Journal of an Obsessed Acordeoniciado

Yes, I did make up that word in the title; it’s a mix of acordeonista and aficionado. Obviously — what else could it be? I made it to five hours’ accordion practice last week. I did this by checking with my son’s math schedule and playing longer on days sans homework. This meant 45 minutes on Mon and Tue and 30 min on the other weekdays. On weekends, I can manage an hour a day.

At work, I found myself humming a song called Hay Unos Ojos. The janitor then got it in his head and hummed it while vacuuming; I went home and played the song on the accordion multiple days in a row, firmly lodging the song in my head and everyone else’s for the rest of the week. It’s a fun song and not difficult to play. I enjoy songs that are catchy but I can pick up easily on my instrument. Maybe I’m lazy, or maybe I would like a few moments of pure simple joy.

The irony is I woke up with a different song in my head on Sunday. That part isn’t ironic. In the afternoon, my husband and I did our grocery shopping, but we chose Walmart instead of our usual store. In a distant section of parking lot, four white buses sat gleaming in the setting sun. My husband quipped that these were the buses Albuquerque organizations were using to send their homeless to Roswell. Yes, Albuquerque is doing this. Nobody knows which organizations; it’s all hush-hush. Consequently, our local homeless population has quadrupled in the last few months. But these were shiny upscale white buses. They looked like they could contain…. a Mexican music tour.

We parked nearby to get a closer look. Sure enough, it was an Andaluz Music tour with four bands (grupos). Now, finally, the ironic part: the song firmly stuck in my head was by one of the grupos. Had my soul sensed their presence in Roswell?! I’m kidding, but it was a strange sensation, and weirder universal alignments happen all the time. As we were shopping, we spotted some of the crew buying a whole cart of Takis. The men could be spotted instantly because they were all wearing new black t-shirts, some emblazoned with Andaluz Music, and jeans. In case you wanted to know, they weren’t playing in town that I’m aware of; they had stopped here on their way to WI (according to their tour schedule).

It’s slightly disappointing that the highlight of my week was to exist in the same Walmart parking lot as a grupo I enjoy (the one whose song was in my head). A less viscerally exciting but more important aspect of my week was taking part in a pro-life prayer vigil in front of the county courthouse. If you don’t know, New Mexico is one of the most progressive states regarding up to birth abortion, and they are pouring millions of dollars into building new kill factories to process all the babies coming from TX. Thankfully, there are New Mexicans willing to fight against it, and perhaps God will have mercy on us.

Below is the song that was stuck in my head on Sunday. Obviously, my politics have nothing to do with their music. One must be circumspect these days.