Littlest Brady Boy Gets Baptized

I got home late this afternoon and saw blue balloons sticking up over the Bradys' fence. "Oh, yeah, the party," I thought. Earlier this week I went to the library with some of the Brady kids and they invited me to their little brother's bautizado (baptism). They didn't know the word in English (that's not something you talk about much at school).

So I parked my bike, put up my groceries, walked back up to the Walgreens (where I heard the Famsa music blaring from across the street), got a card, stuck a ten in it, went home and changed out of my sweaty bike gear, and went down to their house to say felicidades.

There were a lot more kids than grown-ups; I don't know if that is a sign that they haven't been on the block as long as some of the other people whose parties I've attended, or if I just got there at a point when fewer adults were around. It looked like people had eaten. There was plenty of carne asada left, though. I just had a little, with some salsa and some surprisingly spicy guacamole.

They did the pinata in the garage. Peter Pan and Oldest Brady Boy worked the rope and kept the kids from getting hit. Once again Peter Pan impressed me with his leadership ability. I'm glad I'm not hearing about him much in the block gossip; hope that means he is staying out of trouble. If his sister can manage not to flunk out of Perspectives Math and Science this year he would get sibling preference in their lottery and have a place to go. She's already failing two subjects, though.

Littlest Brady Boy looked quite dashing in his white suit, though he'd been playing in it long enough the knees on his pants had turned black. He kicked off the first pinata and his mom took lots of pictures of him giving it a hearty whack. They had a second pinata, which I wasn't expecting, and by then it was time for me to go.

I did manage to conduct one important piece of business at this fine event; I've hired one of the older Brady girls to come help me straighten out the paper chaos that has taken over my house. "I'm pretty organized, and I know how to alphabetize," she told me. That's enough to give her a test drive. If she's good we'll make it a regular gig. I really need an occasional secretary and I'd be happy to hire a high school student if I can find the right one.