Celia Cruz said it best

"La vida es un carnaval". That was my theme for a 'salsariffic' weekend.

San Francisco Carnaval 2005 was this past weekend. Talk about a BLAST! I have never been part of such a wild-crazy-fun-amped up-energy-driven event. Seriously.

First off, I am SO proud of our Latin American Workout float. It looked awesome. All red and gold and shiny in the bright sunlight. And a cage mechanism which opened up to reveal scantily clad Brazilians inside -- the photographers went NUTS! I have NO problem saying that had it not been for the efforts of a select few (myself included), that our firey float would never have made it to the parade. Lots of blood, sweat and yes, even tears went into that thing. And what took us days and days to build, took only 2 hours to take down. If I can ever figure out how to post a picture, I'll do so.

Secondly, our costumes: gorgeous. Sparkly, spangly, sexy, red/gold/yellow/orange concoctions of carnaval festiveness. Thanks to Estella, who worked day and night -- up until 6:30 a.m. on the day of the parade. We were on fire, as it were.

Thirdly, our music was *hot*, with DJ Bosco (Friday night regular at Jillian's) mixing our routine numbers with salsa and raeggaeton on the front truck while Victor kept it live on our second truck, playing the congas, djembe, shekere and surdo.

I have to also mention the CROWD of people who were lining the streets to see the parade. It was great fun to play off of them -- dancing, singing and flirting with the party-goers, all out to celebrate in the warm sunshine.

The only drawbacks from the whole experience? A slight headcold and the fact that I have Jennifer Lopez' "Let's get loud" playing over and over and over and over again in my head.
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MUSIC TAG (sorry about the delay, Jen....)

Total volume of music files on my computer: 939 bytes. Yeah, not much. Those of you who know me, know how lo-tech I can be.

Last CD I bought: Wellllll.....I can never buy *just one* at a time. The last few I bought: "Llegan...Van Van"; Madeleine Peyroux; and a 2005 Raeggaeton hits compilation.

Song playing right now: Well, if you read the entire post, you would know that the soundtrack of my brain is currently "Let's get loud" by J. Lo. .

5 songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me:

1. "Politik" by Coldplay (A rush of blood to the head). I just really love this song.

2. The entire Joshua Tree album and Simon and Garfunkles' greatest hits. COUNTLESS hours of my existence - esp. during high school - spent listening to these with my friend Ty. Seriously. Over and over and over.

3. "Dos Gardenias" from the Buena Vista Social Club self-titled album. Beautiful song. The whole album, in fact, is perfect to play while cooking.

4. "I will survive," Cake's version. Rock-out funky, yo. This was my theme song my sophomore year of college.

5. "In your eyes" by Peter Gabriel. This is just my all-time favorite song. Ever.

I'm supposed to pass this on to 5 people. But all the people with blogs whom I know have already done this. So, if you're out there in cyberspace reading this and feel like continuing the meme, go for it!