “food-ies” decided that we NEEDED seconds. We headed back for the truck. After a few seconds of joining the line, one of my best friends Claire came up to me  and whispered, “Danielle... There is a man and his little kid on the other side of the truck. I wish we could find a way to share the food with them but we only get one food ticket each, so I don’t know how.” The pack of girls she came with called for her to walk home with them and she reluctantly walked away but shouted a, “See if there’s a way!” over her shoulder as she went. 

What the what? A man, where, and what? Unsure of anything she had just said, I walked to the back of the truck to try and de-cloud my brain. A man was bent over with his body half inside a dumpster. His little boy (probably not much older than 3) with two huge streams of dirt encrusted boogies running down his upper lip stood holding an old toy wagon at his fathers feet. He looked like a messy male version of Boo from Monsters Inc. Their clothes were dirty and old, and their wagon was filled with plastic water bottles, aluminum cans, and other random scraps of trash that could be traded for coins at a recycling center. I skidded back to the frat house side of the truck as the father began to turn around to hide my gaping jaw. The smell of the truck and the sound of our carefree laughs must have been torture for that daddy to hear. 

Jerry the In N’ Out man startled me with his big voice, “Back again?! What am I going to do with you!?” 

I replied, “Oh geez I don’t know Jerry. I’ll have two double cheese double patties with all the fixings and chips.” 

His big bushy brows shot up. 

“Oh, and also, I ate my food tickets. Sorry. I’m super hungry Jerry. Sorority girl problems!” 

Apparently we had plenty of burgers to go around because he complied without a blink. While the food was being prepared, I went back to the alley and saw that the man and his son had moved several dumpsters down. I ran down to them to tell them to please stay put for 10 minutes and found that the man also had two daughters with him! I thought... “oh boy... Jerry is going to love me.” 

After whispering that I needed two more, what I was doing, and that I was sorry for asking him to go against the rules, Jerry stepped back and shouted, “Two more! You eat more than anyone I have ever seen before! Put two more on Jim!” (I gave him a playful-- “thanks Jerry... it’s not like the horde of attractive boys behind me are listening or anything!” look.) Turns out Jerry has three kids too. One wants to become a dancer, one loves books, and his little boy is a tough man “like his old man.” 

As I approached the dumpster, the whole family was engrossed in picking up plastic ties that are used to tie chain link fences together (usually used during the giant “registered” parties) off of the floor around a dumpster. The dad saw me with the boxes and immediately began washing his children's dirt splotched hands with a water bottle. I have never seen a three year old so eager to eat. While the father and son chowed down the two little girls eagerly insisted on knowing my name, which one of these houses was my home (I got to point to the Theta house picture above), and what my grandma’s name was. The older of the little girls (probably about 6) wore a plastic crown with matted pink feathers. She told me that their mom was at work, that she wanted to be a Hello Kitty princess when she grew up, and that she liked when I called myself “Daniela” better than when I called myself “Danielle.” 

The sun was setting and my unmemorized flashcards filled with exercise science equations were becoming impatient for my attention back at Theta, so I politely excused myself and wished them “bon appetite.” The little boy put down his burger and clasped his chubby little hands to the front of my sun dress. 

“Anellle!”

“Um? Sure! That too! Goodbye!”

“Anelle?” 

“Oh! Yes! My name is Danielle! Goodbye!”

He smiled and released me, but then seemed to remember something. He screamed “Anelle! Anelle! Anelle!” as he scrambled back toward the wagon. He came back with the little pile of plastic fence ties that he had collected and rose up on his tippy toes to give them to me. 

“Oh thank you! But you can keep them! You worked hard for those, so you should keep them!”

He smiled again and we shouted “Goodbye!” back and forth after each five steps I took away from him. 

I have so much and it has nothing to do with any kind of hard work or talent or luck. It is entirely God’s grace. I don’t know why I was born into a position where when I was three, I was playing with my mother’s feet as she got her weekly manicure done while this little boy is scratching up his fingertips picking up trash to help his daddy make ends meet. But spending that short time looking into his big brown eyes reiterated things I have always known--

1.) Make sure the people you call your friends, are people with big hearts that see things that you don’t... that bring things to your attention when you are too wrapped up in the sunshine and giggles to notice. 

2.) It doesn’t matter who you are, everyone loves In N’ Out. 

3.) When we are little, we can’t wait to share with those that share with us. It’s when we get older that the stinginess comes into play. Don’t let yourself get older in that respect. 

4.) No human will ever know why they were born into the circumstances they were. It’s all grace and it’s all a mystery. If you were born on this side of the food truck with a longboard and free burger in your hand (as I’m sure everyone reading this was)-- all we can say is “thanks God, I love you.”

**photo by Claire Adams

Smile and Fight On

    

           Today, my sweet friend Chris and I went to the USC football team’s spring game at the Coliseum. Earlier in the day, my mom had texted me that my home town, El Paso, was having another brown out (when a dust storm blows in at such strength, that the mountains disappear). She said that my dad wanted to barbecue some steaks out on our patio, but that she was refusing to let him because she was afraid that they would turn into dirt clods. However, in SoCal, it was one of those days that make you think, “Everywhere must be as gorgeous as this!” Cool breezes, sunny skies, good company... and Trojan football! Not much else you could ask for. 

At half time, a booming voice announced that the Trojan Family was hosting a very special guest this afternoon-- a five year old little boy named McClain from the Make A Wish Foundation. I don’t know what kind of medical situation McClain is battling, but today was a day where all those complications and worries could be forgotten for a few hours. The little man marched around the field like a drum major, directed our band, the Spirit of Troy, with a tiny sword, and captivated the gazes of the game goers as his chunky little chin grinned at us through the jumbo-tron. 

At one point, McClain’s miniature cardinal baseball cap doodled to the center of the field. Our quarterback, Matt Barkley, took a knee to show him how the drum major drives his sword into the turf to kick off each home game. After a few fist pounds and sword plunges, McClain bolted toward one of the punters, Kyle Negrete. From my seat, McClain looked about the size of one of Kyle’s feet. He ran his little heart out, lept up into the air with all the might his little body could muster, and pounced on Kyle. Kyle tumbled onto his back with McClain triumphantly spread out like a star fish on Kyle’s belly. I just about combusted with giggles. 

The Coliseum means a lot to us Trojans-- bacon wrapped hot dogs, dancing in the student stands, loosing our voices singing “all we do is win, win, win NO MATTER WHAT!” at the top of our lungs (at least 50 times per game), and giving our right arms a serious work out from holding up the Fight On victory sign for 3 straight hours. It’s about sweat and snacking and shouting and most importantly running home to fraternity row telling the world that the Trojans were once again victorious. Seeing McClain’s tiny body soar through the air today made my heart hurt, because that little man might never get to do any of those things. I don’t know why some people grow up and get to experience life while others only get handed a sunny afternoon where they can come up for air and forget their problems. However, I do know that every moment McClain was on that field, he was smiling... and that’s all we really can do with the hands we are dealt (whether we are 5 year olds or adults who think we have control over our lives). Smile and Fight On. 

Please remember McClain in your prayers. Please cherish the many sun soaked afternoons you have been blessed with. Please don’t ever neglect to look over your shoulder and grab the opportunity to leap into the arms of (or in this case pummel) your heros. 

Nirvana

Today after rocking out to the Spice Girls on the elliptical (and therefore almost falling off of the elliptical...), I walked into one of the food courts on campus to get my Starbucks on. The cash register lady handed me my cup and pointed to the self service station a few feet away. I made my little masterpiece, but pulled a Larry Price by standing by the machine and repetitively taking huge sips and then refilling the few millimeters of liquid that had just been gulped. After the fourth cycle of this, the register lady began eyeballing me.  I reluctantly meandered off toward the exit. As I passed the Jamba Juice a hipster film student (complete with prescription Ray Bans, red flannel, and monotone voice) ordered a “Nirvana.” My first thought was, ‘Golly damn it! I don’t want coffee, I want Nirvana!’

Wait what? I want Nirvana? I started thinking about an article I read several years ago about Buddist monks who lived high up in the mountains of a foreign country. They had been practicing meditation and studying the concepts of their religion since they were literally toddlers. These men had never had any contact with the outside world. What would they think if they were to be plopped in front of an American smoothie restaurant and offered a physical form of a concept they had devoted their lives to--“Nirvana?” What would they do when the pink drink was handed to them and they were ushered off with a quick and unenthusiastic, “Have a nice day. NEXT in line!”

Though the word nirvana is not important to me (because I am obviously not a practicing Buddhist monk from a high altitude far, far away), I’m sure there are weighty words that I mindlessly throw around on a daily basis. How many times will I see a friend eating a fudge sundae from my favorite sweet shop and say, “Oh I hate you!” before I become desensitized to those words and end up actually saying it to someone I love with whom I’m arguing with? Don’t I want to save my “I love you’s”  for the people that I would turn into a shell of a girl if they were to be taken out of my life? Aren’t “I really miss you’s” meant to be said (or sent in this day and age) to someone who when we are sitting alone on a park bench and can’t help but smile up at the sky because their familiar laughter is echoing against the insides our temples? 

I really do hate some things. I really do love (a lot) of people. I really do miss people who used to be in my life and aren’t anymore... I just want to make those words more substantial than a strawberry flavored froth. 

Calling Ronnie

        

         Last weekend I went to Las Vegas with a friend to his fraternity invite. 3 days. 2 nights. NO SLEEP. I have no other way to describe it other than-- wonderful and enlightening. By the beginning of the second night, I couldn’t figure out why my head was hurting considering I rarely get head aches. I realized shortly after, that though lack of sleep had a tad to do with it, the pounding mostly stemmed from laughing so hard for such extended periods of time! The amount of joy I got from those few days of running around Casinos in foofy dresses, lounging by pools, meeting new people, and jumping on fluffy hotel beds to country music should be illegal. 

In the charter bus on the way home to USC, I decided to call my father and play an April Fools joke on him. I called him and told him that the fraternity had stopped at a burger joint on the way home and that as the time to get on the bus approached, I told my friends I was going to get on the bus a few minutes early to use the restroom. However, I decided it was dumb to use the bus bathroom when I could just use the much more sanitary restaurant restroom. When I came out, the bus was gone and no one was answering their phones because 1.) they thought I was on the bus and just in the bathroom and 2.) the bros were playing super loud electronic music so there was NO way they were able to hear their phones. He told me to get off the phone and look around the parking lot some more. I did and then called a second time to say they were absolutely, positively gone. My dad was panicking, I got about ten-- “Oh shit. Oh shit! Well... baby? Well... hmmm. Just keep calling and keep me posted. Oh shit.” By this time, most of the people around me (including the bus driver) were listening in and trying to smother their giggles along with me. I called a third time and said there was no sign of a bus and no hope of anyone answering their phones, BUT that I had everything figured out. Two men said they were headed back L.A. and had offered me a ride-- they were USC alums and looked like business men so I felt “totally safe and comfortable with this daddy!” He seriously lost it. “DO NOT GET IN THAT CAR DANIELLE! DO NOT DO THAT! YOU DO NOT GET IN A CAR WITH MEN YOU DON’T KNOW! DO YOU HEAR ME?! YOU DUMB ASS!!!!!” The bus and I were in hysterics. When I asked him to remind me of the date and he realized it was the first of April, he thought it was pretty funny too (thank goodness!)

After the long ride back, I got off the bus and bid au revoir to my buddies. It wasn’t until a half an hour later that I remember that I had left a sun hat that I had borrowed from a friend behind. My friend had JUST bought the hat, loved it dearly, and I had told her that I would treat it like a newborn child. Many phone calls to the fraternity’s party planner later... I had a number for my bus driver Ronnie. Turns out he remembered me and answered my pleas to help me locate the lost hat with, “YOU DO NOT LOOSE YOUR FRIEND’S HAT! YOU DUMB ASS!!!” It took me several awkward seconds to realize that he was referencing my prank call. I have spent my week calling and texting back and forth with Ronnie (probably more communication with him than with my mother, which says a lot!)... but tonight he brought the hat to my doorstep. 


        His welcoming remarks of "Gurrrrrrl! You been blowin' up ma phone!" and big smile will always be a reminder that if you ask, you shall receive and if you knock, the door shall be opened unto you. 

...and in my case-- if you let go and let God, you will make the most wonderful memories with the most random of folks along the way!

The Cereal Frog

             

           This past week I have been in a cereal kind of mood. Cereal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner would be a-okay with me. (put it in a giant ceramic mug, listen to norah jones, and watch the Los Angeles rain pouring down from the infinite gray clouds and your will: A. feel very hipster and B. go through several boxes before you can hum the chorus to “Don’t Know Why”). Today after acting class I went to the grocery store, decided on a box of plain Special K, and rushed home with My Little Ponies galloping around in my stomach. I was so excited! Granted, I get excited very easily, but while in the cereal aisle I had been remembering my trip to Italy and how yummy their breakfasts were. Each hotel my family and I stayed at had new and interesting dishes that I indulged in each morning. However, whether we were in a tiny bed and breakfast in the middle of rural northern Italy or in the grandest hotel in the heart of Rome... each breakfast had original Special K. I loved me some European Special K! Naturally, this afternoon when I giddily scooped a mouthful of the American version into my mouth and found that it tasted entirely different, I was about ready to write a scathing letter to Kellog’s president. 

“WHAT THE HELL!” I thought. This tastes like card board with a chemical after taste and looks like a Rice Crispies became obese, run over by an 18 wheeler, and then fried. Where are those seeds and whole grains? I want to eat my cereal and feel like it came from a field of daisies... not from the spaceship food dispenser in Wall-E!

  I don’t know this for sure, but I bet that when Special K tested the cereal on the populations around the world, Americans preferred the bleached white flour taste and the Europeans leaned toward the nature/homemade/wholesome taste. I feel like Kellogs traded using the healthy whole grains and seeds in the European version for what would appeal to most American’s taste buds. It makes me wonder how many times I’ve traded something that I know has more quality for something that is not necessarily good for me, but that the majority of the people around me are doing. I wonder how many times I’ve exchanged something true and good, for something that I see the crowd mobbing around. Probably more times than I’m conscious of or would be willing to admit to. 

My mom always says that if you put a frog in a pot of cool water and then put it on the stove to boil, it will end up being cooked alive and will think everything is hunky-dory until they die. However, if you drop a frog in a pot of water that is already boiling, it will leap out (and probably far away from you too!). I bet that if I ate the American Special K for a few weeks, I’d think it started to taste pretty good. I wouldn’t know any different... but, I’ve never been one to go with the flow of the crowd or sit in a pot that is slowly heating up. I hope to always be a frog who excels out of leaping out of pots. 

King of Gym

  

        The few weeks before spring break, I was the girl who everyone hated. I was lounging on the couch, helping myself to thirds on sugary desserts, and sitting out in the sun reading a book while other girls on my college campus jogged to spin class and found time to squeeze multiple workouts in between their midterms. While I was going back home to El Paso to chow on Mexican food and snuggle with my dog, they were preparing for a week in a string bikini in Cabo. However, I decided after spring break I would get my act together and stop living a double life as a sloth. I live in an apartment complex on campus that is literally less than 20 feet away from the gym. I decided that it was going to be silly easy to go to the gym everyday sophomore year. Lets just say that I have spent more time watching the water polo team come and go from practice from my window then I do at the gym.

        However, by some miracle, I made it to the the gym and onto a treadmill yesterday afternoon. I was fiddling with my ipod and grumbling under my breath to the beat of my sneakers slapping against the machine, “i. hate. run. ing. this. is. not. fun. i. hate. run. ing. this. is. not. fun,” when I noticed there was a very gangly boy about my age making his way through the sea of weight machines. He had on jeans, a plain t-shirt, and sunglasses. I looked closer. He also had a stick that aided him to feel for things in front of him. This boy was blind. For the next half hour, I watched him make his way from machine to machine. He would put down his stick, feel around to get a sense of what kind of machine it was, and figure out how it worked if he wasn’t familiar with what it was supposed to do. He wasn’t intimidated by not knowing how something worked. He made no apologies or excuses. He didn’t let the hordes of muscly frat boys fist pounding and saying things like, “Hey wanna grab some muscle milk at Cafe 84 and then head to the house to pregame the mixer?” let him shrink away into a less populated section of the room. He was there to get done what he came to the gym for... and nothing was going to stop him. 

       Obstacles will always be present. Some people are handed little obstacles and others are handed bigger ones... but either way, overcoming them is dependent on attitude and determination.