HAPPY BIRTHDAY HONEY-PIE!

Jordi one week old

27 years ago today, at SF General Hospital, and with the help of a beautiful midwife, was the most special day of my life, as I gave birth to my favorite person on this planet.






I was clueless and scared, but Jordi gave me the strength to overcome pretty much any obstacle. My whole life has been a series of bumps and obstacles, feeling like salmon, swimming against currents,  questioning myself, looking back, and what ifs; but Jordi has been my anchor, and later has been also a support. I would go visit him to feel reenergized and loved.


And while we continue to see and talk to each other through the marvels of Skype, being so far from him is not that easy.


So in honor of this day, I have one last series of photos that I have yet to share with you guys, from the month of April, when he was here visiting me.

RODA DE BARA


This is a town south of Barcelona, already in the province of Tarragona, which is popular for fine sand beaches with shallow waters, a area perfect for babies and toddlers, they can play in the water without getting carried away by waves. I used to come to one of these beaches when Jordi was a baby.

We hoped on the train with Wilbur, and Esther, who also stayed a few months with me when I lived in Hermosa Beach, back in the summer of 92, which was during the Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona, where Esther was supposed to be volunteering, and yet she gave that up to be with us. I don't think she regretted a single moment, we had a great time. Only problem I ever had with her was our musical preferences were wide apart, so she had to wear headphones when it came time to that. As I was saying, Esther picked us up at the train station and we drove to her parents vacation home, that has a salt water pool, although it was still too cold for bathing, we did take in a bit of sun just around it.





Esther has two younger sisters, Laura and Sol.  The following summer, just after Jordi's 9th birthday, he travelled solo to Spain for 6 weeks, and he had spent much of that time with the Urue Family, mostly with Sol, who was just a year older than Jordi, and was a little tomboy back then.

Urue Family in 1998

Jordi and Sol rekindled their friendship in 1998, while we visited Barcelona together for a few weeks, but the two of them had not seen each other since, and it was a bit more difficult this time, because of the impediments that come with adulthood and also because Jordi's Catalan speaking abilities are much less of what they used to be.




Esther and Sol took us to visit the town and a town within the town "El Roc" that is very quaint.










We also visited the little church where Esther was married, shortly after coming back from her visit to the US.













Meanwhile Pol had already started cooking, or rather barbecuing his one of a kind "Arros a la Banda", similar to a Paella, but more local to this area; it translates to : rice on the side. Because the rice would be cooked with the broth from the catch of the day, you would serve the fish on the dish, while the rice remained in the large ceramic dish, and each person would eat from this dish with their own wooden spoon.


According to Jordi, the best meal he had during his entire stay, while a close second was that Fideua that Mari had prepared.