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I tried
to talk to Dee but she's definitely
avoiding me. It makes me wonder if maybe
she does want to break up with me and she
just doesn't have the guts to come out and
tell me cause she doesn't want to hurt my
feelings or something.
The
whole thing was just taking up way too
much space in my brain so I went over to
see Uncle Carlos after school. It was
Monday and the restaurant is closed, so I
knew he'd be there. It wasn't that I
wanted to tell him any of this stuff, I
didn't I just wanted to get away from it
and chill. Uncle Carlos is a great person
to chill with. He's been through a lot in
life, you know what I mean. Like his wife
splitting with another guy and leaving him
with Marita to take care of. But he's not
bitter. No way. Uncle Carlos just believes
that God's hand is in everything and
things happen exactly the way they're
supposed to. So why sweat it? Yeah, good
advice, why sweat it?
When I
got there I walked in. He never locks the
door... he says that's another way that he
puts his faith in God. I heard some
splashing and whimpering and followed the
sound to the bathroom. I knocked on the
door and Carlos said, "Come on in, Miguel!
I'm just giving Taco a bath!"
I went
in and actually it was more like they were
both getting a bath. A very wet Taco stood
in the tub, looking like he was really
suffering. And Uncle Carlos, even though
he was sitting on the floor, was totally
drenched. They were in the finally stages
of the bath, so my timing was great. Taco
hates to be rinsed I got to hold him
(otherwise he'd jump out of the tub) while
Carlos poured a bucket of warm water over
him. After that all three of us were
pretty soaked.
Carlos
lent me a sweatshirt of his while my shirt
and his shirt and pants were doing their
thing in the dryer. He gave me some milk
and we sat in the kitchen eating
churros that could only have
been made by Rosa! They were so
good.
After we
ate, we went into the living room. He
picked up his guitar which was standing in
the corner. He started to strum it and
said it was way out of tune. I asked him
how he could tell.
He said,
when you know how things are supposed to
sound, you can always tell when
something's out of tune. He showed me how
to tune the six strings by pressing down
on the lowest string on a certain place
then plucking it and the one next to it
and listening to hear that they are both
the same. If the second one is too low you
turn the tuning key and tighten the
string. That makes the note higher. If
it's already too high, you turn the tuning
key in the other direction and loosen the
string. That makes the note lower. Then
you tune the 3rd string to the 2nd one,
the 4th string to the 3rd. Up to the sixth
string. Then I thought, wait a minute. If
all the strings are tuned to the one
before it and they all start with the
first string, what happened if the first
string is out of tune? And how do you know
if it's out of tune?
And you
know what he said, "It's not all that
important if the first string is out of
tune, Miguel. The important part is that
whole guitar is in tune with itself."
I
thought about that. I wonder if he was
trying to tell me something without
actually saying. Or maybe he actually did
say it.
Anyway,
we didn't talk about much while I was
there, but by the time I left, I felt much
better.
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