The Yearly Throb

Definition of the "Throb".

When I contemplate of the “Throb of Life”, I am forced to somehow define "throb". The meaning to me is the rhythm, the hum, the continual cycle of hour to hour, day to day or year to year. If you will allow, there are rhythms inside rhythms. There is the slow and powerful throb of year to year and the fast paced hum of the daily grind. Think about this, have a glass of wine and contemplate the meaning, the implications.

Let's party and start the next throb

An important throb to us all is the beat that signals the beginning of the year. It's a time when that giant piston of life starts it's next stroke. It's important to my family because we host an all day party at my house to renew friendships, catch up with friends, make new friends and eat some of the best Mexican food in the county.



Jeanette cooks for three days and then spends all day on January first dishing it out. Jeanette cooked and then we consumed 4.5+ gallons of posole, 6 cups of chopped green chili, 1.5 gallons of red chili, 6 pounds of Baby Jack cheese, 4 to 5 dozen tamales, 4 to 5 dozen tortillas, 1 pound of corn chips, and all the accouterments that went with, all home-made over the three days prior. The posole was exceptionally good this year as were the 2 gallons of beans. Also add two doz home made tortillas and a dozen store bought for quesadillas. And then there was the 16 lbs of pork in the pasole and tamales and red chili. All of it was washed down with a case of beer and a case of wine, a bottle of Muscat.

We had close to 60 people come by and at times it was a bit crazy. I felt bad because I couldn't have much of a conversation with some people. We had some friends show up for lunch and dinner and then we played cards till 2AM. We had one more dinner with Pasole and that was it. Jeanette had to whip up some more red chili to get us through the night but for the most part, we didn't have many left-overs. That was a relief because in years past we ate posole all week, inviting people over to help us finish it off.

Starting in 2002, when I got my little photo toaster from HP for printing pictures immediately, I've taken photos of all our guests and within minutes they are up on the wall. Before the party begins, I take all the photos from previous new years day parties and put them on the wall in the entrance to the kitchen, ordered by year. It's a lot of fun to see who came on previous years, and watch the kids in the neighborhood grow. A photographer would say the time-line is very grainy, being that they are a year apart, but you can really see people, especially kids, change and grow. One neighbor in particular you could see him grow from little boy when the top of his head chest high on his mom, then grow up to his mom, then past his mom, then past his dad, and then a beard towering over his dad.

Juan's teacher, who joined us for the first time, was looking at the pictures and recognized the neighbor kid who is now in college. He was her student many years ago. She talked about how their kids played soccer together and the families saw each other from time to time and the mom helped her in class. WOW! That was so cool. If you didn't make it to the party, you can find the pictures HERE. They are ordered from most recent to oldest. Hopefully they are tagged correctly so that they are all there (I have a feeling we are missing some).

Happy New Year!