Mariachi Song of the Day - El Rey

My family sings. Growing up, we sang to every song on the radio, especially on long car trips. My parents were young and knew a lot of the current music. They liked musicals and Harry Belafonte and Miriam Makeba. My sister Constance serenaded us on a rafting trip with Ethel Merman does Joni Mitchell ("Blue").

So it was with extreme frustration that last night, Christmas, I could not join in with the singing of the Mariachi standards. What fun it was listening to my friends sing along with Javier and Jorge. When Jorge's little granddaughter sang, I actually got teary-eyed. But I wanted to sing too!

The first song I'm going to learn is El Rey.

This one's for you Mundo!




Yo se bien que estoy afuera
Pero el día que yo me muera
Se que tendras que llorar

CORO
Llorar y llorar
Llorar y llorar

Diras que no me quisistes
Pero vas a estar muy triste
Y así te vas a quedar

CORO
Con dinero y sin dinero
Hago siempre lo que quiero
Y mi palabra es la ley
No tengo trono ni reina
Ni nadien quien me comprenda
Pero sigo siendo el rey

Una piedra en el camino
Me enseño que mi destino
Era rodar y rodar

CORO
Rodar y rodar
Rodar y rodar

Y después me dijo un arriero
Que no hay que llegar primero
Pero hay que saber llegar

CORO
Con dinero y sin dinero
Hago siempre lo que quiero
Y mi palabra es la ley
No tengo trono ni reina
Ni nadien quien me comprenda
Pero sigo siendo el rey

Spanish Word(s) of the Day: antes y después de

There are some words I have a terrible time with. Like derecho and derecha. Fortunately when I ask someone for directions, they'll point in the direction I'm supposed to go so then I'll know if they're saying go straight (derecho) or turn right (derecha).

That brings me to before and after. Antes and después were elusive until Mexico put up highway signs showing the work on Highway 15. The antes signs show the road narrow and potholed; the después signs depict a nice wide and smooth highway.

When I moved into this space, the porch was painted brown. All the boards and cement blocks were brown. Some friends gave me leftover paint and so I painted the back wall in a kind of pinkish salmon color. It wasn't great but it wasn't brown. Then Manuel splashed streaks of kerosene mixture all over the wall and it was truly ugly. It needed to be repainted. I hired his dad, Chapo, for some wall plastering.

Antes

Después de

Word of the Day - de cálculos biliares

My neighbors had just returned from their home town, Nacozari, and so I walked over to their house to see how the wife was doing after her gallbladder surgery. All I wanted to do was ask the husband "como esta tu esposa?" because that's about all the conversational spanish I've mastered. I hoped he would give a one-word answer like bien or buena. But nooooooo. He made me go in the house so his wife could give me a personal update on her surgery.

While the wife showed off her surgical incisions, the husband went into the bedroom and returned with the shrink-wrapped gallstone. Yay! a visual aid. I did a lot of exclaiming over its size: muy grande!

The wife talked to me at the normal Mexican conversational speed which is muy rapido. I leaned forward in my chair, trying to pick out a word here and there. I nodded a lot, sighed when I thought it appropriate and hoped I laughed in the right places, you know, not after she'd said something like "I almost died on the table" and I'd go "hahahaha." I think they told me why they went to the hospital in Nacozari and not CIMA in Hermosillo. I think one of their nieces is a nurse. I think.

Story complete, there were hugs and kisses all around. I think I did a fairly good job of faking my understanding of her story. I certainly didn't have to fake how happy I was to have them back in Kino.

Update: Later I ran into the husband when he stopped to greet friends who'd just returned to Kino. He pulled the shrink-wrapped de calculos biliares from his pocket.