Las Luces

I have a good excuse for missing yesterday. I was abducted by aliens.
Ok, not exactly aliens. There was only one.
Alright, so he's not actually an alien. But I did get abducted. Sort of.
Without prior arrangements on my part, my Colonel and I snuck off in the middle of the day yesterday for a little overnight get-away. We were only about an hour from home, but we could have been in another state for how far away it felt. It was wonderful. And I learned some things too.

Always pack a few candles in your suitcase.

Hotel-room keycard thingys work without electricity.

There are plenty of ways to entertain yourselves in a dark hotel room without cable TV. (Well, I might have known that already, but I learned a few new ways last night.)

After playing/losing a bit at the same Indian casino I was just at last week with my friend, the Colonel and I came back to a very dark hotel on a very dark street. Realizing the power was out, we went hunting for beer. Oh, and candles. Luckily we found an open Safeway that still had power a few blocks away. We headed straight to the "ethnic" food aisle for some of those interesting Jesus candles, because they were cheap and funny and we had no money. I love those things. I buy one every once in a while just for the art.
We decided to get the three weirdest ones they had. We grabbed one like in this picture here, because it was weird and cool looking. It says, "La mano mas poderosa," which I just learned means, "Most powerful hand."
Our second choice featured a depressed, half-naked, abused and starving man, wearing a skimpy red dress and limping with a crutch. Not only is that fun, but a wild dog is licking the blood off one of his many wounds and another rabied pack mate can't wait to get in on the action. This was obviously the least popular candle on the shelf, as there was so much dust covering the wick that I was afraid to light it. I don't know who this Lazaro guy is, but maybe some other day I'll blog about him. Here's the best image I could find, but it's pretty small.

Our last selection was the bloodiest Jesus we could find, complete with blood-colored red wax. I can't even read the ghetto-gangsta writing on it to tell what it says, but I swear it looks like "Homo." His light shined for us in the most holy room, where he could have philosophical conversations with his uncle, the porcelain God. Geez-us, that was bad. Sorry.

So today, as instant karma for making fun of religious icons, I have been sneezing almost non-stop. Wait a sec. Is karma a religious thing? I think it is.

Oh yeah. I also learned that these aren't really called Mexican candles. They're referred to as Catholic candles. Which reminds me of my newest bumper sticker idea. "Religion gives God a bad name."

Aaaa-chooo! Sorry, did that get on you?