Happy New Year, guys!I'm so happy that the Holidays are over. I was talking to a very dear friend today and she told me that I really didn't skip Christmas. She reminded me because all of my days are special, Christmas had to be special too. All of the other stuff is just foo-foo. I've gotta agree. My son announced that he never wanted to have another Christmas like this one - I guess because it wasn't extra special but I tell you what.... just living as an Ayala (my maiden name) makes it special. On Christmas day we decided to go see my mom's "companion" (God forbid you say boyfriend). He lives in one of the nursing homes. I'm no fan of nursing homes and for those of you that work in one - you have a treasure in heaven! Anyway, my mom, my sister, Whitney and me decide to trek over. When the elevator opens we were immediately smacked in the face by an awful stench. We all instinctively cover our noses with our hands. As we get off the elevator there were rows and rows of people sitting in wheelchairs. They all begin to chant "hello", "hi", "hello", "hi, there", "hello".... so of course we're all saying "hello", "hi", "hello", "hi, there", "hello". We're walking down the hall with Mom leading the pack and my sister says to my mom "my God, Mami, what the heck is that awful stink" "it's him" my mom says pointing to an innocent bystander who is coming out of a kitchen. He smiles at us and says "hello". We get to Hector's room and I say to him "I brought Mami here last week and we were told you were down at the canteen dancing and drinking" he says "who me? How can I dance with this stub of a foot" and he gets up and starts dancing salsa then merengue really fast. Never a dull minute. We stay for another minute with my mom warning Hector about his blood sugars because she smuggled a box of Whitman's chocolates into his room. We finally get down the hall and an old woman starts pedaling really fast in her wheelchair (Fred Flintstone style) towards my mom and she's yelling "hey, hey, hey, hey!!" My moms says "quick, get into the elevator" so we start running because she's running. No one knows why we're running. We get into the elevator and my mom says "that woman wanted to touch my purse last week so I let her hold it and then she started screaming at the top of her lungs that I was stealing her purse when I went to take it back"..... oh, talk about a good laugh. Well, the man in the elevator thinks we're laughing at him and he starts screaming obscenities (that I can't print here) at us. ..... we laughed the whole way home. Thankfully, all of the roads were empty on Christmas night or I would have been in more than one accident.