"What is Spanish for 'Yippee-eye-yo-kayay'?"

"What is Spanish for 'Yippee-eye-yo-kayay'?"

       My dear wife and I were driving to a Carl’s Hamburger joint today when we passed an open field on Van Buren in Riverside, California.  Thereon stood a couple of large vans.  One was inscribed with the label “Circo Caballero”.  My wife said, “That’s strange.  I think there is going to be a carnival here.  It looks like fun.”

      I said, “No carnival, but a circus.”  I know a little Spanish, at least enough to be chastised by a native speaker recently when I wished him “Buenos Dias” at 4:30 en la tarde.  We were listening to George Strait in her SUV, at the time.  George is a famous American country singer(with tight pants, which I missed the first time I saw him, but my wife confidently assured me of.) 

    I added, “A cowboy circus.  Caballero means ‘cowboy’, so it’s probably like a rodeo.  It‘s out of “Guadalajara Jalisco“ in Mexico, which either means the city of Guadalajara in the state of Jalisco, or vice versa.”  I wondered how many unofficial tourists might travel in those vans.

    ‘Oh, boy!” she exclaimed.  “It might have horses and cows and bull riders and bull poker.”  My wife once won twenty dollars in bull poker by ignoring a bull slobbering on her shoulders while she played cards with three other snot-drenched opponents at the Perris Fairgrounds Rodeo not far from here.  My wife is Queen of the World in ignoring large animals, especially husbands. 

      I didn’t get to see that contest, though; She did not tell me she was on the card that night.  It was a spontaneous urge.  Where was I?  I was losing forty dollars at Perris Offtrack Betting Center, wagering on Quarter Horses at Los Alamitos Race Track by video, safely fifty miles from the ponies but only a furlong from the Gemini meets Taurus affair.   I’m kind of glad I missed her there.  I would have been a nervous wreck.  Also, I might have felt sorry for the bull.  Undefeated at the two-ton bull level, she is now ready for some more "easy money".

    “That might be fun“, she said.  “Let’s keep an eye out for when it opens.”

    “Okay.”  My wife is amazing. Mm