For weeks now Eric and the kids have been taunting me. "You're going to have a wonderful Valentine's Day," they kept saying. Then they would laugh in a neener- neener-you-don't-know kind of way. So I was wracking my brain trying to guess. Flowers? (which would be great - I always love flowers) "Not telling." And there I ...
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Celebration of Chocolate
Chocolate chips, butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla.Five simple ingredients. But. . . mix them together in the proper proportions and they become. . . Chocolatón!- an impossibly rich chocolate mousse. It's important that you pronounce it using a Spanish accent with an especially heavy emphasis on that last syllable. (Don't ask why. Just go with it. ...
FORTY-SEVEN YEARS is a long time to wait for change
These are my very young parents. They would have been in their 30's in this picture.It is my father's birthday. He would have been 97 today. (He passed away in 1999.) But something else happened on his birthday back in 1961 on this day that we would commemorate long after he passed away. Our family arrived in Miami on February ...
You’re all invited to my Pity Party!
We took the red-eye home from Honolulu. It seemed like a good scheduling decision at the time. I hadn't planned on catching a cold in Hawaii, but that's exactly what I did. So I got home and I was over-tired from not being able to sleep on the flight and all feverish and achy and fussy. Oh so fussy.And in a foul, foul mood. Yes, I know ...
Geeks in Paradise
There's so much to see and do in Hawaii. Particularly on the island of Oahu. There are people on just about every corner and in every hotel brokering their own "Experience the Aloha" type sightseeing trips. It's very important that you "Experience the Aloha" and there are tons of tours available to see ...
Language Lessons Five-O
Amy is always gushing about how certain words in Spanish just sound really great - never mind the meaning - it's the sound that counts. She loves words like "maldita" and "vacilon." The same thing happens to me with Hawaiian words and names. It's a lovely melodious language and it's fun to try to say things in ...
The Rest of the Week
Eric is taking me to Hawaii for the rest of the week.... or..... The Rest of the Week. Did you see that? Just a few well-placed highlights and capitals and BWAMMO! our mini-getaway was instantly converted into A MAJOR EVENT. All that to say this: MAHALO and A-LO-HA! Marta (I hope to blog from The Island. Unless we get LOST.) ;-) ...
I’m OKAY. (You’re a cow. =D)
I can tell you now that it's over. I've been smack dab in the throes of a "cancer scare" for the past three weeks. Three weeks! That's a long time to sit in this weirdness of wondering if I am okay. But it turns out that I am OKAY. It's amazing how a few words were able to completely freeze all my thought ...
What’s cooking?
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 ...
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 ...
