22B422 Pt. 14: Panino

On April 17, 1992, my mom gave birth to the tub of lard that would grow to be my best friend (after our rough period involving knife threats and borderline mental abuse). Here’s a list of some of the memories I like to reminisce about now and then involving the best broooother in the world.

Look at this kid in his tulip costume. What’s not to love?! Let me tell you. This picture was taken DAYS before this little bundle of joy sat on my Olympic gymnast Barbie, squishing her hips and destroying her tumbling career. 

This is at his 5th birthday party, where he got Space Jam as one of his presents. We would watch it and laugh nonstop whenever someone said the word “butt” and when Daffy Duck asked to stay home and bake cookies. The movie came with the soundtrack (his first ever CD!) and Francisco would also get really teary during “For You I Will,” by Monica (his favorite song for YEARS). Such a sensitive soul. 

I don’t really have a memory associated with this picture, I just think Francisco looks hilarious. On a separate note, our dad made that ginormous flag, I never cease to be impressed by it. 

Francisco had chicken pox on this trip, his face looked the color of mayonaise for days. 

This is during Francisco’s train phase, where he (and I) would watch Thomas the Tank Engine and the gang mess things up for Sir Top’em Hat allll day long. You can’t tell in the picture very well, but this was also the phase when he was in love with Lucky Sumale, his primary teacher from church. The day she got married, he refused to shake her husband’s hand. 

I just wanted to get a picture that captured his Hair Phase. This was also during his Vans phase (which has only sort of ended) and his Motion City Soundtrack obsession. I’m not sure what’s going on in this picture. Is he about to punch me in the head? We both look ridiculous, but Natalia looks like a freaking rock star here. 

And Francisco looks like a freaking rock star in this one (though Alexia should take most of the credit for that). Which rock star does he look like?

BUSTED!! YOU CAN’T DENY IT FRANCISCO ABRAHAM! 

Quit stealing J-Bieb’s swag(gie). 

List of Thoughts I Am Too Lazy To Make Into A Real Post

1. My dad and I got to see Andrea Ledesma in Munich! She and Jörg took the two-hour train from Neumarkt and spent Sunday eating white sausage and seeing impressionist paintings and drinking German punch with us. I tell you this so that you will think we are classy and cultured, when really the opposite is true because my dad and I spent Monday night watching Friends in German. Really it was just me watching Friends with a German phrasebook in hand trying to see what the laughtrack was laughing at while my dad was Skyp(e?)ing with my mom. Other notes about the trip..

–  ABSURDLY expensive internet ($6 euro per hour. PER HOUR!)

– ABSURDLY amazing Michael Jackson altar randomly sitting there on a street. I mean there is some seriously heartfelt fandom going on in Munich. 

The king of Bavaria is no match for the king of pop. 

MJ = Just another part of Munich. 

Speaking of Michael Jackson, this video does a pretty good job of showing exactly what I look like 90% of the time I’m in the kitchen. 

2. The latest Modern Family episode confirmed yet again that Cameron Tucker and I are the exact same person. Exactly. It is mildly terrifying. Even though I’m sure that none of you are in the least bit interested by the freakish similarities between me and TV’s most loveable gay dad, I am taking notes to dedicate a whole post (with actual sentence structure) to this. The jist of it will probably be something along the lines of: Paulina Lopez and Cameron Tucker: Hypersensitive, passive aggressive, believe “the more you spend the more you save,” invest way too much meaning on random events and cry for hours when others do not remember dozens upon dozens of these tiny but meaningful moments, own too many shirts, have an unhealthy relationship with food, etc.  Stay tuned.


3.  Why yes, I did see The Muppet Movie in theatres. Twice. I wouldn’t want to see it a third time because everything about Walter makes me want to punch him in the face. Everything about Kermit makes me want to punch him in the face, too. It’s the same feeling I got from Mickey Mouse, or Tommy from the Rugrats/All Grown Up, or Little Foot from The Land Before Time. There’s something about these characters that makes me feel like I’m being conned.

4. I tried making a list of the top five worst Christmas songs, but all I could come up was Christmas with Weezer, the Christmas album my sister keeps playing around the house.

 I’m into celebrity Christmas albums as much as the next person, but whoever thought that a rock version of O Come All Ye Faithful and O Holy Night would be a good idea is doing the world a disservice.

5. I was going to write something about Herman Cain and Pokemon, but these guys say it best. Needless to say, I was crossing my fingers that he’d quote the ancient prophecy with the clever plot-twisting “ash” pun.

Fate?

1999 – My brother chips my front tooth in a Hide-and-Seek-related rage attack

2010 – I re-chip the same tooth with a cereal bowl 

2011 – I re-re-chip the same tooth (and swallow the missing piece) eating a fried tortilla

September 24, 2006

“Twenty-five years ago, my mom and dad kissed for the very first time.

Angelica Ledesma Ledesma and Francisco Lopez Jimenez grew up in a town in Mexico where the most romantic spot was on a bridge over a river. The river has more oil and grease than water in it. Want to hear a story? One day, someone lit a match and threw it in the river. If it were any other river on the planet, the match would’ve gone out. But this was Salamanca and the match didn’t go out, it lit a patch of oil on fire and people had to hose down the river to set it off.

Sometimes if there’s enough light, you can look down at the river and see rainbows on the water from the oil that’s sitting on the surface. I wonder if my parents caught a glimpse of them when they kissed for the first time on that bridge, or if they were too happy to notice.”

– 16-year old me, the first page of an old journal.

I know the L word is pretty heavy and at the risk of overusing it, I’d like to say the following: I love my parents, I love that they love each other, and I love that I exist as a byproduct of what started on a bridge overlooking a river of oil and rainbows.