The weekend is over and it's Sunday night. My sisters and I have hired a lovely Mexican gal to live in with my 97 year old mom during the week and she takes weekends off at which time we take turns hosting Luza from Friday to Sunday. Now that she's 97 it's getting more complicated to pack her up and take her for a weekend, but ...
My Big, Fat, Cuban Family
Family is everything to me. I love them more than words can describe.
Classic.
My dad and most of the Verdés side of the family grew up playing multiple instruments. He loved, loved, loved any kind of music, but was an afficionado of classical and played both the piano and the cello. As much as I love my salsa music, oldies, and classic rock, I love listening to classical when I'm working on an art project. I think it ...
No “El Tri-co-tri” for you!
My mom calls. "Van a ir al tri-co-tri?" She's asking if the kids are going out and Trick or Treating. El Tri-co-tri. You have to say it phonetically, TREE-COH-TREE. It's what Trick or Treat sounds like with a Cuban accent. The "El" is just to make it grammatically correct. El Tri-co-tri. Noun. (Or verb?) The act of dressing up and begging for ...
The Circle of Life – Lion King 3D and Eternal Disney Uber-geeks
Back in 1994, I took Amy and Adam to the premiere of the Disney film, The Lion King at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood. This was obviously before Lucy and Jonathan were born. We all loved the film so much that we couldn't wait to own it when it was released on VHS. (Yes, this is waaay back in the day.) A few years later, when we added ...
La Mala Letra – my cousin, the dissident Cuban blogger
As many of you know, I still have family in Cuba. Aunts, uncles, cousins and their offspring. We used to be thick as thieves back in the day, but time and distance and a repressive dictatorship has managed to destroy what close relations we had. I have a cousin in Cuba, who is my age. (One of the few photos of us together from ...
A lesson in Male vs. Female problem solving
We have had some seriously schizophrenic weather here in the O.C. in the past week. First there was a string of really ridiculously surface-of-the-sun type hot days in the 100+ range. Then, poof! The hot weather disappeared and there was a thunder-lightning-downpour with a nice cool breeze. All that to say that when the weather changes in ...
Back-to-(Home)School
Jonathan started his sophomore year of high school today. The beauty of homeschooling is that we can "do school" anywhere that has WI-FI, amazing food....and tiny dinosaurs. ;-) Happy First Day of School! ...
The Summer House
My friend, Jana blogs over at The Summer House. It's called the Summer House because she loves the simplicity of living in a summer beach rental-type atmosphere where everything is clean, decluttered, and ready for fun. She lives out her philosophy of simple living beautifully. And I'm always impressed and inspired by ...
This Girl
I fell in love with this girl the moment I first laid eyes on her. It was August 11, 1993. Today is the 18th Anniversary of the Beginning of the Love Affair.Her good friends, Brandon and David made the following film in her honor, with a little help from her brother, Jonathan and a few willing strangers. Get some popcorn.And let the ...
Just call me Marta, La Blogona
We (Eric, Lucy, Jonathan and I) are headed down to San Diego. For the next three days I'll be up to my eyeballs in BlogHer 2011 activities.Because I blog. So I'm attending a blog conference where I will meet other bloggers. And celebrate being a part of the blogosphere. (And I kind of like seeing my name and blog on a badge, but ...
