We're at the theater all week for rehearsals. That means that when it comes to dinner, we think simple. We debated the merits of American chili vs. the merits of Cuban Black Bean Soup. NO contest. Black bean soup,wins by a landslide. And we also discovered that if you put last night's leftover picadillo into your thick soup, you have a whole fun ...
Archives for January 2008
We’re all in this together
The show opens this week. The director is working out the final kinks. The kids are READY. The one in the hat, 2nd from the left is my Jonathan, who will be playing Ryan (the theater geek) in their production of High School Musical. They've been rehearsing since September and the curtain goes up on Thursday night. I am doing what I do ...
Lock and Load
It has been pouring here in So Cal. Lots of rain. Heavy-storm kind of rain. Confusing, what-kind-of-shoes-do-we-wear-in-this-stuff kind of rain. It just doesn't rain here often and we southlanders never quite know what to do with ourselves in the rain. In fact, we don't even know how to drive when it rains here, but that's a rant post ...
When life gives you lemons. . . Go to the Happiest Place on Earth!
Completely distracted. Completely. Because I'm in mourning. Or maybe I'm in denial. They say you do crazy things when you're in denial. . . My PC has died an ugly, bloody death. Here is his carcass, sitting impotently on my floor. I did call someone to come and retrieve my documents and memory, but it's still pretty dead. I don't know why I ...
I’m a poet and I don’t even. . . oh wait. . .
My adorable niece, Katie, is 22 today. That means I will go out on a creative limb for her and write a haiku poem. Okay. I don't routinely go around writing haikus, (Well, I confess, sometimes I think of them, but I don't routinely write them down, but that's not important right now.) Katie and I have this tradition: I write a lovely, ...
Mama no habla de nada. . . slacker!
When I was growing up my parents always insisted we speak Spanish at home. I'm grateful to them because I'm fluent in both Spanish and English now and I don't have an accent in either language. (Except, of course, I speak Spanish fast and furiously and drop the s's on the ends of my words, but that's not important right now. =D) The ...
Brujeria? or How much power does my abuelita actually wield?
Amy here. I have a burning question that I thought maybe some of mom's Cuban blog readers could answer. Here's the story: My Cuban Abuela curses and blesses me. The blessings go something like this: "Algun dia tu nieta hara lo mismo por ti." ("One day your own granddaughter will do the same for you.") That sounds ...
Today’s word is “dysfunctional.” Discuss.
It's been one week since my big, fat Cuban family had a party. It was the 185 year birthday thing last week here at my house. But that was a week ago. One. whole. week. So around Thursday afternoon the phone starts ringing . . . "Who's Mami with this weekend?" "Alina." "Card party at Alina's!" Okay, so my family is a ...
Must be his evil twin. . .
I hear Eric speaking in a seriously harsh tone: "Things are going to have to change around here. Do you hear me? I'm not going to let you get away with this stuff anymore. Got that? I'm sick of you and your attitude. You're not the center of the universe so quit acting like it!" It's so foreign to listen to this. He never ...
The Paradigm Shift
If you were here, I'd insist you load up your plate. You would demure, of course, but quickly change your mind when your watering mouth took charge and suggested you say "to hell with manners, load 'er up!" But, because your good breeding is so ingrained, you instead say, "Gee, that's a lot, but it sure looks good!" ...
Finding comfort in swirls of milk
Tuesday is the day we do Science.In this case, Earth Science. This is Jonathan's experiment and his write up. I know I usually include recipes, but he asked me to share it, so I'm going to.Here's an example of what 6th grade Science looks like in the Darby Home School... What I used: 1 cup of milk red food coloring blue food ...
There’s nothing like a lunatic to brighten up your day
The game is called Squint and it involves creating and manually animating those tiles with the squiggles to get the other players to guess your object. I had a medical procedure the other day and I'm sooo not going into detail about what or why, but let me just tell you that it involved sedative-type drugs.I came home from the hospital a ...
How “el Tiki-tiki” works
El Tiki-tiki - v. to harp on a subject over and over and then resort to guilt until your victim succumbs to your wishes. Mami: "You have to have a party for your Tia before she leaves." Me: "Umm. . . what with the holidays, it's been a little busy. I don't know if I can do it." Mami (issuing a big, heavy ...
Places to go. Things to do. Kids to embarrass. =D
I've been keeping up pretty nicely with that whole taking one picture every day project. Actually, I love having my camera with me 24/7. In fact, I have it with me so much it's almost like a family member now. We're all seated at the dinner table, and one of the kids asks:"Where's your camera?" And it's weird when you blog (like I ...
Mi cama es su cama – NOT!
I got new bedding stuff for our room. It looks regal, yet jungly and our bed looks like the King it is with all the new stuff. (FYI - I got it online at Target) I don't know, but there's something about it being a new year that makes me want everything to be new. And it also makes me want to travel. New year = new ...
