Tabasco Sweet Tabasco

Several times in the last few days I've thought I might discontinue this exercise in self-absorption. Seems pointless, now that instead of Thai sunsets and Cambodian temples, all I see is my parents' garage and occasionally the Nob Hill in Watsonville.

My sister encouraged me to keep on keeping on, if only to keep my already meager writing skills from getting rusty. "Just find funny and interesting things in everyday life" she said encouragingly. Which would be encouraging, if there were funny and/or interesting things happening in my everyday life.

But yesterday, something funny happened. One of those random Twilight-Zone moments that make you go, "Is this really happening, or is it all that peyote I've been smoking?" Like when you wake up after a one-night stand with Colin Farrell and he starts crying and says he loves you. . .what, that's never happened to you?

So my mom and I decided to go out to dinner, to this funky-dee-funk place in Watsonville called Mariscos. Or Los Mariscos, something like that. Basically, one of those ghetto Mexican places with 7 different kinds of hot sauce and red-checkered tablecloths. The place was small and semi-crowded, but we didn't take a good look around until we'd been seated. . .and realized we were, by a generous margin, the whitest people at any of the 8 tables. Also, the only women. Also, the only ones above 5'4". It was like the Annual Convention of Oaxacan Midget Cowboys in there. People were looking at us like you might look at a pair of Martians coming in all slimy and sitting down and ordering chips and salsa. A pair of tall, white, female Martians.

Wait, it gets better. Halfway through dinner (garlic sauteed in shrimp), four short brown cowboys appeared from nowhere (literally. I was watching the door and they didn't come in from outside, I'd have noticed.). Four short brown cowboys with large brown instruments- and I'm not talking about guitars. I'm talking about a stand-up bass bigger than the man trying to play it, and a whole set of drums, and. . .other overly-loud musical instruments of assorted types. And they gathered around a booth and started playing exuberant Mexican music. Loudly. And exuberantly. And everyone started clapping and, get this, SINGING ALONG.

Like this loud exuberant impenetrable live Mexican-Watsonvillian foursome in Mariscos was their FAVORITE BAND EVER.

And it made me so, so, so very glad to be home. Because where else would you find a live mariachi band playing their Greatest Hits in a mediocre 8-table funky Mexican restaurant? I'll tell you where. . .only in Watsonville.