Posts Tagged little johnny

14 years later

Posted by Blanca in Everything else, Mexico on July 11th, 2009

We all have events in our lives that become important milestones during our journey. Many of these events are a result of our actions and we have plenty of control over them: a wedding, a divorce, a graduation, a promotion, and to a certain degree, the birth of a child. They become our personal reference points, as in “before my promotion…”, or “after I became a mother…”

Other events are caused by external factors. We don’t really have control over them from happening or not, but we can control somehow the effect that they have on our lives. War or a natural disaster is an example. The death of a loved one is another.

July 11, 1995 is one of my milestone dates. It is when Little Johnny was officially pronounced death.

It is the day I lost my father; and it is also the day I lost a substantial degree of trust in others. Especially when it comes to trusting other people with that which is very important to me, as would be the life of someone I love.

Looking back, I now realize that on that sad day I also lost other things: the opportunity of seeing my father as a grandfather to my daughter, nephew and niece; and what I am sure would have been the best piece of advice I could possibly receive on some of the most challenging moments I have experienced in the last 14 years.

Wherever you are Little Johnny I miss you.

I always will.

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What is that?

Posted by Blanca in Everything else on March 6th, 2009

How many times do we need to be shaken by an event to realize the treasure we have in front of us and that we haven’t noticed? How often do we allow trivial things to become the center of our lives and take the place of what is truly meaningful?

An event is the sum of many moments. A significant event is the sum of many significant moments, and this five-minute video clip captures the full essence of the value of appreciating, creating and identifying those significant moments to transform our ordinary (and sometimes hectic) lives into significant events.

Watching this video my first thought is that I wish I had created more meaningful moments with Little Johnny when I had the chance. My quest now is to make sure I don’t get distracted by the petty stuff when I have the opportunity to cherish a special moment with one of my loved ones.

Enjoy the video.

Y gracias de nuevo a Griselda por compartir.

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Day of the Death: una ofrenda virtual para Little Johnny

Posted by Blanca in Mexico on November 1st, 2008

Traditionally, Mexicans are not afraid of death – we actually are great at making fun of it. Every 1st and 2nd of November, cemeteries around the country are full of people celebrating with their loved ones, alive and not, el Dia de los Muertos or the “Day of the Dead.” The deceased receive orange flowers, their favorite foods and drinks and many times are even serenaded by a mariachi band playing the tunes they loved when they were alive.

This celebration has nothing to do with Halloween, which is a holiday imported from the USA and that conveniently falls one day earlier, giving everybody a good excuse to party for three days in a row.

So in this year of nostalgia, I decided to follow one of the traditions of the day and build up an altar for Little Johnny.

Great idea – in theory. It’s not like I can walk into a shop in Nicosia and buy calaveritas de azucar (sugar skulls) which are a MUST in every “Day of the Death” altar. Also, Little Johnny was quite fond of antiques, antique cars and Hershey’s bars, and since I am supposed to put all his favorite things on the altar so that his spirit can come to enjoy them, I was faced with quite a dilemma. There is not even one toy car in my house, and the only chocolate I found were some rather stale Easter chocolate eggs at the bottom of my fridge.

Then I thought that these days pretty much everything we do is online so I thought it would be OK to make a Google Images Altar! Yes, I simply had to google “Dodge 1939”, “Ford 1928”, “Hershey’s chocolate bar”, “gramophone” and “calvera de azucar” and in less than 30 seconds I had everything I needed.

All I had to add were a few candles I have always ready for that really long bath I can never take due to the water cuts, a papier mache papaya (always had some for breakfast), a bottle of wine (he was a wine club member), some books, and, voila!

Just hope he is not too disappointed if his spirit decides to actually fly all the way from Mexico City to have a go with the real things.

Maybe I should add some more Oreo cookies just in case…

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Of tall men

Posted by Blanca in Everything else on October 22nd, 2008

There are quite a few tall men that have played some role or the other in my life. The first and probably most influential has to be my father. At 1.93m tall, my friends used to (and still do) refer to him as “Little Johnny”, though I cannot really remember if they ever called him that to his face!

My maternal grandfather, a Clark Gable look-alike, was also a very tall (and good-looking) man. There have been a couple of other tall men, but I won’t write about them today because I am totally focused on the one that is patiently sitting on the side of my bed waiting for me since he arrived to my place last Monday.

Truth is (there you go), what is waiting for me is not the real guy, but his most recent book. He is tall and handsome in an ugly sort of way (or is it the other way around?), totally rude, and the owner of the crudest British humor. But truth is (there you go again) that I am totally infatuated with him. I am talking about Jeremy Clarkson, of course – who else?

Pause to allow those who hate him to leave the blog — probably for good!

For those who don’t know who he is, Clarkson is the ‘love me’ or ‘hate me’ type of personality. I obviously belong to the first group. I won’t go into what I believe he does well or not on his BBC show; but his writing is witty to the point of managing to keep my unconditional interest from cover to cover even when he publishes a book about cars and nothing else. And that is what I call VERY sexy.

So at the moment I am keeping the latest “The World According to Clarkson” installment waiting for me while I finish a really interesting novel by some Indian author.

But that’s OK; I read somewhere that it’s good to keep the ‘bad boys’ waiting a bit before a big date.
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