To make my Mom's day special, I decided to take my family to church then stay for the Spanish mass with my mother. My family has been attending mass at this particular church for at least 20 years. The current building is the "new" church, which was built about 10 years ago. The "old" church is a multipurpose room for the school attached to the church. Back in the day I knew everyone that went to that church. Some were friends, others were just there all the time. Today I saw no familiar faces.
I have not attended mass on a regular basis in about 10 years. This was maybe the 5th or 6th time I've gone to the "new" church. The first time we went to the English mass we noticed how multicultural the congregation was. Where we sat today there was an African family behind us and a Bangladeshi family in front of us. A look around the church I noticed many ethnicity groups and Nationalities. Some of the Indian and African women were adorned in native dress. It was inspiring to see how so many different people worshiped together. After the English mass I waited for the Spanish mass to start.
I stood in front of the church in the cool wind waiting for my Mom to arrive. As I stood there I watched the traffic jam of cars leaving just fast enough to let the cars coming in to take the spaces. Toyota SUVs and Honda vans paraded in as an array of Domestic cars scrambled for the exit. Then the fashion show began. Don't get me wrong, I love thrift shopping (and I happened to be wearing a shirt I bought at the thrift store) but some of these outfits were ridiculous for lack of a better word.
I saw a young guy wearing dark blues jeans with what looked like triangular shaped bleach stains all over it. It wasn't only the arriving parishioners but a pregnant lady wobbled through the parking lot in a puffy cream taffeta dress with a sheer lace off-white long sleeve shirt in a blue jean jacket with white majorette boots. Inside was even worse. It looked like they bought out the Dressbarn at a liquidation sale in 1982.
Everything was floral patterned, loud, ill-fitting and plain wrong. The usher wore too long blue work pants and a too big olive green blazer. Then a lady walks by wearing a too short lace mini skirt with spiked heels, she didn't look a day under 50. The lady sitting in front of me had a Mossimo blouse on, and I only knew that because her tag was sticking straight up. I was dying to tuck the tag in. A friend of my father's sat with us in a white suit with a red satin shirt. When your wearing a blazer, I should not be able to see your wrists when your standing up. I was not exempt because almost every guy in there was wearing khakis and a checkered shirt, except mines fit.
After church I decided to cookout since my brother and his kids were over. When we left church we went to a Hispanic grocery store. I wanted to get the good Salvadorian Chorizos. I got the real Salvadorian something. This place was packed with neighborhood people. I guess they lived nearby because there were some walking around in flip flops and pajama pants. The butcher shop smelled like warm cookies and not in a good way. The line for the meat counter was around the corner. People cussing. They had tons of hot dog buns, but not a single bag of hamburger buns. In the parking lot people were impervious to parking spaces, as long as they were parked next to another car it was OK.
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