Late yesterday evening and again this morning, my sisters-in-law spent all their time cooking in preparation for celebrating the baptismal of my youngest niece, Ashlene. It's a local catholic tradition to have a baby baptized before they reach 6 months of age. If memory serves me correctly, a baptismal certificate is almost as good as a birth certificate for identification purposes later in life.

My sister-in-law, Darlene (the mother) tried to get me to be one of the ninongs (godfathers) for the baby. I declined because I'm already the godfather of I don't know how many children, both here and in the US. Besides, a tito (uncle) is closer than a ninong anyway.

Needless to say, but I'm saying it anyway, there were a kabillion relatives from both sides of Darlene's family (our side and the father's side) here at the house and I could not even get out of the house. There was just too many people. I opted to take a nap until they left. When I awoke a couple of hours later, there were STILL people here. In fact, as I write this, there are STILL people here from this morning. Still eating, still carrying on, and still in the way.

Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against having people around. It's just that I don't know even half of them and none of them speak English worth a damn.