Caray, Caray!

• Well of course we were all on the edge of our seats the last 23 hours wondering whether Fernanda would really slip and fall to her death.
  
  Wow, she didn't! Pancho's friend Chacho is uselessly glued to the sidewalk and many other onlookers are likewise uselessly stationary, Pancho manages to haul the Doña back up on the bridge by himself. He thanks God for not making him an orphan by letting his newly adopted mother fall to her death. Fernanda and Pancho hug and are very tender (great chemistry, those two).
  
• As the three drive away from the scene in his truck ("la burra," the female donkey) Pancho plans to give her crispy pig skin junk food to liven her up. He invites her back to his casa popular, where all are welcome: there will be hot chicken soup for her, and mole!
  
  She's in shock and stupidly repeats everything he says ("like a parakeet" complains Chacho). He points out for her sake (and ours) all his kids, whose photos are up over the dashboard. Oldest, Pepe, next, Ana (the squirt with the accordion), next Lupita, lastly Temo. He enthuses about his happy family and says "we're lucky, we love each other. Nobody should be alone." "I'm alone," she moans. "From now on, you have me," he enthuses further.
  
  
• Vicente's house: he asks his dog: "Who do you love?" He and his nutty (I love her) wife Pina and the dog, all at the table, are served by the perky maid Adoración.
  
• Pancho's house: before he and his passengers arrive, we are treated to Pancho's sister Candy practicing her shake-and-thrust dance routine. Chela chides her, recommending less sensuality, there will be children and proper married couples at the celebration, and besides, "you know how guys are, remember what happened that OTHER time..." Candela says no such nightmare will ever happen again. "Don't censor me, don't limit my creativity!"
  
  There is a boisterous welcome for the stranger, the dog Popeye does a little dance, we see that Lupita (sister #2) has a bit of a "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!" complex. Pancho introduces his sister-in-law Chela (that's Vicki Vicki Vicki of yore) and his "exotic and exuberant" sister Candela.
  
  Pancho, editing out the suicide attempt, tells everyone his mystery guest has had a bit of a shock due to their vehicle almost being in an accident. All stare as she eats (she has to be shown how to hold a tortilla) and she beams, saying the mole is the most delicious thing she's ever eaten. Applauso!
  
  Temo sticks his nose in the cake as "BITE" is chanted, there is the usual out-of-tune rendition of Las Mañanitas (which is actually a lovely song), Chela brings coffee.
  
• The party winds down, Doña Fernanda says she has to leave, she'll call a taxi, Pancho says nonsense, I'm going to take you home Mom. (I have adopted an older woman as my mother too so I'm very pleased with this.) "Pancho, I haven't felt this good in a long time, your family is so loving and united..." "Just a normal family," he insists.
  
  She gushes over his admirable qualities some more, he asks why she wanted to jump, she tells him she has cancer and not long to live. (My son, who is a brain cancer survivor, mutters that anybody who gets cancer in a telenovela always dies but I remember a guero who once had leukemia and was completely cured two episodes later and was as handsome and vigorous as ever.)
  
  He's shocked, she says that's just one of her problems, for instance, "I loved a young man, but my father forbade our marriage as he was not of our social standing, and I had a son, I was told he was dead but I don't believe it." ...
  
  ... (So now is the time to tell you that our other roommate Mitzi, who has only watched about three hours of telenovelas total and doesn't understand Spanish, said last night at the first appearance of Fernanda, "that's going to turn out to be Pancho's mother.")
  
  So he tells her about his wife dying and we see the flashback of her in the hospital (and as she is failing, the only medical person in the room, a bored nurse, walks out. No medical person lifts a finger to save this young mother? Who, except for a few bruises on her face, looks pretty healthy to me. Where's the crash cart?) and we see Pancho, in an incongruously wild striped shirt, sobbing with baby Temo in his arms ...
  
  ... he recovers from his flashback, regrets the melodrama, and reiterates to Fernanda that from now on she will never be alone, "you can always count on me." She says he's taught her that only God writes the ending and that she should keep on keeping on...
  
  ... Then he tells her another of HIS problems, which is, that the neighborhood land has been mortgaged since Pancho's grandfather was the owner, and things are worse lately, and a devil of a lawyer Renzo Enzo Rinaldi has been pressing for payment. "What a small world," Fernanda thought-bubbles, "Rinaldi works for me."
  
• In the dark, daughter 3 (Lupita) greets her consentido Tomás (meaning that they are at least sort of engaged). They kiss but when his finger strays toward her clavicle she pushes him away, saying: "when we are married!" "Yeah" he mutters, and leaves. She beams, thinking of their marriage and subsequent "special night" when she will, one presumes, Give All.
  
• The dashing and spoiled young Freddy comes down the stairs of the mansion he lives in with his parents and the Pomeranian, he's going out. His wonderful daffy blond mom, Pina, says he can't go, what with all the fuss over aunty, but Freddy doesn't care ("probably she's just wandering around out there with Alzheimers" he says).
  
  "My nerves!" Pina exclaims. She strokes her son's head, he leaves. She announces she will faint, and her well-trained husband takes her in his arms and - puts her over by the comfy sofa so when she falls there'll be a soft landing. Pina: "Nobody loves me! I'm lonelier than the moon! Abandoned! Even you, dog, love your daddy and don't care about me! And your daddy is going to go out, too!"
  
• Standing in some dark place by the side of a handy race track: let's see, Prince Freddy (styles himself quite a car racer), his supposed girlfriend Mónica (she's daughter of the evil lawyer Enzzo Renso Menso Rinaldi), and Alex (friend), they're waiting for the "King of the Nacos" - "these lower-class boobs are always late." (Naco is a fascinating word and we did a feature on it once but I can't remember how to find it.)
  
  Well, well, it is a small world, because the King of the Nacos is: Tomás! Lupita's erstwhile boyfriend! And with him, Pepe, Lupita's brother. Tomás has "borrowed" his employer's sports car!
  
  To make a long story short, they all trade insults, wager 10,000 pesos on the outcome of the race, Tomás wins but Freddy doesn't pay up, Mónica and Pepe share a few hormone-charged zingers, Prince Freddy and King Tomás and courtiers exchange names and snide threats and part company.
  
• Fernanda asks Pancho to drop her in some anonymous place, lying that she's afraid to have the neighbors see her disembark with a man. She calls a taxi. I'm not sure where this is, but Pina and Veens see her disembark (must be a closed-circuit tv camera, maybe at the office?) The aunt calls and curtly announces: "I'm back, see you at work tomorrow," and she hangs up on Veents.
  
• Sunrise.
  
  • Pancho's at the market juggling vegetables, trying to get milk for poor kids when he doesn't have the money for it, and enduring the jibes of his co-workers, who saw him on tv saving Fernanda. They say such things happen only to him and to Pato Lucas (Daffy Duck). "If it hadn't been for you she'd have hung up her tennis shoes." (My son reminds me that in some barrios when a person's killed their shoes are tied together and thrown over a power line.)
  • Fernanda tells her haircutter to give her a whole new look because she's a new woman.
  • Candy tells Ana: stop wearing firemen's clothes, dress more like Greta Garbo.
  • When Pancho gets home, his sister (who claims to have a photographic memory) triumphantly shows him an old magazine with Fernanda on the cover - she's "millonetas" (millionaire-ish)!

Labels: familia

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