La Huera Loca

La huera loca means "crazy white girl" and it's the name some crazy Mexican gave me at a job I worked at last fall. I was living in Albuquerque for an externship for my grad program through BYU and worked an evening shift at a residential treatment facility for at-risk youth. Intense! Teens screaming, threatening to hurt you, trying to commit suicide, or attempting escape. In the midst of all the chaos, I met my best friend, Aaron. It still amazes us to look back and see the evolution our relationship has taken from the day we became co-workers through now, where we have been dating for the past 7 months.

I went to Albuquerque expecting to spend my days fixing bad "r" sounds and teaching social skills as an SLP intern. I worked with an amazing SLP who taught me so much and treated me like a collegue, took me to lunch, and became a dear friend. I LOVED working with my kiddos! After a full day of playdoh pies, go-we-ha-has (gorillas), and predicting just what might happen if you did indeed Give a Mouse a Cookie, I would dash off to work and spend the rest of my day asserting myself against angry, hormonal, slightly (sometime clinically) psychotic teenagers. Somewhere in the midst of keeping me safe from the danger, making me laugh to relieve the stress, and hiding in the "attic" after work (my friend's car...so the 3 of us wouldn't get in trouble for chatting in the parking lot), Aaron fell in love with me. And I fell in love with him.


Our first date was a late night venture to IHOP after work for hot chocolate. Two nights later, we went to Village Inn. Then it was IHOP, again. We talked for hours, sometimes til dawn. Aaron says he knew from the first day he met me that there was something different about me that he was really fascinated by. He liked me from that moment and spent the next few months getting up the courage to ask me out. We had about 4 or 5 dates in the first week after he first asked me out. That Saturday, he showed up dressed in slacks and a nice shirt, holding a single rose, ready to take me to a local art museum. Later, we walked around Old Town, went to dinner, and then went back to my apartment to watch a movie. It took him nearly all the way through Count of Monte Cristo to commit to holding my hand! I knew exactly what he was up to because every time I left the couch for something, I would come back to find that the space on my side of the couch had significantly decreased... When he was getting ready to leave, he very respectfully asked if he could kiss me goodnight....and I said...no. not tonight. I still can't believe I told him no, but it seems to have added to the gold star count I was racking up because it showed him I was a "respectable woman." He's been the first guy to ever bring me flowers. The first to make me a candlelight dinner. The first to show up to make me dinner when I'm sick. The first to give me a card on my last day with my students because he knew I'd need cheering up. He's been the first man to really, really love me.



My crazy Mexican has gradually been trying to convince me that he's turning me into a Mexican, too. The day we went to meet his mother, I got a nervous and rushed crash course in Mexican etiquette. Turns out, I've been practicing Mexican etiquette all my life and didn't even realize it.
I spent Christmas Eve with Aaron's family and what an adventure that was! I'd been battling allergies all day and so was drugged up on Benedryl. Aaron's mom gave me an extra strength Benedryl when I got to the house and I spent the next few hours trying to keep up with an entirely spanish-speaking family through the haze induced by one single little pink pill. I also managed to pass the 4 Tamale test. Apparently, Aaron decided it would prove to the family that I was a good woman if I would eat the LARGE bowl of posole and the FOUR tamales he served me for dinner. Now, I'm a girl with an appetite but that was a LOT of food. I couldn't bring myself to waste the homemade food, so...I ate it all. And now I'm totally in with the extended family.















This past Valentine's Day, my crazy Mexican came to see his huera and we had a wonderful weekend.



















La huera loca is the name some crazy Mexican gave me at a job I
worked at last fall and what I've learned is that was really
his way of saying, "I'm going to love you someday."