2026

 Meditation for a New Year • January 1, 2026.

Michael Sedano

The sun this grey January day rises only to be shrouded by grey overcast making January First twenty-twenty six one of those cheerless winter days, wet, chilly, just the day for a fire, for remembering, for locating space to hold the fulness of memories.

This day, this year, is time for taking perspective. Now that so much has changed, there are ideas to pursue, experiences to relish, to find a place for some memories to rest.

2026. Another first day of the year. 80 of them in a lifetime, 57 of them since getting married and starting our tradition of eggs benedict on New Year morning. Three years since Barbara died. Today, I appreciate our tradition in a solitary meal, sorting out what was joyful and important.

Our first New Year, 1969, arrives clouded by dread it would be our only and last. I have 18 days remaining until reporting to the Draft. July of ’69 I’m immersed in high adventure, stationed atop the world’s highest missile site near the Korean DMZ.

I take R&R in Tokyo for Xmas and New Year 1970. (Link) Barbara flies to join me. We spend our second new year day in Tokyo, knowing we have only a few hours until my leave expires and her flight to LAX. We have a deluxe Japanese breakfast served in the Shibuya-ku Ryokan Barbara reserved for our reunion week. She wears the silk kimono jacket we bought on our first walkabout and shopping foray and smiles at my camera.

Tokyo is everything Korea isn’t. Abundance versus rationing.  I have not eaten fresh fruit since July. Army mess halls don’t serve fruit of any kind. Stores in Tokyo look like Grand Central Market in DTLA. I buy ten tangerines every day to devour sitting on the tatami, laughing with Barbara counting down our measured days together. 

We remembered that week for the rest of our lives.

I thickened the hollandaise in the microwave this year, and while it was delicious and mostly silky, it wasn’t quite right. Today’s breakfast is a good NewYear memory, packed into yet another January First. 

I sipped Korbel Brut and cleaned up the kitchen. Then, because I can, I finished the champagne reliving cherished memories of days before everything changed, relishing thoughts of the coming year. I always do that.

Chicanonautica: Toward 2021 with Twisted Optimism

by Ernest Hogan

 

Chingao! This one is due to go up on New Year’s Eve. That changes things. I like to write these things about a week in advance, but right now everything is changing so fast. Keeping up will be impossible, especially with all  the presidential tantrums, rumors of martial law and coups, a Christmas morning bombing . . .

For the last few nights I’ve been hearing what sounds like artillery being shot off in the cold Phoenician night. Maybe it’s just premature Happy New Year fireworks. But what kind degenerate sets off fireworks at four A.M.?

But there are all kinds of degenerates running around these days.

And on still another hand, a short story came to me in those peculiar hours. Now all I have to do is write it down. Then I’ll have something for an anthology I promised to contribute to.

Like I said before, 2020 is coming to an end, and not a moment too soon, but what about 2021?

There is no guarantee that next year will be better. I hope it will be. I do so with my usual twisted optimism.

At least we won’t have Trump in the White House. I hope. Used to be that this far past Election Day, we’d know, but then this is a new era, and the cult of personality around the 45th President of the United States of America will not die easily.

 

 I miss days when the news after an election would be full of boring transition stories, and commentators would go on about how we’re the only country in the world that can do such a thing. Now it’s more like, is there any violence yet? What’s the body count? 

It’s not a case of putting the machinery of our society on cruise control and coasting into a new utopia, or dystopia--always remember that what is utopia for some is dystopia for others.

Trumpsters are bracing themselves for their own apocalypse even though they make noise and destroy property in the name of stopping the steal. They expect government agents of color to knock on their doors and take their guns, and to give their jobs (if they have any) to illegal aliens. And what are they going to do with all their made-in-China Trump paraphernalia?

I’m not expecting Biden to come in and establish a socialist utopia. I’ll be happy if he can just slam the breaks on our current slide into a New Dark Age, which will happen if we can pry the sociopath-in-chief out of there.

Do I even have to say what all this will mean to us Latinoids for the La Bloga audience? I still dream of a world where I can do my business as a venerable Chicano author without having to convince a lot of people that I’m not a drug-dealing rapist out to steal their lousy jobs. I’m a grey-haired senior citizen with a fresh Medicare card--you have no need to fear me!

Meanwhile, I’ll keep doing my job (I have one, I don’t need yours), and keep working on my novel that really does look like it’s going to be a trilogy at this point--I’m still not sure if I’ll go hunting for a publisher on the fringes or brave the abuse of the New York corporate publishing world for a dubious, but very real, very American dream of big bucks, and do short stories and other things when I can get away with them.

It all depends. None of it’s certain. And that’s the hell of it.

Ernest Hogan is the author of High Aztech, and considered to be the Father of Chicano Science Fiction.

Tuesday, January 1, 2019 Happiest New Year

Make Good Memories
Michael Sedano

January First is a day like any other day to that fellow sitting up there. All day, all night, every day, baking in searing heat or slapped in the face by icy winds, he stares out with clear vision at what's out there, immune to passing time and memory. Now, New Year’s Day 2019, time compels that he share what he saw out there.

I took that photograph on January 1, 1970, my last day of R&R in Tokyo. Tomorrow, Barbara flies away and I return to the Army. We are strong, survivors in the prime of life and we know it. 

Today, Barbara remembers we were in a march. There's magic in that verb, with its principal parts, the present, the past, the future, the wishing and willing voice, down to the root, viz.,

I remember.
I remembered.
I shall remember.
I would remember.
If only I could remember.
I

New Year’s Eve 1970, I remember we were the only gaijin couple in the nightclub where the comic ate us up like we ate that fancy steak. We understood only that one punch line, “Americans! You give me foreign aid!” We all laughed. Earlier that night, we marched. Barbara remembers.

We walked off the train into the orderly chaos forming on the streets for the “War Is Over” Yoko and John peace demonstration. Milling throngs spilled off sidewalks into the streets, slowing insistent traffic. Multiple lines of people snaked along sidewalks from five directions, joining to cross a pedestrian bridge that flooded ever more bodies into the mass on our side. With a mind of its own, a line phalanxed through the masses toward the distant concert hall. We couldn’t penetrate the crowd to get there.

Beating drums and ringing chimes mixed into the excited noise from densely packed bodies maneuvering for a place to stand. Dark came quickly throwing the scene into murky shadow. Staccato notes and rhythmic chanting filled the air. Snake-dancing lines cut swiftly through teeming disorder, their shiny black helmets weaving insistent paths through the masses, their stout wooden poles and flapping banners marking approach and direction.

Our excitement at being here comes to an abrupt halt when a squad of eight snake dancers cuts through the crowd at us. They form a semi-circle around Barbara and me. Combat boots stomp in place then halt, one, two. With practiced precision, eight black leather arms lift their poles high then slam the ends against the cement with a single loud menacing crack, “Whhacck!”

Barbara stands behind me against a streetlight post. My left hand behind me finds hers. The crowd gives us space, a murky ocean of black overcoats opens to look impassively at the unfolding spectacle. 

TheSnake-dancers leader steps forward to shout at me.

“Get out of Vietnam!”

I sweep my gaze across the squad of empty brown faces then look into the angry leader’s face. In the shadow of his helmet, his black eyes reflect the overhead light as we make eye contact. 

I point my right arm at him, my hand brandishes two fingers forming a V. I answer his challenge. 

 “Peace. Get out of Vietnam.” 

The leader nods, turns to his team, shouts a command. The poles sound their unblooded farewell as the squad executes left face and in the same motion, one by one, the shiny black helmets dance away into the crowd as swiftly as they’d appeared. “Whhacck!”

We had dinner reservations at the Club Non-Non so we split. We didn’t actually march, but Barbara remembers we marched.

I’m satisfied she has that memory. Who knows what’s out there that she will remember tomorrow? It's up to me to remember for both of us now, que Noh?

Gente, this is my 2019 New Year's Resolution, to make good memories.

I, and La Bloga, wish you great memories and boundless future.

Happy New Year 2015/ Feliz año 2015

EL BRINDIS BOHEMIO

Guillermo Aguirre Fierro (Mexicano)
El Paso, Texas 1915

En torno de una mesa de cantina,
una noche de invierno,
regocijadamente departían
seis alegres bohemios.

Los ecos de sus risas escapaban
y de aquel barrio quieto
iban a interrumpir el imponente
y profundo silencio.

El humo de olorosos cigarillos
en espirales se elevaba al cielo,
simbolizando al resolverse en nada,
la vida de los sueños.

Pero en todos los labios había risas,
inspiración en todos los cerebros,
y, repartidas en la mesa, copas
pletóricas de ron, whisky o ajenjo.

Era curioso ver aquel conjunto,
aquel grupo bohemio,
del que brotaba la palabra chusca,
la que vierte veneno,
lo mismo que, melosa y delicada,
la música de un verso.

A cada nueva libación, las penas
hallábanse más lejos
del grupo, y nueva inspiración llegaba
a todos los cerebros,
con el idilio roto que venía
en alas del recuerdo.

Olvidaba decir que aquella noche,
aquel grupo bohemio
celebraba entre risas, libaciones,
chascarrillos y versos,
la agonía de un año que amarguras
dejó en todos los pechos,
y la llegada, consecuencia lógica,
del "feliz año nuevo".

Una voz varonil dijo de pronto:
- las doce, compañeros;
digamos el "requiescat" por el año
que ha pasado a formar entre los muertos.
¡Brindemos por el año que comienza!
porque nos traiga ensueños;
porque no sea su equipaje un cúmulo
de amargos desconsuelos.

- Brindo, dijo otra voz, por la esperanza
que la vida nos lanza,
de vencer los rigores del destino,
por la esperanza, nuestra dulce amiga,
que las penas mitiga
y convierte en vergel nuestro camino.

Brindo porque ya hubiere a mi existencia
puesto fin con violencia
esgrimiendo en mi frente mi venganza;
si en mi cielo de tul limpio y divino
no alumbrara mi sino
una pálida estrella: Mi esperanza.

¡Bravo!, dijeron todos, inspirado
esta noche has estado
y hablaste bueno, breve y substancioso.
El turno es de Raúl; alce su copa
y brinde por . . . Europa,
ya que su extranjerismo es delicioso.

Bebo y brindo, clamó el interpelado;
brindo por mi pasado,
que fue de luz, de amor y de alegría,
y en el que hubo mujeres seductoras
y frentes soñadoras
que se juntaron con la frente mía.

Brindo por el ayer que en la amargura
que hoy cubre de negrura
mi corazón, esparce sus consuelos
trayendo hasta mi mente las dulzuras
de goces, de ternuras,
de dichas, de deliquios, de desvelos.

-Yo brindo, dijo Juan, porque en mi mente
brote un torrente
de inspiración divina y seductora,
porque vibre en las cuerdas de mi lira
el verso que suspira,
que sonríe, que canta y que enamora.

Brindo porque mis versos cual saetas
lleguen hasta las grietas
formadas de metal y de granito,
del corazón de la mujer ingrata
que a desdenes me mata.
¡pero que tiene un cuerpo muy bonito!

Porque a su corazón llegue mi canto,
porque enjuguen mi llanto
sus manos que me causan embelesos;
porque con creces mi pasión me pague.
¡vamos!, porque me embriague
con el divino néctar de sus besos.

Siguió la tempestad de frases vanas,
de aquellas tan humanas
que hallan en todas partes acomodo,
y en cada frase de entusiasmo ardiente,
hubo ovación creciente,
y libaciones, y reir, y todo.

Se brindó por la patria, por las flores,
por los castos amores
que hacen un valladar de una ventana,
y por esas pasiones voluptuosas
que el fango del placer llena de rosas
y hacen de la mujer la cortesana.

Sólo faltaba un brindis, el de Arturo,
el del bohemio puro,
de noble corazón y gran cabeza;
aquel que sin ambages declaraba
que sólo ambicionaba
robarle inspiración a la tristeza.

Por todos lados estrechado, alzó la copa
frente a la alegre tropa
desbordante de risa y de contento
los inundó en la luz de una mirada,
sacudió su melena alborotada
y dijo así, con inspirado acento:

-Brindo por la mujer, mas no por esa
en la que halláis consuelo en la tristeza,
rescoldo del placer ¡desventurados!
no por esa que os brinda sus hechizos
cuando besáis sus rizos
artificiosamente perfumados.

Yo no brindo por ella, compañeros,
siento por esta vez no complaceros.
Brindo por la mujer, pero por una,
por la que me brindó sus embelesos
y me envolvió en sus besos;
por la mujer que me arrulló en la cuna.

Por la mujer que me enseñó de niño
lo que vale el cariño
exquisito, profundo y verdadero;
por la mujer que me arrulló en sus brazos
y que me dió en pedazos
uno por uno, el corazón entero.

¡Por mi madre! bohemios, por la anciana
que piensa en el mañana
como en algo muy dulce y muy deseado,
porque sueña tal vez que mi destino
me señala el camino
por el que volveré pronto a su lado.

Por la anciana adorada y bendecida,
por la que con su sangre me dió vida,
y ternura y cariño;
por la que fue la luz del alma mía;
y lloró de alegría
sintiendo mi cabeza en su corpiño.

Por esa brindo yo, dejad que llore,
que en lágrimas desflore
esta pena letal que me asesina;
dejad que brinde por mi madre ausente,
por la que llora y siente
que mi ausencia es un fuego que calcina.

Por la anciana infeliz que sufre y llora
y que del cielo implora
que vuelva yo muy pronto a estar con ella;
por mi madre bohemios, que es dulzura
vertida en mi amargura
y en esta noche de mi vida, estrella.

El bohemio calló; ningún acento
profanó el sentimiento
nacido del dolor y la ternura,
y pareció que sobre aquel ambiente
flotaba inmensamente
un poema de amor y de amargura.

No Guac for Haters in NOLA and Hola 2013

Melinda Palacio

Alvin Jackson, Melinda Palacio, Jose Torres-Tama in Torres-Tama's studio in New Orleans

I finally had the opportunity to see one of Jose Torres-Tama's exhibits in the Big Easy. He has come to my book signings and has helped promote my events. Each time I'm in New Orleans, I've missed his one man shows and have seen the acclaimed reviews in the local paper only to find out I was a day or a week late for theatre productions such as "Aliens, Immigrants, and Other Evil Doers" at the Shadowbox Theatre. When I saw that his new exhibit is not a theatre piece, but a photography exhibit entitled, "Photo Retablos: Immigrants in Chocolate City," I surprised Jose at ArteFuturo Studio, 1329 Saint Roch. There I met Alvin Jackson of the Historic Treme Collection and I had fun speaking Spanish with Jackson who explained the rich history of his abuelita who taught him Spanish. "Si quieres comer, tienes que hablar español," was a saying Jackson's grandmother often said. Both Jackson and Torres-Tama have painted portraits of New Orleans Free People Of Color. Jackson for the Historic Treme Exhibit and Torres-Tama for the Ogden Museum. The next open studio for Torres-Tama's exhibit is January 12. I'm looking forward to seeing Torres-Tama perform his shows one day. In the meantime, I might have to settle for obtaining one of his t-shirts with the line, NO GUACAMOLE for Immigrant Haters! from ALIENS, IMMIGRANTS & OTHER EVILDOERS. Torres-Tama explains, "the NO GUAC motto is the name of my satirical 2013 Mandate since the Latino electorate has flexed its muscle in the 2012 election."

Photo Retablos: Immigrants in Chocolate City by Jose Torres-Tama

Jose Torres-Tama uses his dramatic, artistic, and photographic skills to document El Congreso de Jornaleros and honor Latino immigrants who have rebuilt post-Katrina New Orleans. His retablos repurpose found dresser drawers. Jose takes photos and sometimes creates original portraits, based on his photographs. Some of his more powerful pieces have a ticking clock over the photographs. Last Summer I stood in protest with the Southern 32, a group of day laborers in New Orleans.

Jose Torres-Tama in his studio

Melinda Palacio, Evelyn Rodriguez, Jose Torres-Tama, Lucrecia Guerrero

 The past few weeks have been wonderfully busy. Upon arriving in New Orleans, I was interviewed by Susan Larson on WWNO's The Reading Life. I had my first book signing for How Fire Is a Story, Waiting at Octavia Books, followed by a joint reading with Lucrecia Guerrero at Maple Street Books, Healing Center, and a final reading at the Maple Leaf Bar on Oak Street last Sunday, December 30. Both events were well attended thanks to spot on the Reading Life and in the Times-Picayune. Some highlights include one woman who heard me read a poem on WWNO and came to the Maple Leaf Bar and bought five books for her friends because she enjoyed How Fire Is a Story, Waiting. Another wonderful moment was when fellow Bloguera Lydia Gill walked in the door to hear our reading at the Healing Center. Lucrecia and I had fun ringing in the New Year. The reading at the Maple Leaf Bar was special because I took advantage of the reading grants from Poets and Writers and the funding came through despite PW having to temporarily close their offices due to Hurricane Sandy.

La Bloga in Nueva Orleans with Melinda Palacio and Lydia Gil 

December 2012, Melinda Palacio and Daniel Olivas at the PEN Oakland Awards

I will miss 2012. It was a good year for me. It ended with more than a bang. Ocotillo Dreams won the PEN Oakland Award (that makes three awards for my first novel; two ILBA awards the Mariposa Award for Best First Book and Honorable mention in the Historical Fiction category at the International Latino Book Awards at the Instituto Cervantes in Manhattan last Summer). How Fire Is a Story, Waiting is making its own heat. Hello 2013!

January is shaping up nicely. Later in the month, I have a book signing at Bank of Books in Ventura, January 19 at 1pm.

Yesterday, I recorded an interview with Words on a Wire. The show with Daniel Chacon and Benjamin Alire Saenz will air January 20.

Next stop: Berkeley. Francisco X. Alarcon and I will read with Poetry Flash at Moe's in Berkeley, January 24.

Reyna Grande and I will read at Reader's Books in Sonoma, CA January 28, Monday, 6pm.

Speaking of Reyna Grande, whose new memoir, The Distance Between Us, is proving to be a global favorite. Reyna will be teaching Intro to Fiction at UCLA's Extension, downtown campus this quarter.

On Tuesday, January 29, I will give a lunchtime presentation at UC Merced, noon to 1:15, COB 113.

This ends my first post of 2013. Happy New Year! I am so blessed to be part of La Bloga's familia. Thank you to everyone who reads La Bloga. I hope to meet more of you in 2013. Check www.melindapalcio.com to see if I will be in a city near you. If you want a signed copy of Folsom Lockdown, Ocotillo Dreams, or How Fire Is a Story, Waiting, please send me an email. I am happy to sign a book or name plate for you. Gracias, Gracias.

¡Feliz Año!

Happy New Year! These are my favorites songs to say goodbye to 2008. These songs are played tonight all over Latin America and in all Spanish radio stations in the USA. If you don’t have access to any radio en español, you can have your own La Bloga end of the year party. Hook up your speakers to your computer and begin to dance.

Here is my count down for un feliz año nuevo!

5- El viejo

An old tradition in Latin America is to burn the ‘old year’. Some people construct an old man dressed up with very old clothes and full of gunpowder. They hang up the old man in the streets and when New Year has come, they burn it. Other option is to create an old man piñata. This song is about this tradition.




4- Año nuevo, vida nueva

Yes, for the New Year there has to be a new life. A new year with new resolutions, what are your resolutions for 2009?



3- Vamos a brindar por el ausente

Great song if you are far away from your loved ones. For all the immigrants who are far away from their countries and families, this song is very special.



2- Cinco pa’ las doce

This song is played at 11:55. When it is five minutes to twelve, you will hear this song in all the corners of the Americas.




1- El año viejo

There is not an end of the year fiesta with out “El año viejo”. This song is a must at midnight. There are many versions, but this is the original.

Feliz año 2009

Resolutions - 10 TTD before you stop

Those of you who didn't come up with resolutions for the new year--or your life--can plagiarize anything below that fits.

1. Get drunk with your mom in her adobe house.
If you live long enough, you'll get discomforting reminders from afflicted family and friends that we're all mortal. I still have one parent and hope to kill a bottle of Presidente brandy with her in an adobe made under her specs and supervision. She attended an adobe construction school in Arizona and remembers it well. Your parent likely has a different dream; find what it is and jointly kill your preferred bottle, once it's accomplished. I did this once--a memory worth repeating.

2. Become a master teacher.
Yours might not be about teaching, so substitute your own mastery. It's not about which craft; once upon a time, human culture was a life-journey from novice to master craftsman, for every trade. Today, instead, we go from job to job or are often forced to change careers. But at least once, disregard the mierda your bosses or company shovel onto your back and decide you'll learn more about your employment than your boss could ever know. Then go past that until you stand above all the mediocrity that passes for "competent."

3. See and hear a jaguar in the Petén jungle; settle for a mt. lion.
They're as equally endangered and unique as whales, wolves or polar bears, so take your pick. But do it before our presence on the planet leaves a gap in your time here. I'm not greater than a jaguar--my personal favorite--especially when it comes to who fits better into the environment. That's why I'd like to meet Jaguar, on his turf, no matter I hide behind the leaves. If the encounter turns deadly, at least I'll have checked off this item and perhaps served a great meal.

4. Draw the dinosaur glyphs in an Anasazi canyon.
Yours might be to dance a mambo at Stonehenge or sing Lucy in the Sky, nude, on a barren beach, right before a hurricane, but do it while your legs and voice still work--however you can reconnect with antiquity amid what remains of the simpler, unspoiled world. Mine is getting tribal permission to enter a side canyon closed to non-natives. Drawing the pictoglyphs that resemble dinosaurs presumed extinct before the arrival of humans, would be this artist's dream, and fun; something to leave behind to worry myopic Euro-American scientists.

5. Spend 2 weeks in Cuba.
Cuba is not about Castro's faults or communism's failures; it's about a people who successfully defeated the torturous dictator Bautista and withstood his CIA-U.S. military bullies longer than many of us have been alive. I want to spend time (legally, if Homeland needs to know) with people who live free of student loans, variable-rate mortgages, endless wars and onerous medical insurance. I want to traverse the U.S. embargo (legally, Homeland) and discover life in a simpler society, less oppressed by capitalist materialism. I want to speak Spanish in a country where its literacy is nurtured and revered. Although other places may fit your needs better, do the same before they get invaded. Whatever needs to be changed in any country will be decided by people who stayed and bore the burden of citizenship. Exchanging experiences with Cubanos is a time-sensitive, historically unique opportunity. For one reason or another, things may change soon, not necessarily for the better.

6. Write one book, self-published if necessary.
You'd be in good company: Elements of Style and Bartlett's Quotations were originally self-published; Tarzan and the translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, as well. Shelly, Carl Sandburg, Thomas Paine, Upton Sinclair, Mark Twain and Walt Whitman all resorted to it. So why not? Face it: if you're about my age, you were captivated by Michael J. Fox's changing history in Back to the Future so his dad's SciFi novel got published. But you and I don't have a DeLorean time machine. Fact is, there's too many writers and not enough readers in the English language. If you don't write, splurge on framing an unsold painting or a collage of your own original dichos.

Your self-promotion will stop friends and relatives asking when your work will be exhibited or for sale. Plus, you can put it next to Leaves of Grass and pull it down sometimes to feel its weighty significance. Of course, this suggestion comes from an undiscovered talent, so if you're more talented, or luckier, keep on.

7. 50-yd.-line seats at a Dallas Cowboys game.
Okay, this one's a little self-indulgent, but what would a 10 List be without some of that? Replace this one with your own indulgency, but mine is to be close enough to the DC Cheerleaders to count their freckles, or whatever. Berate me, if you will; I'm probably more flawed than you.

8. Finish the house.
If you're lucky enough (or unlucky enough), you got a house you gotta get done with. That half-finished basement or those unfinished windows will hound you 'til your done, even if you spouse doesn't. At least your widow(er) will then have a nice place to host your wake and not squander the life insurance on less qualified contractors.

9. Play with adopted grandchildren.
Though some of you only want your own grandchildren, I'm not a believer in the arcane "my bloodline must carry on" BS. There's not only too many of us on the planet, there's too many orphaned or homeless little ones out there, many because of U.S. actions within or against their countries. I don't need a grandchild that resembles me or carries a genetic propensity for alcoholism and weight-gain. Why wish labor pains and stretch marks on a daughter or daughter-in-law? Kids are kids, and if we're around them long enough, our genetic make-up preconditions us to love and care for them as if they were our own, no matter.

10. Go on a vision quest.
Since my indigenous blood is as diluted as rosewater and my self-education lacks spine, I never experienced this. My rites of passage amounted to communion and confirmation, both of which focused on my memorizing God's plans and judgements about me, rather than finding out about myself. Whatever your ethnic roots, consider reclaiming a piece of ancient heritage. Modern society's clobbered our psyches to where we've lost connections not only to the planet, its fauna and foliage, but even with our true selves. Spending a week, alone, away from civilization, sans phone or IPod, unable to stuff my gut or fret about societal responsibilities--all that would force me to be with my Self. It would prove more difficult than the other 9, no doubt, but I should discover what's really under there. We could all maybe use some of that. Before we stop.

Rudy Ch. Garcia
_______________

We need 1 new Bloguista contributor!

RudyG must take another spring sabbatical from La Bloga, since he enrolled in two courses to complete his teaching accreditation. Whether he survives the ordeal or not, La Bloga is searching for a new contributor who could more or less regularly post on Thursdays. If you are such a person, or want to nominate someone, please contact any Bloguista. At the least, Thursday will be available for Guest Posts.