I like to own movies that I know I'll watch over and over. We have quite the extensive video/dvd library. Seriously, how else could we play the Kevin Bacon Game?? 😉
And as you already know, I'm really easily entertained.
So, I'm cruising through Target the other day and I found this dvd on sale:
Disney does that thing where they release movies at a prescribed moment in time and (I'm so not kidding here!), if you want it, you'd better buy it right then and there, because before you know it, it goes right back into "The Vault," and then it's impossible to find it again until they decide to release an anniversary edition of some sort, but that's not important right now. =D
Anyway, I remember some Disney films from when I saw them as a small child in Cuba. Yes, in Cuba. As New Releases. Yes, in a Movie Theater. Cuba was not the third world country it is today. But then, that's a rant for another day…
I remember Blanca Nieve (Snow White), Pinocho (Pinocchio), La Cenicienta (Cinderella) and of course, La Bella Durmiente (Sleeping Beauty). The last being my absolute favorite and so in a moment of weakness and nostalgia, I bought the Sleeping Beauty dvd. (It says 50th Anniversary Platinum Edition on it – remember I told you about The Vault thing?)
I get home with my prize and both my girls (Amy Kikita and Lucy) ask hopefully and almost simultaneously, "Is it for me?"
No, I explain, I got it for myself. Then waxing nostalgic I go on to try and explain that one Christmas when I was maybe three years old I received a set of … ummm…. what's the word?… ummm… CUQUITAS. The word in English completely eludes me at that moment. (or does it "allude me?" English can be so crazy-making sometimes!)
(Hold on, everybody! Here we go…..)
"Kookeeetahs??"
Still searching my mental rolodex in vain for the English word, which (I swear!) is right on the tip of my tongue, I fumble around in vain. My brain is stuck on CUQUITAS and will not budge from there. Frustrating!
"It featured all the characters from Sleeping Beauty: the Princess Aurora, the 3 Fairies, the Prince, Maleficent. They came in a big, flat book and then you cut them out and you could dress them. You know … CUQUITAS!"
I make big gestures with my hands to form a large book and then scissors for the "…and you cut them out…" part. It's still not coming to me and the big gestures are no help at all in the quest to make myself understood.
Besides, the word, CUQUITAS is taking up all the room I have in my already-too-full brain for the description of the elusive item. The hand motions are no help at all. They're still staring quizzically at me.
Again I try to explain…..
"Ay! You know….They're like little dolls, but made out of paper…"
The last part sort of happens in slow motion.
Just as the words "…made out of paper…" escape my lips, my slow-poke bilingual brain finally connects the dots, and I get that late-dawning look of "oh, yeah!" on my face, but of course, it's entirely too late.
Yes, yes, yes. Paper Dolls. Cuquitas.
Sleeping Beauty Paper Dolls. La Bella Durmiente.
I got them for Christmas in 1958. Nostalgia, anger and relief co-mingling here. Shut up. I know. Duh!
They have dissolved into laughter and I know that this story will now go into The Darby Family Favorite Story Archives.
Or, I suppose we could just call it The Vault. 😉
Ququita! I had a HUGE collection of them myself, right here in New Jersey. I had generic onces and Barbie one. Others, I’m sure, but these are the ones I most remember. I loved those things.Thank you, Marti, for bringing back that wonderful memory.
Enjoy your movie!!
Ahhh…..Ququitas!!!! What a fond memory I have of those. Whenever I got sick, since I had to stay in bed, my parents would buy me ququitas. That kept me busy playing in bed for hours. I remember once, I had an allergic reaction to a tree my grandmother had in her front yard where I would play underneath it, (I believe the flower was called alphalpha), anyway, three times I got this allergic reaction and believe it or not, three times the doctor came to see me at my grandmother’s (where we lived when we first came from Cuba and doctors still did house calls). He told my mother each time that it looked like the chicken pox. (itchy blister like bumps in the extremities and around the hair line). Since I didn’t have a fever to go with those pox, they soon disappear and my mom tossed it out to it being an allergic reaction to something. I share all this to say that I had to stay in bed and my parents would bring me from the store a book of ququitas…..every time!!!! I had at least four that year. When I did get the chicken pox for real, they thought it was the allergy again. But this time, I had fever and a brand new book of ququitas that I didn’t have to cut out because they started to make them perforated, I simply tore them out. 😉 Thank you so much for reminding me of these wonderful memories.
LOL!!!! Sorry Marta, I always get stuck spelling a word that starts with a “cu”, and wanting to spell it with a “qu”. And here I’m explaining to my daughter that she needs to pay attention to her reading, DUH!!!! LOL!!!
HAHAHAHA! My cousin used to play with those all the time. I had forgotten the were called cuquitas.Speaking of munequitas, look at the little piece of Cubabilia this rotten economy has forced me to put on Ebay.
http://cgi.ebay.com/CELIA-CRUZ-Rare-Ltd-Edition-Porcelain-Doll-CUBA-Maryse_W0QQitemZ130261639615QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item130261639615&_trkparms=72%3A1423%7C39%3A1%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C240%3A1318&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14
I’m broke… send me some nice bidders! LOL
Que recuerdos! I remember how I played with cuquitas when I was younger… mine were the generic ones, you know, no Bella Durmiente or Barbie or anything like that for my generation of el hombre nuevo.I remember at the begining they were printed in colored paper but one day, all of the sudden (something must have happened with the blockade) they were in plain white and black.
They used to be printed in the back cover of the magazine Mujeres and one day, also without previous notice, the magazine dissapeared and my cuquitas were gone with it. Probably another tightening of the blockade…
There were houses where they would mounted the dresses cuquita in a big skirt made of cartulina; they were usually dressed as brides and quinceaneras and the entire dresses were made of colored… toilet paper.
People, I am not kidding you here: those were the decorating motives for the bridal and the quinceanera cakes and you would save the dressed-up cuquita afterwards and it would become part of the living room decoration.
Jeez! I don’t even know if I should cry or laugh…
Mailyn -Wow.
Just….wow.
wow! What a great experience, I mean Sleeping Beauty. I guess I could win at “I Never”. you know the game where the one who has had the least amount of experiences wins. My mom never took me to see Sleeping Beauty. I’ve never even seen it on video. Maybe I should just keep it that way and save it in my mental vault as a future reference. Oh, that may be a problem due to the fact that I probably won’t remember anyway. Pass the popcorn, I guess I should put that in my stack of things to do while recuperating from the chcken-pox. Thanks for the sneak peek.Alysa
Amazing! That song much more beautiful in Spanish! Thank you for sharing this.