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Chicken Mole, an authentic Mexican dish from Puebla, Mexico. It’s made with chocolate!

Do the French annoy you? Have you ever seen public buildings in Mexico and thought they looked curiously French? Well here’s a little ammo so you can poke your French friends (I have many, by the way) in the ribs.

What? Isn’t Cinco de Mayo about Mexican independence day and drinking margaritas? Nooo…it’s the day of a battle, when a small army of Mexicans kicked French butt!

Teatro Degollado in Guadalajara, Mexico

Napoleon III invaded Mexico and setup his relative Maximilian as the emperor. The Mexicans weren’t too keen on having their country taken over, so this resulted in the Franco-Mexican war. On the 5th of May in 1862, the Mexican soldiers who were greatly outnumbered and ill-equipped (4,500 Mexicans against 8,000 French), crushed the French army and sent packing!

Although ousted, France left an impression on Mexico. The Degollado theatre in Guadalajara looks a whole lot like the Palais Bourbon in Paris, where the National Assembly meets. And there is a multitude of statues in Mexico that look like they came out of the French revolution. But we need to be extremely grateful to that small Mexican army for 2 things. If the Mexicans had lost, the USA would have snobby French neighbors on its southern border. Second, we’d have lost all the tasty food like chicken mole, flautas, and maybe even Margaritas. And that would be true tragedy!

So go ahead, have a Margarita, and make fun of your French friends like I do! 😀

–Click on the button below to get $5 off any order of $35 or more in my Etsy Store before Mother’s Day.

I’m not a communist, nor do I play one on TV. I’m just a joker who uses any excuse to don costumes and colorful clothing. And if you think about it, would the communists have been so popular if they’d worn something sedate like flannel grey or brown corduroy? Red makes a statement. It is bold and emotional.

Red is dynamic. It flows like hot lava and overtakes your senses. It is the color of love and passion. I made a red necklace about a month ago, which I displayed 2 weeks later at a networking event. The director was a stylishly sedate woman, the kind of woman who feels most comfortable in beige (not knocking beige, but you know the type). She told me she didn’t like dangly things and since most of my necklaces have pendants, I told her I’d be happy to remove the pendant or turn it horizontally. I was slightly surprises that she’d kept this red necklace in her hands, but even more surprised when she said she loved it the way it was, and wanted to keep the dangle. So now she’s out there in the world, wearing red! I wonder what emotional response she’ll evoke in those around her.

I just made this necklace. I’m going to call it Valentine Flower. Perhaps I should have made it in February, but oh well. My sister gave me the red flower. It was on a necklace that she picked up from some Chinese wholesalers in Los Angeles. It was clunky, mismatched and absolutely horrible. Chinese make great food, but I gotta wonder about their style choices sometimes. I cut up the necklace, kept the flower and tossed the rest. I combined it with stone jet beads, glass pearls, red glass beads and brass wire. The result is beautiful, I think. What does it evoke in you? Does it make you want to turn communist?! 😀