Monday, January 21, 2013

Carnaval in Mazatlan ~ 2013



Carnaval started for us unofficially January 19th with the Cats n' Jammer Jazz Mardi Gras night.  Joel is out of town right now so it was just me at this event.  We've not missed it for 3 years in a row.  Saturday night however my friend Nadine agreed to be my date. Thanks Nadine. We did have fun!

February 7 - 12 will bring Mazatlan's annual Carnaval event. Big, Beautiful and Befitting of a new queen. Each year a new queen is voted in. It is a international event including the participation of the Queens from Central and South America and the United States adds to the international flavor of the Carnival festivities. The visiting beauties participate in the spectacular Carnival parades, and also compete for the title of Pacific International Queen.

We live right on the parade route and host a Carnaval party at our place. Our guests will be able to see the parade up close and personal. This highly-anticipated event of Carnival is the carriage float (or "allegorical" carriages) parade, which takes place on Sunday. The waterfront is somehow transformed into a sea of thousands from all over. Mazatleco families and visitors gathering to enjoy the parade of fantasies. This is the first of two parades. The second one follows on Tuesday also in front of our condo. We've not seen this one yet, so it will be fun to see the difference between the two.

Another one of the traditions of Carnaval is the Naval Combat ."On Saturday evening the harbor skies will glow with stunning fireworks displays, the air filled with the sights and sounds of the laser show, Naval Combat, a re-creation of the harbor's successful defense against French invasion by Mexican forces. The pyrotechnic bangs and shots simulate cannonades exchanged over sea and land during the battle between the Mazatlecos and the French man-of-war, "Le Cordeliere." "
[taken from Go Mazatlan] Please go to http://tinyurl.com/Go-Mazatlan to see some of the beautiful pictures of past Carnavals.

The Malecon [where we live] is being adorned with lights stringing for miles. At night time it is wonderful to see these all lit. Also erected on the malecon are 10 of what's called monigotes which means puppets and are actually very tall statues. The theme for 2013 is La Linterna Mágica, The Magic Lantern and the malecon has these very tall, 20+ foot statues of famous film stars of the past. As my brother Ken and my s-i-l Ruth and I were riding around yesterday my brother snapped a picture of these monigotes/statues to post here.  Not easy to do in traffic.

Next year, maybe you will think about visiting Mazatlan for this exiting and historical event. Until next time, La Vida Es Buena!

..and the beautiful
Marilyn Monroe

RUMBERA

TIN TAN

CHARLIE CHAPLIN

EL PADRINO



CANTIFLAS

MARCEL MARCEAU

EL TORITO

MARILYN DIETRICH

EL SANTO

AL JOLSON





Sunday, January 20, 2013

Memories of Cosmetology School


Back in the late 1970's I [Janice] decided I needed a skill to help supplement the family income and give me something to do while the young children were in school.  I didn't want to spend a lot of time going to college and wanted to pick up on something quickly to bring additional money into the home.  Since I was a young girl, I started playing around with my own hair, and I'd fix neighbors hair. I'm not sure now what it looked like, but I liked it.  I can remember the first time I colored my hair, yes in 6th grade. My parents were off on a full day trip and I decided to use my mother's hair color and color my own hair. Mind you I was a blonde and mom was a brunette. My sister-in-law 'to be' at that time immediately called her girlfriend when she saw me and they tried to "fixed" my hair. I'm sure it looked terrible after I colored it, and then they tried to color correct it. Well you can imagine the surprise when my parents came home and saw my hair.
That wasn't the last time by any stretch of imagination. Why wasn't I satisfied with blonde hair? There are women that spend thousands of dollars every year to have their hair colored the way mine was. But by the time I graduated high school I was back to being a blonde. After I got married and had a couple daughters and one son, I played beauty shop with them also, so it wasn't any surprise when I thought what I wanted to do when I 'grew up' that I'd go to cosmetology school. I won't boar you with all that I learned in school and cut right to the chase about what prompted this particular blog.
Tonight I am going to our local Mardi Gras dinner/dance/jazz and this morning I colored my hair a beautiful shade of red. Earlier in the week I also cut my hair, however I've had the flu this week and did not feel like styling it so I called for an appointment and had my hair washed and style by this lovely young Mexican gal who speaks no English and I speak very little Spanish. At least not enough to tell her what I want and don't want. She proceeds to wash, towel dry, mouse it up, blow it dry and then use a curling iron on my hair. Once she is finished with that, she takes a teasing comb and teases my short, fine, thin hair where all you see are little strands of red hair sticking straight up. If that isn't enough, she sprays it with hair spray and begins to 'pick out' my hair into a style. My head is bobbing from side to side with every pick of the comb since there is so much spray in it and this hair that is teased down starts coming out. I think I must have lost 100 more strands of my already thin hair. All the while smiling [I'm sure she is thinking I like what she is doing] as I'm recalling learning the exact same thing in cosmetology school when I was in my 20's on old ladies that had blue hair. Tease the heck out of it, because we new it would be like that until the next week when they came in again. I saw myself as one of those old ladies, only with red hair, and guessed she must have recently gotten out of school for the same thing. I get one more thorough shot of hair spray and I'm on my way.
 

 
Follow up to the story.  Mardi Gras was a blast.  Joel is down visiting his cousin in the Yucatan Pennisula and so I went with very good friends and danced the night away.  There were so many of us ladies on the dance floor having such a great time. 
Wonderful women friends! Thanks all for a great night for this
Red Head gone wild.