2005-03-30 - 4:28 p.m.

Okay.

I am alive. I am almost well. Not completely but better than before.

(It seems that this plague drains the life out of you, even after the cough is gone.)

(I just hope I feel well enough to fight on Saturday.)

At any rate. I will not bore you to death describing how I am feeling (still exhausted) or how the fact that I have declared today "National Paper Pushing Day."

I won't even mention that I have been given the news that I will soon be doing the job of a co-worker who is retiring.

(No, it is not a promotion. It is just the news that I will have to do her job on top of mine.)

(Yeeehaaa!!!!!!)

No, ladies and gentlemen. Today I will talk about tomatoes, serenades, and my father's underpants (red)..

There will also be wrestling and noisy toilets.

You continue reading this at your own peril.

(Do not say I did not warn you.)

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My father had a real penchant for growing tomatoes.

He would grow them in the garden, under the windowsill, in the front yard, and just about anywhere. You had a patch of ground in the nearest vicinity, my dad had a tomato plant.

If he felt really inspired, he would boldly grow jalape�os as well.

And he did not go and purchase the little tomato plants and move it to his garden. Oh, no. That was for wimps. He would grow them from the seed up.

On the other hand, the custom of serenading your lady friends is very much alive and well in Mexico. (Yes, you guessed well. Mexico is where I was born and raised. Did you ever doubt it?)

Serenatas are very cool. A guy will never understand the feeling when you hear those first cords of a guitar in the wee hours of the night. And of course, they have all sorts of fun by going out and sing their stuff to their friends, mothers, wives, or even complete strangers. (More on the latter on a different posting).

In our case, my sister and I had a bunch of friends who, every time they felt like it, would come up and sing by our window. It was a pretty good show and we enjoyed it immensely.

Except for the fact that my father, who more than his tomatoes loved to annoy everyone else, particularly his daughters, would sabotage everything as often as possible.

One of his best known tactics would be to go to the bathroom, in the middle of a song, and pee as loudly as possible, then flush.

You see, this bathroom was an old fashioned one, with a window (usually open) that faced the patio where the serenaders liked to sing their merry songs. His peeing and flushing could be heard in the next solar system, let alone in the backyard. This always resulted in our friends just losing it and start laughing hysterically.

That sort of ruined the mood, you know? How can you get a date when you have your father putting up a show like that?

This happened every single time.

The problem was later solved by means of having my mother, my sister and me tackle my dad the moment he stepped up to go to the bathroom. We would then sit on top of him and prevent him from serenading the serenaders.

(Of course, he would start yelling at the top of his lungs "I need to pee!" but with the windows of our bedroom closed, there was less of a chance of the guys hearing him.)

But just when we thought that it was safe to have serenaders around, my father striked again.

Really.

One nice summer night, just when the strings of the guitar started sounding in the night, and despite my mother, sister and mine best efforts, my father darted outside yelling "Move away! Right now!"

Few things are more terrifying than a middle aged man running and yelling at you while wearing nothing but red underpants.

It is enough to put a stop to the most romantic suitor.

The guys started backing away saying "Please don't be mad Mr. Martinez! We will stop singing to your daughters will never come back!"

"It's okay" Said my father, "You can sing to my daughters all you want, but you morons are standing on my tomatoes!"

Hey, your daughters are your daughters, but a good tomato is a good tomato.

And that, my friends, is a true fact of life.

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