Caray, Caray!

Hi, Carlos. I finally have a chance to drop in at caraycaray, and what a treat to find the doors to Ganchoville open. Our daughter and our 2 little grandbabies [almost 3 Jane and 13-day old Lily ] just left. They visited for a few hours after a doctor's visit for Lily [clogged tear duct]. Hub spent the day making a BIG pot of spaghetti sauce. Guess what we're having for dinner. I will join you in a Dark and Stromy to toast our Captain Sylvia. I'm anxious to hear all about her adventure. As to your comments about the first day of school, I was reminded of how happy I was to return to school after a long summer at home on the farm with only the family , cats, and dogs for company. I loved elementary school...so many kids to play with. Then, in high school [I went to the same little rural school from grades 7 to 12] , I looked forward to reconnecting with girlfriends and my everchanging puppy love crushes each year. Well, I'm being called for dinner...better go.
 

Ahhh, I remember those first days of school. Something new to wear, a fresh new set of supplies, a new teacher, catching up with the friends you hadn't seen in months because they didn't live in the same neighborhood or go to your church. And just as the air was starting to get that hint of crispness that made everything a little more poignant (this was before I moved to Seattle and got to experience the crispness year-round). But by day three, the thrill was gone.

I'm looking forward to reading Sylvia's sailor tales. Nothing exciting is happening here, except that yesterday I discovered that one of our gardeners looks a lot like Lobo. Such a shame to have to leave home and come to the office.
 

Yikes, Julia. Your guardian angels are sure taking care of you. Imagine placing a Lobo lookalike at your work site. The Lord is good.

Got a kick out of your defense out of the scruffy unshaved look being critiqued on StuD. I like the look but can remember a few bad cases of razor burn in my passionate youth, so I'd be inclined to look but not nuzzle. Well, that's not a likely option at my age anyway.

Between that and Horacio's shag rug however, male body hair seems to be a hot topic on Dueña.

What's your take on Llena. I've watched it because it's the right time slot, but don't really like it. Just a poor successor to the impeccable Mi Pecado. Really suffers by comparison.

@Susanlynn...happy to hear dinner starts getting cooked around 4 pm. For some reason that's always when I want to eat. The Brits have it right...a substantial "tea" at 4 pm with sandwiches and such and then dinner at 8. Hope you're enjoying little Lily. I adore infants. Could walk around holding them all day. Since our Baby Jack is now a Macho Piglet "no way!" foot-stomping 2-year-old, my only bonding time is when he's had a bath, is in his footed jammies and ready to snuggle in for some bedtime stories. Ay yi yi, how fast time passes.

@Carlos...love those pictures. Especially those two jockeying peacefully for the fan. Can't blame 'em. It's gotten cooler here the last few days though. No complaints.
 

Judy, unfortunately the Lobo lookalike is at HOME! The gardeners for my apartment building seem to be there constantly. Yesterday I saw Lobo and another guy. This morning when I left there were five of them! I swear they trim the hedges every single day. It's a mystery to me how they find so much gardening to do in our little courtyards.

I used to really hate facial hair. Didn't like it in any form. Then, for a long time I was smitten with a guy who always looked a bit scrubby like that (initially attracted by his personality), and gradually I came to find the facial hair look itself appealing. I might find David Zepeda attractive even with a twirly villain mustache, though.

In my none-too-extensive experience, it's the one- or two- days' growth that is scratchy. When it gets a little longer than that, not so scratchy anymore.

I'm enjoying Llena de Amor. There are a few aspects that are irritating, but also some really fun parts. Altair Jarabo and Valentino Lanus together are very entertaining. Saucy wordplay plus subtle physical comedy. Also I'm looking forward to seeing Axel and Kristel come out of the woodwork and be forces to be reckoned with.

As I've mentioned before, though, my current favorite is Camaleones...speaking of men who look good with facial hair.
 

I meant Gretel, not Kristel. Kristel can just fall in a vat of hot oil.
 

Hi Carlos, I'll have a Dark and Stormy, please. That's our drink of choice in my book club.

The photos are great. We definitely understand jockeying for a fan! It's 76 degrees here now - 30 degrees down from our high. YAY!! I took Mike's mom to sit on the porch at the nursing home this afternoon and she really seemed to enjoy herself.

Judy, we are also watching Llena but not enjoying it much. We are hoping the writers are about finished with the fat jokes and cruelty. Time to flesh out some more of the characters.

We like STuD better but rarely see the entire hour. Gotta get those ZZZZs. The recappers make it seem as if we have seen the whole thing. ALL the recappers are great, but I miss our Gancho recap team. Y'all were the best evah!
 

Judyb~~~Jack sounds like a robust young lad. Hub would love a boy in the family, but he never complains about being surrounded by girls...wife, daughters, granddaughters. Lily is a tiny doll. Today , the doctor weighed her, and she is about 7 lbs....up from her 6 lb 8 0z birth weight. I love to just sit and hold her against my chest as she sleeps. It's very zen, and hub says that it's the only time I can sit still for more than 10 minutes. On Thursday, Julianne wants me to go along to have photos taken of the two girls. P.S. We usually eat about 6 or 7 pm , but the sauce was done , and I was hungry because I had had no lunch. We filled about 10 containers with sauce for the freezer, so we will be able to share the bounty with Julianne's family. It was overcast and gloomy all day here...bleccchhh...I want some clear, sunny days . I always feel lazy and blah on these gray , damp days. Can't wait to see STuD tonight. I'll have to record CS because I must get up at 6.oo for work tomorrow.
 

Susanlynn...we were definitely "separated at birth". When Jack was a newborn, the only way he could sleep was on someone's chest. My daughter doesn't care for that at all, so I would put him on my chest and he'd nap for about four hours. Gave me a break too! With Kate, I just slept with my arm crooked around her. She too needed the warmth of a body to settle down and that just wasn't my daughter's thing. Her husband was better at it, fortunately.

I used to be depressed by cloudy days but we had a friend, hyper, driven, high blood pressure, and he said he loved days like this because they calmed him down. That helped me see them a little differently. A "reframe".

@Julia..happy to hear it's better after a couple of days! (the risk of razor burn that is)

@Emilia...glad your suegra had a few happy moments out on the porch. This weather is a lot more livable. And it's nice to be outside again. I hate being cooped up in air-conditioning but the outdoors was horrendous for a while.
 

Susanlynn, Julia, Judy, and Emelia, How nice to arrive home to find you ladies enjoying yourselves at Club Gancho. I think I'll have one of those Dark and Stormies myself.

Julia, I'm glad that you're enjoying LldA. I'm trying, but I think it needs to develop a sense of direction soon. By and large (no fat joke intended) the characters are likable (especially the baddies, Fedra and Bernardo) but it doesn't seem to be headed anywhere in particular. Your memories about the first day of school closely mirror mine.

Susanlynn and Judy, I love hearing about the grandchildren. Lily sounds like a little doll and I've been fond of Baby Jack for quite some time now.

Emelia, I find myself nodding off during the second half of STuD each evening and often have to rewind and try again. Wish we could have some of your cool weather here.

Carlos
 

It's hard to imagine not wanting a baby sleeping on you. So snuggly! What's not to like. I need some of my friends to have babies so I can hold them.

I think the most exciting thing about starting school was finding out who would be in your class. We didn't know ahead of time, usually, and the particular mix absolutely determined the dynamic your whole year would have. Sitting there at your little desk with your new pencil box in front of you, watching each new person who came through the door...will the next one be your crush, or your nemesis?...I think that's the type of excitement reality shows try to duplicate.
 

Julia...we moved every year (my dad was a civil engineer with Dupont and this was during the period where they were building new sites all over the country, so every year it was a new school and there were tremendous differences in school systems those days. Can't say I ever liked school although in college I did enjoy the start with nifty notebooks, new textbooks and yes, a new crush or two just around the corner.
 

As for facial hair, I had a mustache for about twenty years, and my wife never complained, but after I finally shaved it off, she liked the new look better (and the feel, for kissing).

I, for one, never looked forward to the start of school. I've always liked my hobbies, and school (and now work), just interferes with them. We had lots of kids in the neighborhood to play sports all summer, so I didn't miss my friends too much, either. I finally started liking school a bit more in 11th and 12th grade, when I started doing more after school activities, such as plays and clubs (still didn't look forward to the actual school part, tho!).

I wasn't able to stick with Llena. I've been watching Dinero, and 2 novelas on other networks (which of course aren't recapped, which is too bad, because they're so good). I really wish Univision would consider something edgier like Rosario Tijeras, El Cartel, and some of the others which Telemundo and Telefutura have. There's one coming up called India, which looks really good, combining two cultures, sort of like El Clon.

I love hearing about all of the babies and pets. And of course the food. I'm getting hungry right now, and I already had dinner!
 

Julia~~ My school was so small [88 in my graduating class] that usually the same people were in my class [Academic track]. Many yeachers seated us alphabetically , so I was usually behind Ralph W. [my first beau who took me to see the local production of ''South Pacific'' ..with hus mother and sister] and in front of Glenn W. who brought his drum set to all my parties. Not much variety in my small school. Many of the kids I graduated with started in first grade with me. See Jane. See Dick. See Sally. See Spot. See Jane run. Etc....
 

Ahoy all, I still don't have any pics of my trip yet...computer problems on our desktop and I'm too much of a dunderhead to try to fix it. Plus it's very hot right now (an "ola de calor" as it just said on the news) and I'm using it as an excuse to be lazy and drink Dark and Stormies with y'all!

Ahh school days. Like hombre I always viewed school as getting in the way of my real fun. However once I got to college I enjoyed it a bit more, maybe because I was paying and wanted to get my money's worth? I wonder...

I am not commenting on STuD because I'm so far behind and still catching up. I'm only on the 7/14 episode right now. It's my fave TN although I will be recapping LlDA which seems to have a slightly insipid plot. Still some of my favorites have been slow out the gate and I very much like some of the characters so I'm hopeful. Julia, I caught an episode of Camaleones and liked it but alas, I don't have time to watch that much TV.

Carlos, thank you for posting this episode of Club Gancho and I LOVE the pet pics.

I had a great trip to Hawaii ida y vuelta but it's always good to be back home.
 

Carlos, what great pictures. Our cherished fur kids love those cool, fleeting breezes as much as we do. Thank you for posting this!

So nice reading everyone's comments.

Susanlynn, heartfelt congratulations on the birth of Lily. Blessings to you and all of your family. I'm so happy for you.

I enjoyed everyone's school stories. Like Hombre, I never really looked forward to the beginniong of the school year much. I went to very strict Catholic schools, with uniforms and beanies (real ones! :). When I was a senior in high school, our privilege was to wear a pull over sweater instead of a button down cardigan. I remember being taken into the biology lab more than once to have my skirt measured only to be told it was too short! Once, I actually got sent home because I wore a blouse with a Peter Pan collar. 12 years of uniforms took their toll - I've spent almost 40 years as a wanna be fashionista trying to make up for it!

Julia, I'm glad you're enjoying Llena. I may like it a little more than you Emilia, but it needs to pick up the pace. A more interesting and varied storyline might make it more enjoyable for you Sylvia and the other recappers. As Judy noted, Mi Pecado was fabulous and Llena had a high standard to match.

Good to catch up with my sorely missed Gancho family.

Diana
 

Aargh, dress codes! I had forgotten about those. I was in the public school system and got sent home in 9th grade for wearing culottes. Mother was furious, not at me but at the school. The next year they dropped the dress code and girls could wear pants and short skirts. It was just in time for hot pants as I recall.
 

Hi Diana, we always look forward to having you join us here at Club Gancho.

I'm a little surprised that everyone at Club Gancho didn't look forward to at least the first day of school with great anticipation.

Diana, Darla my receptionista went to Catholic school until high school. She says that she would roll the skirt of her uniform at the waist to make it shorter but easily adjusted if busted. I didn't realize that she was such a scofflaw.

Susanlynn, for 3years I sat behind Mitzi H in English class. The view was spectacular. Timothy O' (my impossible dream, I've mentioned her before) always sat next to me in that same class. Heaven on earth for an hour each day.

Carlos
 

Carlos, I'm very familiar with the skirt waistband roll! We wore those hideous shirtwaist dresses in the summner, but the winter uniform was a white blouse and plaid skirt. I usually waited until I left school to do it though. The sisters of the Order of St. Benedict were very vigilant and by the time winter rolled around, I was weary of the ruler slaps for my short summer hems!

Diana
 

I enjoyed the first day of school my first nine years. I sat behind Stephen R. and in front of Ralph W. The teachers couldn't or wouldn't pronounce my name (small-town WV) so after 'Stephen' 'here' there was a long pause and I said 'here', a grateful sigh, then 'Ralph'....
After ninth grade I changed schools every year and for a shy kid, that first day was torture. The good part was that nobody knew me and I got to reinvent myself every September.

Mike and I went to a lecture on Alzheimers and Dementia this morning. Very educational. They could have put Mike's mom's name at the top of every Powerpoint slide! She appears to be getting down to the short rows, but I'm betting she outlives us all, just for spite! (Mean of me, yes...sorry)
 

There were a lot of Catholic kids where I grew up in northern Kentucky. I was always a little jealous when my Catholic buds would tell me they were not having school, just Mass, because it was St. Somebody's feast day.

But as a teenage guy, I did find the girls' uniforms, usually the plaid skirt and knee socks, white blouse and blazer, to have a certain appeal. Especially the naughty girls who did the waist band roll thing. A belated thanks to you all for doing that! Oh, yeah.

Facial hair. Gotta shave every day, 'cause it itches if I don't. And every time I have to buy blades, or rather those uber-expensive cartridges, I wish I'd held on to my old double-edge Gillette safety razor with the affordable blue blades. Every now and then I'd indulge in the good Wilkinson Sword stainless blades. As a thorough dating of that, I even used to buy Burma Shave (yes, children, there really was such a thing) and remember it being good stuff.

TNs: Emilia and I are just not getting into Llena de Amor - cannot figure out who's doing what to whom and it's just not coming together. Still enjoying STuD, when I can stay awake that late. And I'm gonna have to call Cox Cable about the CC's. Still don't have them on UV.
 

I wish we had had uniforms at any of the schools I attended; it would have saved me a lot of trouble. I spent most of my life hideously dressed.

The only dress codes we had in my elementary, jr. high, and high schools were that you couldn't have any offensive graphics displayed, and your shorts or skirt had to be at least fingertip length. As far as I know, only one kid was ever made to turn his offensive shirt inside out, and the length rule was NEVER enforced.

I didn't hate school, but I thought five days per year of it would have been enough. By the time I was in high school I skipped quite a bit, which got me a lot of lectures from the vice principal, which I disregarded.
 

Hombre, During my internship year I grew a mustache along with most of our group to show solidarity with Faye M., our hippie intern, whom the powers wanted to dump because of his long hair and facial hair. It was a slow process for me at the time, so when it came time to pose for the group picture, the nurses in the ER helped augment it with eyebrow pencil. I liked it, and no one has seen my face without it for over 40 years. I'd be afraid to cut it off now.

Mike, very funny. I think the TN producers share our appreciation of the Catholic school girl uniforms.

Emelia, both you and Judy changed schools often. I would have liked the idea of reinventing myself at the beginning of each school year.

Carlos
 

Wow. I'm back from my second day of classes, and I've enjoyed the comments posted while I was gone. Diana, thanks for your good wishes about our darling Lily. Welcome home, Capn. I can't wait to hear about your sea adventure. Regarding dress codes, I remember the principal checking out my skirt [which had a big center pleat] while I was waiting in the lunch line. He thought that it was culottes. [Years later when he came to the school where I was teaching, I discovered that he was a bit of a dirty old man so maybe he wasn't just checking the girls for culottes. ] The girls in my school had to wear skirts and dresses, and the boys had to wear buttoned shirts and slacks [no jeans]. The history of dress codes in our schools is interesting. When I started teaching in senior high school , the dress code was the same as in my school district. Then , the next year, the girls convinced TPTB to let them wear slacks. The next year, the students began to wear jeans. The next year, the jeans were tight and torn. The next year, the guys were wearing teeshirts and hats with bad words on them. It was a quick descent down a slippery slope. My daughter took a course on school law a few years ago and learned that legally it has become very difficult for a school district to enforce a dress code. Odd, no ? Also, after having students from all over the world for many years, I have learned that students from just about every other country wear uniforms to school....everybody. They ask me why most Americans don't wear uniforms. Emilia~~did your Ralph W. tell you to start shaving your legs? Mine did. He was a cheeky young guy with a brunette crewcut, dark brown doe eyes,and an endearing grin. Now, when I see him at reunions, he's a cranky old dude. Carlos, I loved school. It gave me the opportunity to be with my friends. Living in the country meant that school provided the chance to be with people. Most of us lived on farms or small villages or isolated. We even talked the girls' gym teacher into having the boys' health class join us for weekly dancing in the gym....slow dancing, sqare dancing, the limbo, etc. In fact, I think that I talked her into that. Studyhalls with that teacher meant that we could dance and play Chinese checkers and gab. During final exam week everyone went to the gym for dancing whenever they weren't taking a final. See...going to a small country school wasn't bad. I have lots of fond memories of those school dances.
 

Susanlynn, I think if Ralph had told me to shave my legs I would have died right on the spot! The horror! Ralph was one of the 'mountain kids' who was allowed to wear dungarees (jeans) because that's all he had. He had 15 or 16 brothers and sisters, imagine!
 

Emilia, I'm trying to figure out why your name would be hard to say, and I'm baffled.
 

Susanlynn, I know you love to watch dancing. Do you still like to do it yourself? I see you have enjoyed it since you were young. It all makes sense now. Heh, my word verification is "disca"; any relation to disco?

ITA with Julia, what's so friggin' difficult about pronouncing Emilia?
 

Cap'n~~~I used to go to all the school dances. I took tap and ballet lessons when I was a little girl. Hub and I danced our way through 3 proms, and we used to go to oldies dances with my best friend from high school and her hub and friends I taught High school with for many years. Now, nobody wants to go to the oldies dances with me anymore, so I dance by myself as I listen to the oldies on the satelite radio on the patio or in the livingroom as I watch the PBS oldies shows or in the bathroom as I'm getting ready in the morning. Are you going to watch the new show on Uni ...''Mira Quien Baila?'' I think that it starts in Sept. I wonder if the Liz Vega dances are still on Youtube. Now that girl could dance.
 

Julia and Sylvia, I've been trying to think of a way to respond to you about Emilia's name. And the only thing I can suggest is:

ROAD TRIP!!

We'll pick you two up at Richmond Airport and head west on I-64 till we get to the Alderson exit. You know, Alderson, where Martha Stewart was incarcerated? And, and, and, then we'll stop at the John Henry statue by the Big Bend Tunnel over t' Talcott. But we have to watch out for them F*****ers (no, it's not that, it's a real family name) 'cause they's mean.

Say, are y'all given to carsickness?

Then we'll spend a night or two at the Sweet Rose Motel. Breakfast at Kirk's (aka Ralph's for a good reason) and lunch and dinner at the Facebook-honored Dairy Queen.

Then you will gain enlightenment.

Well, I reckon can hear someone getting out the ol' iron skillet for this one.
 

Sounds like a fun road trip, Mike. From your writing, it seems that the West Virginia dialect has a great deal in common with the rural southern Idaho dialect. Specifically, saying "t'" instead of "at" or "in" and "them" in front of nouns for no real reason. Say, is "fancy" pronounced "fant-see" and said a bit snidely there?
 

Mike, I'm in!! Since the Sweet Rose provides a BBQ we can have a grill-out while we're there. I love those green doors.