Yikes last weekend and this weekend was filled with too many things and today I’m totally exhausted from everything. Valentine’s Day? Let me tell you that there might not be anything special going on because one, it’s just another day to the hubby and two, there’s family in town. I’d like to think that the second reason is the whole reason why we’re not going to a movie or having some fancy dinner… well – technically I’ll still be doing that today but it won’t be in the same context.
I’ll be catching the movie “Valentine’s Day” with my girlfriends because it’s the perfect movie for a group of girls, so he’s not invited. I’ll probably blog my thoughts on it once I watch it a second time, if I like it enough… or ok – if I have time. Then I believe we’ll be having a big family dinner with my brother and sister in law who are still in town until tomorrow.
So why am I so exhausted?? Well – let me tell ya that yesterday was not one of your typical Saturdays…
Up at 6am. Then spent the whole day cooking and preparing for the spiritual soul calling of little Tsijmeej into the home. I’ve blogged about the who soul calling thing once but now I can’t obviously refer back to it because it too was lost in the blogg crash a million years ago. But here, see below for some pictures from the calling by the door.
Then of course, being a “Hmong” wife, I was unable to get any other pictures because the above pictures were right at the beginning of the ritual, any time after that, I was cooking, prepping, then eat, then cleaning until the very end. lol. But really – what this ritual entaisls is that once a new baby is born into the family, one must call their soul to come home, otherwise without that, the spirit of the baby will be weak an it can get sick and lead to other issues.
We call on a shaman (the lady in the photos) to come and do their thing and “sacrifice” a couple of chickens (meaning go to the butcher and get some fresh farm chickens) and a pig (same thing) in hopes that their spirits will watch over the new baby spirit as well as offer their meat to the ancestors to watch over the new baby.
There’s much more to it than that but that’s the gist of it, we eat, we celebrate the new baby’s arrival, and then we’re done…
Not for us at least, not yesterday. Then the young couples wanted to do a small get together and play poker and I must’ve been up since who knows what waiting for him to finish the game. He didn’t win the big pot but came pretty close and at least broke even, I believe.
Oh no – must run, the movie is starting in a little bit here, must get to theater so that I get tickets. Will get back to this whole spirit thing in a later blog to make up for the lost one.. thanks for reading my mubble jumble.
