¿Y Maria? ¡Se Fue...!

(Translation: And Maria? She left.)

A complete list of the wedding party's attendees would include:
My wife and I (at least I remember us being there)
My older brother (best man/ one of the Best men/ second marriage certificate witness)
Maria Sanchez (best woman, but not a Best woman/ oh, wait, they call that a "bridesmaid"/ except I think her two sons [at the time of the wedding, since she might have more children since] disqualifies her from the "maid" part/ first marriage certificate witness)
her two sons (if she had another, she could have made a TV show out of it)
My dad and step-mom
I would say the minister, except I'm pretty sure he left right after the ceremony
Lorena (not the one who is my wife, but the lady that introduced us)
Two other female co-workers, only one of whom I remember the name of (Angie)

Obviously, not the most-heavily attended marriage in history, but I'll take it anyway.  The reason I bring all of this up is because I finally decide to contact Maria to tell her about Lorena's death and, as the title would indicate, there was no Maria there.  I can't remember if it was a landline or a cellphone, but either way, the number is in the hands of someone else.  So, Maria, if you're out there, I didn't lose that number, I didn't (at the time I used it) want to call nobody else (I'm working with lyrics here, so please forgive the double negative), sending it off to a letter to myself wouldn't have helped anyway, it's not the only one I owned (although it is the only one I owned for you), and, finally, I suppose it could have made me felt better, except I was already home.
Oh, one more piece of trivia of dubious importance: Lorena (my deceased wife, not the co-worker by the same name who introduced us) was staying with Maria somewhere between 3 and 9 months after she stopped working for the other Lorena's brother and sister-in-law and before she moved in with me.

Jon Best's Groom's Guide to Planning a Wedding In Less Than One Week and On a Budget

I might not be Mary Fiore¹, but I can do in a pinch

1. Choose wedding date.  I've heard that the groom's birthday is an especially suspicious, I mean auspicious, date.
2. Have ring bought and marriage certificate arranged beforehand
4. Tell family, friends, and co-workers about wedding.  Financial tip: waiting until it's too late for people to RSVP makes buying and sending invitations unnecessary.
3. Tell family, friends, and co-workers² that you met a lady that you're considering marrying.  Wait... did I do that backwards?
5. Sometime during all of this, ask brother to be the best man and have him accept.
6. Have co-workers who refuse to go to the wedding if no (free) alcohol will be served.  Considering the wedding and reception will take place in a public park that prohibits such beverages, it's not really a choice.  Besides, such a move eliminates people who aren't there for the nuptials from attending and that's probably not all that great of a loss.
7. Although not absolutely necessary, having a father who has been a minister and knows someone who can perform the wedding (in Spanish and English, no less) certainly helps³.
8. Have step-mother willing to buy wedding cake and batteries for boom box to play music at reception.  Remember that it's only the latter that goes into the boom box.
9. On the day of the wedding, get up and get dressed, wife... I mean, bride (because she wasn't my wife yet) does the same and then prepares ceviche⁴ for the reception.  Besides the ceviche, I believe we also had tostadas and soft drinks.
   
   ⁵
10. Have co-worker who introduced you to each other do bride's hair and helps with her makeup.
11. Go to park (I'm 90% sure it was the McKinnon Neighborhood Park, but have a slight bit of doubt).  Did I see her before the wedding?  I believe so, but it's not like I believe in superstitions so it turned out ok after all.
12. Give a little time for anyone who wants to show up to do so.
13. Have wedding and don't mess up any lines.  Since I think all I had to say was "I do", that made it fairly easy.  Kiss the bride when minister gives the order.
14. Par-tay!  (Sorry, no bouquet or garter belt to toss)
15. Not know that one is supposed to pay the minister and have father volunteer to do so.  Have witnesses and minister sign form.
16. Cut the cake.
17. Have co-worker do the traditional (at least I guess it is in Mexico) smearing of a bit of frosting on my and my lovely wife's lovely nose (hers, not mine).
18. Get toasted with apple cider.
19. Get birthday card from father and step-mother.
20. That's pretty much it.  We took the remaining wedding cake home after that and lived more-or-less-happily ever (or at least until she died) after.

¹ Especially since I did not fall in love with the groom.
² If one of these co-workers happens to be the person who introduced you to each other, that's one less person you have to tell since she probably already knows.
³  And, yes, that does mean we did not have someone to perform the ceremony until a few days before the event.
⁴ Mexican sushi
⁵ Sorry, I couldn't find a ceviche⁴ recipe on YouTube in English.

My wife, she wrote me a letter

Or a lesson on hard it is to translate something when
the person who wrote what you are trying
to translate did not spell it correctly

This is just going to be a semi-Recent Widower Review explaining the similarities and differences rather than go through the entire song so that I can get back to discussing the letter/note under discussion:

1. She was never my baby.  She was always a woman to me (although I have plenty of disagreements with those lyrics as well), both before and after she became my wife.
2. An airplane/train ticket wouldn't have helped anyway since she lived within walking distance.
3. I didn't need to spend any money for that same reason.
4. She did write me a letter (well, actually three), although many might call a missive of that length a "note" instead.
5. Lonely days were gone, but only for awhile.  They've since returned.
6. I was probably at the restaurant when I read the letter, so I did have to go home.
7. The closest thing the letter said about not being able to live without me was that she wants to know if I would like to meet her.

So, it's pretty much 2½  points of agreement among the 7, although it does include the major point (that she wrote me a letter) included in the title.  But let's get to the note itself (Spanish first, translation in green second).  Note: Lorena tended to confuse "b" and "v" (since they sound alike in Spanish), drop the "h" (since it is silent in Spanish) in words, and not add necessary accents, so I have had to make minor spelling changes and make a few guesses.  Some parts of the translation might not be perfect (please let me know of any better ways to translate this in the comments), but I've done the best I could.

"Jon" (I don't think that needs translation)
¡Hola! (Hello!)
Me platicó Lorena lo que les pasó anoche pero es que yo le dijé a Lorena que me ablará [= hablará] antes de benirse [= venirse] para saber si Jesus y su esposa se habían ido al baile y no mas me quede esperando la llamada.  (Lorena¹ talked to me about what happened to them last night but I told Lorena that she will speak to me before she went [to work?] for me to know if Jesus and his wife were going to go to the dance and I would no longer have to wait for the [phone] call.
Tambíen le dijé que iba a estar a las siete afuera del restaurant aber [= a ver] si podían salir pero como no salieron. (Also² I told her that I was present at seven outside the restaurant³ to see if they could leave but they had not left).
Me biene [= viene] para la casa y a las nueve me iba debolver [= devolver] para benirme [= venirme] con Lorena y conoceste porque de tanto que me habla ella de ti y a te conosco [= conozco]. (I went home and at nine, I went went to return to come with Lorena and meet you because of how much she has told me about you and to know you.)
Aunqué yo [no?] sé que te bas [= vas] a desepcionar [= decepcionar] de mi porque no sé si quieres tener una amiga chaparrita y gordita. (Although I do [not?] know if you will be disappointed in me because I do not know if you want a slightly short and slightly plumpish female friend.)
Tambíen aller [= ayer] en la tarde estube [= estuve] con una amiga comiendo en el restaurante y cada [vez?] que alguien asomaba de adentro de donde ustedes estan decía cera [= sera] él o no sera.  (Also², yesterday afternoon, I was eating with a female friend in the restaurant y each [time?] that someone looked out from where you are she said "Will it or will it not be him?".
... y me decía mi amiga pues que tanto mirar para alla pues nada le contestaba... (and my friend said to me because so many would look from there and yet nothing would answer)
... y tambíen estaba un muchacho sirviendose fruta y dijé a mi amiga que fuera  a ber [=  ver] como se llamaba y que decepcíon se llamaba Ezequiel. (and also a guy was serving fruit and I told my friend that I would go see what his name was and what a disappointment that he was called "Ezequiel").
bueño.  es todo lo que te puedo desir [= decir].  hasta pronto.  Lorena F.  (Well, that is all I can say to you.  Until soon.  Lorena F.)
Me contestas porque lo que me mandaste el otro día lo perdio y no me dio nada.  Me dijiste que allí abias [= habías] puesto tu numero de telefono (Answer me because that which you sent me, I lost and you did not give me anything.  You told me that you put (wrote) your telephone number there.)


¹ My co-worker at HomeTown Buffet who gave me the note.
² Since she used a lower-case "t" on tambíen, it may have been the last word of the previous sentence, but it makes more sense as the beginning of this one.
³ Probably HomeTown Buffet in Salinas.

This is the story of a lovely lady...

Or, A Story Written Because of a Request of My Mother,
Despite My Belief I Had Already Told Her This Before

Except... she had four girls, not three.  Furthermore, they were already grown by the time she met the man she married, his name wasn't Brady, he didn't have any children, and neither the mother nor her daughters had golden hair, much less curls for the youngest.  As for the possibility of a housekeeper, finances (or more accurately, lack thereof) kept that as a pipe dream.  So except for several major differences, we were just like Carol Martin and Mike Brady in that they met and they married.

(NS)FAQ #2: Why "Loreto"?

One question I have received several times, especially among hispanohablantes ("Spanish-speakers", for you English-speakers) is why my wife's name was "Loreto" rather than "Loreta" since "o"-ending first names tend to indicate males and "a"-ending names tend to indicate females.  When someone first posed this question to me, I thought it might have to do with her being the eldest child in her family and there are quite a few guys who want their first child to be male.  However, that overlooked a more obvious answer, one that came to me the night before her final viewing as I sat my sister-in-law's living room in Vista, CA and saw a poster for this city:

(That would be Loreto, Baja California Sur, Mexico)

When is a party not a party?

One of my tendencies that people who know me- whether personally or through reading this blog- might recognize is that I often have difficulty putting times, such as dates, months or even years, to a lot of events that I otherwise remember quite well.  For example, some time back before I met my wife, a female co-worker (yes, that's one of the reasons I wanted to emphasize the above) asked me if I wanted to go to a party she was having at her house, if I remember correctly, that night.  Since I didn't have plans for whatever night it was (or pretty much any other night, come to think of it), I agreed after making arrangements for her to pick me up at my apartment as I don't drive and it was quite a distance away.  After work ended that day, I went to pick up some juice just in case the refreshments weren't to my liking (while I don't have anything against drinking per se, it's something I have never developed a taste for personally) and then home to change.  She arrives later on and we drive over to her house.  After awhile there, though, it appears that no one else is going to show up and eventually she takes me back to my place.  I think nothing of it until....