Luza & the Baseball Player

One of my nephews, Raphael (aka "Rafa") was celebrating his 40th birthday this weekend.
(Hi Rafa! Happy Birthday!!)

His beautiful wife, Lisa threw him an absolutely fabulous birthday bash. Of course, all his friends were in attendance, as well as his big, fat, Cuban family and his big, fat, Jewish family. (I should probably clarify at this point that Rafa's wife, Lisa, is Jewish, but that's not important right now.)

I had my mom this weekend, so it fell to me to make sure she was taken care of, got fed and stayed out of trouble during the party.

I know what you're thinking: "She's 94, Marta. Exactly what kind of trouble would she be getting into?"

Okay. I'll tell you.

But first, some background....

My mom is a Big Baseball Fanatic. She will proudly tell you that she has NEVER missed a World Series for as long as she can remember. When there wasn't a tv, she would listen to the games on the radio. BIG FAN.

In her personal collection of baseball stories, she likes to tell the one about how her father always said that he liked almost all American professional teams EXCEPT the Dodgers. (To any Dodger Blue fans out there, just get over it. She's 94, okay?)

That's her line. "I like every team, EXCEPT the Dodgers." She likes to pull that one out as Series time approaches.

So back to the party... and the TROUBLE....

Lisa's brother, Shawn is a recently retired professional baseball player. If you read his bio, you'll learn that he started his career with the Toronto Blue Jays in 1993, until 2000 when he went to play for..... (you guessed it!) The LA Dodgers. (To be fair he also played for the Arizona Diamondbacks 2005-06, and then the New York Mets 2006-07).

So I think it was Shawn's mom, Judy (who thinks that my mom is a kick even though Judy speaks no Spanish and my mom, Luza, speaks no English - go figure) who swears that Shawn speaks Spanish. How the trouble began...

"Come here, Shawn-Honey, and talk Spanish to Rafa's grandma." (okay, if you haven't already surmised, the alcohol was flowing pretty freely at this point in the festivities.)

Obediently, Shawn starts speaking his broken high school Spanish to my mom asking where the library is. She in turn, who's pretty deaf anyway, thinks they're talking about baseball, because it's logical, he's a baseball player.

Se we take a huge detour from the "where is the library" discussion as she remembers her hatred of the Dodgers and feels compelled to share this with the former Dodger Right Fielder who is now practically family.

"Oye, Shawn, los Dodgers no sirven pa' nada!" she tells him and he understands that her opinion of the Dodgers is not a good one. (we should have discussed the directions to the library, but that's not important right now. SIGH)

Two things are happening in this picture:
1) Shawn is sending me Vulcan mind messages that involve removing my mother forcibly from his body.
2) My mom is proudly telling Tony what she said to Shawn about the Dodgers sucking.
3) I collect my purse and my last remaining shred of dignity and announce that sadly it's time for us to go.