Happy good morning…
I am having cafecito in a quiet house and expecting all that to change in a few hours — my parents and the three newly arrived Cubanos will be here this afternoon.
My parents have taken our relatives on the “See America!” tour…or at least the “See Where All The Cubans in America Live!”…Union [...]

click to enlarge. it’s worth it.

So ya, se acabo the school year. What a delight. Maria got to sleep in until 8:30 a.m., and I myself didn’t roll out of bed until nearly 8 a.m. It is Saturday, but I hope the trend continues. We both have been dragging. And, while I am all warm [...]

When Maria was 2-years-old, she and her father were outside digging in the dirt. She found a worm and was poking at it with a small trowel.“One gusano,” she said.My husband says that just as he was going to tell her to be careful not to hurt the worm with the trowel, she said: “Two [...]

My nena was once nicknamed “Cowgirl” by her father. She was a tough little fireplug who wore pants and t-shirts most of her first three years and then she discovered sparkle and skirts that spin. “Cowgirl” is no more. She’s still a tough chick, but a chick who toughs it out in dangly jewelry, tiaras [...]

my Mother’s Day Card, 2009
It is Sunday morning, on Mother’s Day, and I am resting after a dad- and daughter-created breakfast of pancakes and scrambled eggs. I think I want to go back to sleep. But, the girl wearing silk roses in her hair and a yellow tutu sitting next to me, likely will not [...]

It was the 1970s and I was between the ages of four and 12 when my family lived in the Miami version of the Boonies — Perrine. It was a haul to get there, down U.S. 1, past the Miami Serpentarium, endless pine trees and not much else. En casa del rayo.
The family next door [...]

My girl welcomed me home last night with a very big and happy hug.My husband made arroz con pollo for me, so that when the door to our house opened it smelled divine. I was in Denver this week working and visiting good, good friends — a double bonus trip. And triple bonus, I got to [...]

This “Fruit of the Spirit Stick” is my anniversary gift to my husband. It will go outside, near the entrance to our home. It is by a Tennessee folk artist we’ve long admired Bebo.I border on the over-sharing today over at Parenting.com, talking about my marriage, which began 16 years ago today in Miami during [...]

Maria is leaving little altars everywhere.
I write about them today at Parenting.com.

from the post:
“You see, when you grow up Cuban in Miami and your neighbors sacrifice goats to please the gods, a few relatives and friends channel dead people, and your aunt leaves offerings of rum, sweets and tobacco on an altar before a 4-foot-tall statue of a [...]

OK, so over at Parenting.com today, you get a more rounded picture of just how it goes here. Busy, loca, cansada. I know: whine, whine, whine. Annoying for the blessed to be so damned whiney.
But, Maria busted me a few days ago. She told me I work too much. It hurt my heart to think [...]