Cinco de Mayo

FIESTA!: Today we celebrated Cinco de Mayo here at MPA. Sure, none of the student body or staff has any Mexican heritage that we know of, but we're Americans and that means it's our god-given right to embrace the commercialization of any and EVERY holiday. It's who we are, it's what we do!

We started the day by visiting the History channel's Web site. There, as I expected, front and center was a Cinco de Mayo video. The History Channel was quick to point out, "Did you know that Cinco de Mayo is more widely celebrated in the United States than in its native Mexico?"

How 'bout that? (In the back of my brain I hear someone chanting, 'We're number one! We're number one!') But I digress. ...

All of the resources we used today stressed that Cinco de Mayo is NOT Mexico's Independence Day. Rather, it commemorates the Mexican army's 1862 victory over France at the Battle of Puebla during the French-Mexican War.

From the History channel, we progressed to BrainPOP where we found a pair of apropos features. First, we watched "Mexico" on BrainPOP Jr. It was a general overview of the nation, including some of their favorite foods (we took note of that when planning our dinner later).

Next, we watched a BrainPOP movie about Latin music. That inspired us to do an activity suggested on their site: making maracas.

Of course, once you have maracas, you have to make music. I reminded the kids last time we were in Mexico a trio of strolling musicians serenaded us at our dinner table in a restaurant, singing "La Cucaracha." So I hopped to YouTube and looked for the song. There are a bazillion versions there, almost all of them horrible. I finally found a clip that reminded me of "our" singers.


Not ready to quit yet, I looked for the Mexican Hat Dance. In doing so, I found this wonderful old footage from a 1940s televised special featuring Mexican trumpet virtuoso Rafael Mendez. There's even a built in music lesson. Great stuff (and the kind of stuff that makes me so thankful for the awesome Internet).


After our musical interlude, we read along with a couple of books online. The first was Too Many Tamales. Though the story is about preparing a Christmas feast, the info it included about food and other Mexican cultural elements made it a good fit for Cinco de Mayo. The second story we read was "Mis Comidas" ("My Foods").

All of this talk about food was making us hungry for some of it!

CINCO de COOKING: Most of the afternoon (from 1 to 5) I toiled in the cocina making fixings for tonight's banquete casero. Annabelle helped at several points (cutting, stirring, slicing and peppering me with questions). CJ logged some much needed couch time - he's nursing a cold.
I decided I wanted to make a Mexi-inspired salad, so the first order of business was transforming regular tortillas into salad bowls.

I fried the tortillas in oil on both sides and then took them right from the hot oil and draped them over the bottom of an upside down glass bowl. I shaped them a bit and after a few minutes transferred the tortilla, still on its bowl, to the oven and let them bake about 10 minutes. I was thrilled that the process worked. Next, I whipped up fresh salsa (tomatoes, garlic, 2 kinds of chiles, cilantro, onion, lime), refried beans, meat filling, spicy rice and the best for last - a 2 die 4 margarita cake.
FUR REAL?: From the "you can't make sh*t like this up" file - Did you know you can donate your dog and/or cat hair to clean up the Gulf Coast oil spill? It's true, I swear. I read it on the Internet so it MUST be true!

But seriously, folks, Matter of Trust, a San Franscisco non-profit devoted to 'mimick[ing] how Mother Nature integrates enduring cycles and provides access to necessities in abundance' is asking pet owners and groomers to gather up fur and send it in to be made into mats to catch oil. (In case you're wondering, yes, they'll accept human hair, too.)

Why fur and hair, you ask? Well, think about it - why do you shampoo your hair? Because it collects oil, right? Same principle at play here! Want to see one of their hair booms at work, check out this YouTube video.

So tonight, as we watched the Mariners' game, Annabelle and I went after Kirby with scissors. Kirby was pretty cooperative, for the most part, especially after we told Kirby it was for a good cause. ;)

(And yes, I do realize that in this photo Annabelle looks like the one who needs a haircut.)

THUMBS UP: I've been watching NASA's site and my email inbox waiting for word. I knew that today was the day the top NASA managers set the official launch date (May 14 at 2:20 p.m. EDT) for the Shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-132. Up until now, it's always been a tentatively scheduled launch.

Their decision was made at the end of Wednesday's Flight Readiness Review at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Today we also poked around the official STS-132 Mission Overview site.

Before calling it another day at MPA, I must point out that 49 years ago today, while piloting Freedom 7, Alan Shepherd became the first American in space.