I have been caught up with getting ready for Margo's wedding, and I haven't even finished my last blog! Well now there is this bloke named Ike, who is trying to decide if he wants to "visit" Brownsville. Inconvenient doesn't even begin to describe this. I am cancelling my visit to Adam, Goli and Sholeh. Tomorrow Wednesday instead of flying out I will be boarding up, for real this time. Two scenarios, I shelter in place, or evacuate with the cats with or without Barry. My heart is aching.
I will do the water, hurricane run latter. Ernesto will screw down the pool works and I have calls out for help to board up the house and those awfully big leaky front doors. This time it is surreal, painful, waiting to find out what the track and intensity will be. My sense of humor is fighting my dread and disappointment. With a fellow local Reiki master we are trying to change the trajectory and intensity of Senior Ike.
Well, I will let you all know what is what until then Vio con dios
Post: It is Wednesday, No pre-storm headache, no rain, but some really great looking cloud formations. With Barry's assurance the storm is headed as of 3:00 central time today for Matagorda Bay, Houston and was still gaining Latitude I am less stressed. We have not boarded but I did run out with Rossana and get more ply-locks in any event. They are not cheap, but a necessary evil if you will. We have also cooled down from the high 90's to just 90 today.
Margo is feeling a bit helpless, she wants to be with me and not have me go through another hurricane alone. With her wedding and all the other stresses in her life, I have tried to reassure her. The Bolivia ferry it is being posted on The Weather channel will stop running. That's not something you hear every day! School closings, airports but THE ferry? WOW that's big. I am antsy enough to think about baking a shissel of bread! Hey how much is a shissel anyway?
The birds have been feeding in a blanket on the ground. We have a lot of them and many are new to me. There's one that sounds just like a crypt door slowly opening, and one that has a cackle cry. The butterflies seem to exist all year here, and darning needles rule the airways. All the buzzing, flying thingys seem very busy today. I'll take this calm before the storm...
Saturday, "There for the Grace of G-d"...
I am soaking Hibiscus (Flor de Jamaica) flowers in boiled water. The concentrate with water and ice added becomes a wonderful cold drink that everyone assures me from the grocery checkout boy to Rossana is a tonic for the Kidneys. Next to me is reheated rice, my stomach has taken a hit from the stress and energy of Ike. We are fine, no wind, no rain, no terror in the night. A major bullet was dodged. Barry went to S. Padre Island yesterday and this morning. There was no beach or dunes yesterday. Only huge waves washing over to the roads. Geoff and another co-worker checked in the afternoon, at the Island and was astonished by the debree and destruction of the beach. B reports that a lot of dredging and work will need to be done to restore our beautiful sandy beaches. There was absolutly no wind. Brownsville for the first time since I arrived ten months ago was earily still. The sky I can only describe as a pre snow storm Nor' Easter glow. When you grow up in the North east, it is a sky you note, and then begin to stock up with milk, bread, eggs etc. The rules are different down here, other than ominous signs we are unscathed.
Astonishingly enough as Ike continues to roar as a Cat1 through the Houston burbs with it's spokes spreading outward, the media report on all the residents who did not leave Glaviston/
islands, and all the A flood zones. It is estimated 40% of residents who were ordered to evacuate did not. These folks may not be tecnically in running for the Darwin awards, it is my belief that they are golden recipients of the Dodo.
Does anyone else remember the old black and white movies where a monster of some sort or unnatural disaster is loose(d) upon the populas? Wether it was a Japanese flick or an American, the army was out going around with bull horns ordering the evacuation. Those who did not obey were escorted from their homes by gun point and a nudge. The Japenese flicks had the peasents scurrying with bundles on their backs and grannys strapped to younger men like so many sacks of potatos. They seemed to be packed and ready to leave without the bayonet point. As the mighty monster/disaster decended it was to empty towns or city's filled with gridlock and yellow cabs and madly fleeing drivers and pedestrians as the army directs and hustles them off. My point? I always belived that the Gov't would do whatever it took to keep us safe. I now understand as a "free" Nation, we are free to be as stupid and suicidal as we want. Forget that they are endangering the emergency response people, or looking for their Andy Warhol moment. As the wife of a man who's sole mission is to keep people safe, with as acurate forecasting as he can, his sweeping, brilliantly written impact statements that the NWS offices as well as the EMS, and media have repeated over and over I see his pain and puzzlement. One death and he is affected, his energy saped he questions me WHY? I can only say for the most part man is a dumb animal. I could corrilate it to our political outlook/mess, and religous beliefs but I won't. We are just dumb. Post storm deaths are inevitable and numerous, those are often wrong place, foolish etc., but to die by drowning or mishap in your own home when you could be high and dry?
We need to donate to the disaster relief funds and Red cross, this is going to take a lot of money and man power to put back together. Tzedaka and Tikkun Olam.
Well, I hope to book a flight out of here Monday and put Ike behind me, while I celebrate my family and get to wear my new sleek sexy black mother-of-bride cocktail dress. Now should I wear my diamond studs or my big silver disks...
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Friday, August 22, 2008
Fiesta y Cordoba
Wednesday, no sign of Ernesto, the cool deck is due to be poured. The pool a two/three week project is now of Hoover-Dam-ian proportions. I am awaiting Rossana to begin, Rossana and Micheles most excellent adventure. We are heading for Cordoba Mexico with Mr. Torio, Rossanas father, for the Torio family reunion. When I hear Cordoba (in my head) I hear and picture Ricardo Montalvan, saying Corinthian leather. I can just picture him when he was still a hunk in that mellow suave voice saying Cordoba. I have to quit I give myself goose bumps, I will always hear his sexy voice speaking to me in Spanish. If you have no clue about Ricardo, you missed something.
Two generations ago Rocco Torio immigrated to New York and then again to Veracruz. Gelsomina Vignola (de Torio) of Italy immigrated to Veracruz and then met Rocco in Cordoba Mexico. Rossanas cousin Juan Bueno Torio, a Senator for the state of Veracruz, decided to throw a Family reunion . A fiesta to celebrate their heritage. Anna Mary Torio, a second cousin, with Juan did the research and they have put together a history and updated family tree. Mr. Torio, Jose' or Don Pepe has been looking forward to this with the greatest anticipation.
In my carry on, are my stacks of cheat index cards in Spanish. I know a lot of vocabulary words but have yet to get the knack of putting them in recognisable sentences. I get flustered and blurt out something in French or German, of which I have a small working knowledge.
Rossana and I will stay with her mother Elizabeth Ramos Echeverria, or Betty. Rossana's parents divorced a number of years ago. Her father will stay with son Rafa and family.
The border we cross is Pharr, and I am doing (far) jokes in my head, it is a Pharr Pharr better thing I do...they are corny but fun. We need to get visas for the week trip, we were warned that it could take up to two hours, and are stamped with ringing finality within minutes. Traffic and the bad roads have eaten more time than we expected, so it is with great urgency we set out again. There is also a need to exchange money for tolls etc up ahead. Don Pepe is unflappable as we negotiate the Mexican traffic on less than ideal roads. Tandem trucks swerve dangerously close on narrow and uneven roads. There doesn't seem to be a speed limit either if they are posted I missed them and so did everyone else.
Monterrey airport small neat and relatively empty. Security is surprisingly old fashioned, an agent paws through our luggage asking a few questions in Spanish, gives a nod to my carry on and purse. Our bags are tagged and gone in a flash.
All day the sky has threatened rain, Barry warned us that about 6-6:30 we would see storms. Right on time it hits with Florida like ferocity with in 20-30 minutes we have lost power in the terminal. The rain comes down in torrents, I want to write about my impressions of the scenery and drive but my fingers are painful and I am not comfortable holding my pen. Instead I read by emergency security lights The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chambon.
Passing through towns that looked little more than nailed together, scrap everything, metal, card board, bill boards. Most of the housing are hovels in decay and disrepair. The more fortunate families live in Gov't built concrete oblong block structures with a cantilevered upper level. All built cheek and jowl, stepped in rows. A lone white steeple the tallest structure somewhere embedded in a place that generations have inhabited. Lean to tiendas, auto shops, and Taquerias heave crazily this way and that, forever twined with one another in decayed and faded camaraderie. Structures so close to the road it is miraculous, how manically driven trucks have not pushed them over while careening down the road. Mexico is no holds barred in every way. Mexicans drive, eat, drink and party with abandon. They also as I have come to learn, work with the same intensity, and drive for detail.
Rossana points out that the Motels, "El Eden" and the like spanning the road to the airport every thousand feet or so. These are not for the weary traveler, they are rent by the hour, discreet rendezvous places. Enclosed garages with bedrooms up stairs allow discreet access. Although very well advertised the entrance way and exists also afford quite a bit of discretion. Every town big and small Cosmopolitan and rural have these Motels.
Seduction and cheating is an art form here so I am informed. Men rich and poor maintain Mistress's locally and in neighboring areas. Some form lifelong attachments and others play the proverbial field. Everyone knows who is cheating with whom, some spouses know and disregard others are in the dark. Woman more than match the men, cuckolding husbands who are too busy with their paramours to notice. There are a few scandals of course and more than a few post cheating divorces, but on a whole it is part of the daily life in Mexico.
We are delayed, the rain is falling with less ferocity but lightening and thunder still ring the airport. Lined up once again I am laughing at the idea of having to run pell mell down a ramp in the blowing wind and rain to mount the steps to our aircraft who's jets are spinning impatiently. Wind blown and soaked I am handed two small pieces of paper towels to mop myself up. Seated we take off within minutes during an active storm, piercing the lowered ceiling of clouds in our escape. Veracruz is hot, humid and very sticky it is also very late. There is no rain here, yet everything is wet. We will not be seeing this Gulf resort town tonight, perhaps on our way back. It is becoming more of a destination for tourists.
Our driver sent by Raffa, Jose' Luis drives us, it is about one hours drive. Coffee is grown in abundance here as well as sugar cane and the distinct pong of burnt sugar cane fuses with the damp hazy air. I can see nothing of the surrounding countryside and only a hazy outline of the Mountains.
Having eaten a little rice at the Monterry airport hours before we are very hungry and thirsty, when we get to town we stop off for Pambazos at Las Brazas. Like a sandwich, they are spicy and very good, some have a slice of cactus, Nopalito in them with beef others beef with sauce. I am eating only cooked foods and drinking from bottles. Rossana has a horchata, I stick with bottled water.
Greetings and introductions over we head down stairs in the heat of the night to our respective bedrooms. I have perfected Mucho Gusto, and igualmente. It is a little cooler down the stairs, but still feels a little damp. The house reminds me of several I have visited, in Israel and other tropical locals. Two stories with second story balconies this one higher up on one of many hills over looking the mountains. Plenty of windows to catch the breezes. The stone floors are welcomed cold under my feet. I hand Rossana ear plugs, we will need them. As well as over looking mountains, lawns and other homes, the main road runs bellow not more than a block or two from the house. A traffic light is at the bottom of the hill, all vehicles and trucks have to shift down gear to stop and then rev mightily in first gear to begin the next climb up. With attending noises of motorcycles, gears gnashing, and general traffic it is necessary to use ear plugs. A tower fan runs humming at the foot of my bed and a steady stream of air flows through my room.
Thursday morning brings clear views of the mountains with tower clouds rising behind them against blue skies. The scents of fresh morning air flowers and tamales fill the air. Canela the chihuahua jumps ecstatically for attention spinning herself around and pawing the ground. How can I resist she looks like a tiny fawn, her great big eyes fix upon me hoping for a cuddle. She is sweetness itself. Both Barry and I had not been too enamored of this breed but Canela is winning me over. Cafe con leche, fresh squeezed orange juice and really good tamales finished with tiny cookies we have made up in one meal the sparsity of food yesterday. Now a tour of the gardens we could only scent out last night.The driveway is lined with exotic and abundant flora, each perfectly in alignment and harmony with it's neighbor. Butterflies alight and drift from flower to flower, Orchids hang from moss and wood bark platforms. Everywhere I turn the names of plants and flowers spring to mind I see some that are new, native to the area. It is a cornucopia of flora and I am in gardeners heaven. A postage stamp lawn is surrounded and pots, wheelbarrows and tables are heaped with floral abandon. Canela keeps up with the tour sniffling the air and nosing around the small grounds. I carry her about as much as I can and Rossana's mother warns me that I will spoil her. With pleasure.
It is time for Betty to go to the lighting store downtown that she runs for her daughter Betty older sister to Rossana. She is married to a retired engineer who is now in politics. Currently he is a diplomat of some kind and they travel all over the world. Sister Betty also owns a wine and gourmet store in town. Down town is a mix of the very old and traditional architecture and the newer. The central square is all traditional a beautiful park rebuilt and designed by Rossanas younger brother Pepon, the cathedral, the city legislature and on one side stores, the other restaurants. Rossanas brother-in-law before he became a diplomat was vice mayor of the city and helped restore the gov't building and the park. Central to the park with it's many shade trees, and benches is a large band stand where music and dancing go on nightly. A lovely fountain provides another layer of rest and respit from the intense heat and languor that develops. The park is filled. From young to old people stroll, sit and read or gossip with one another. We sit and absorb the atmosphere and try to cool off before returning to sight seeing. All around the park is hustle and bustle there are many street vendors and many shoe shines, men and women. At night roving bands of Mariachis play for the diners and strollers. We take pictures just outside the Cathedral. Inside it is only a fraction cooler but much darker, this is a lovely well kept church. They are doing restoration work I can imagine a full time job given the age and climate. Ceilings or multi domes look to me like Faberge eggs with the rich icing and detail work, gold and gold gilding shine with intensity. The pastel colors harmonize with each other, and bring a lightness that uplifts the spirits. I am a little non plussed at the sight of Jesus with a full head of human hair, in several statue vignettes. This is also a busy and well used area, like the park it is filled with many people in the middle of the day.
On to the streets we explore while finding a money exchange. Hot and thirsty Rossana has some kind of coconut water, I am apprehensive she has Colitis, and I am afraid it will be too indigestible for her. She has two. I sip bottled water with a sinking feeling. As we explore Rossana has a need for el bano, and we duck into this massive building, The Italian club. Visiting rooms and I think a restaurant downstairs and a disco, and dance floors upstairs. Lunch with Betty at one of the restaurants ringing the park. It is pre-fix from soup to desert. I enjoy the meal, it is the dinner if you will of the day. A large lunch with the stores and businesses closed around two in the afternoon, then siesta until after five. It truly is too hot for anything else. we head home as Betty maneuvers the car expertly up and down the treacherous roads shifting with expert ease. Rossana is not feeling well. So goes the next 24 hours of grief for her. After siesta Patty, Pepons wife and four daughters visit. The girls ranging in age from 20-9 want to practise their English. They are sweet lovely girls all different all well mannered. The youngest is a tiny thing with a big personality and zeal. Betty heads back to the store and we go in the van with Patty and girls for a guided tour of a very wealthy area of town, the Italian club has a country club up here. Then we head across the road to Rossanas older brother Rafa's compound. Mary Elana, his wife's family owns acres of beautifully maintained grounds and gardens. The family home rambles all over a central cobblestone courtyard, the stables now turned into another home for a daughter and family. Just beyond is the home of a son and behind that Raffa's and Mary Elana's drive and homestead. The gardens here are designed and tended by Raffa, he has two aviary's at the back wall behind the house with canaries and many other birds. Flitting from time to time in Cordobas trees you see canaries, family pets now gone wild and breeding. Scratching my legs, I have been bitten badly with mosquitoes and they are coming out again as evening drops. We meet the four children two handsome boys and two beautiful girls intent on serving us their jello treats that they make for their uncles catering service. They also with the help of a cousin run inside to bake us a cake. Don Pepe greats us and we chat for quiet awhile as warm chocolate cake is served with pitchers of Tamarind water. Rossana is really feeling it now. Heading home we spend the rest of the evening watching Rossana suffer and the Olympics (she is a very good sprinter.) Our plans to head over to Puebla with niece Paulina are in doubt for Friday.
After, a phone consult with Rossana's state side Doc via Geoff, we run and get Cipro and a few other things late at night.We don't need a prescription and conduct our business though metal grates at the pharmacy. By morning the Cipro and the imodium we have been pumping in her has done half a cure and poor Ross, is feeling better. Our morning starts with Gloria, the wonderful housekeeper regaling us with her life's story and very spicy hand made gorditas, a masa flour shell with salsa, manchego cheese and raw onions. Sometimes they are served with beans and or chicken or creme instead of cheese. Sort of like a tortilla. We had ours straight up and I added an oil from hot peppers (Salsa Macha). WOW as breakfast goes this is a kick in the head. Again we have Cafe con leche and fresh orange juice. Cookies follow, I could really get used to this. I can understand every word Gloria says, she is very loud and pronounces her words very clearly. With an enormous grin and an infectious laugh. She is working for the shear joy of working, her son is well to do and tried to retire her. She was clinically depressed and her doctor told her go back to work, you love it, forget retirement. So everyday she gets up and works for 6 hours and is paid 14.00 dollars a day and is the happiest person I have ever met. I wanted to steal her and bring her home with me for the delight she carries with her as an energetic gift to all. She said she would come but her kids would never let her. Oh Blast.
We rest, I read and write. As a weather weenie, married to a meteorologist I pried myself in predicting the wx. When we first got up I noted the huge towers behind the mountain and told Rossana who does not share my weenieness, that if THOSE clouds make it over the mountains we are in for it. Fast forward we are now late in the afternoon having tea at Betty's home (sister)somewhere in the hills of Cordoba, meeting another sweet niece and getting a tour of one of the most intricate wine cellars I have been to. Through a mechanical trap door in one of the rooms we have descended to an up to the date temp controlled Wine enthusiasts dream. It has started raining, so we all run out to waiting cars, Rossanas mom back to the lighting store, while we get a tour of the beautiful converted home now cum store. Wine and every cheese, ham including the rare black hoof Sorrano illegal in the U.S. Room after room in this architectural dream, is filled with wine, cafe, deli store and expensive nick knacks for sale. Betty is being trained as a coffee Barrista and is opening her cafe soon. Everything has been lovingly stocked, and hand carried back from Italy. The coffee will be locally grown and roasted and ground to her specifications. The skies are pouring forth and leaks are springing everywhere. The road out front is flooding and customers are soaked to the skin. It is a monumental deluge, we are stuck while Cordoba is flooding. Finally Ross' mom Betty, plucky as can be comes and gets us and we brave the rushing waters to get home. Left overs and Canela on my lap while we watch the Olympics with Spanish commentary. The Torio Sanchez branch of the family will wear blue shirts, other branches will be in green, orange, pink, and yellow. So we lay out our things in anticipation for the big Fiesta mannana. We will be picked up by Pepon and the girls in the morning. The sky has emptied itself and left a cooler evening.
Today is clear no Towering clouds behind the mountains. It is still hot and damp and promises to stay that way. We look great in our Fiesta togs, I've flat ironed Rossana's curls into submission, she looks like a million bucks. Her happy eyes flashing in antiscipation of seeing all her long lost cousins, and others she has never met. The property is a huge 60's Modern home and grounds. The pool and covered areas immense and very sleek. The bar sweeps accross the back of the house all white concrete and curved lines. Tabels for 120 are set under the low roofed patio. They have an area for the children down the slope, with inflatable slides and the like. Family trickles in, everyone kisses, everyone even myself, although I am clearly out of place. They greet me with warmth and as much English as they can muster. Rossana is feeling great and has decided to eat whatever is served. I have been blessed with no "tummy" trouble and vow to keep up.
When the bulk of the Torio crew is gathered a slew of roaving photograpers gather the various family branches for photos. As soon as they are clicked, children with or with out bathing suits are happily splashing in the 3-4 foot depths. Don Pepe is so happy and proud his feet are barely able to touch the ground. We meet his brother and sisters, cousins and nephews and nieces. This is a good looking family. Many of the men though have strong faces with very Romanic nosses. Two girl cousins are DJ'ng and the music that pours forth is all Italian. Everyone receives a family tree book and CD of the afternoons tracks.
Wine truly flows like water along with beer and what all else. Fabulous trays of anti-pasto are on the tables, although not a pork eater I partake, with cheese and Salmon carpacio that is out of this world. Good crusty bread and olive oil. Crowds around the tables flow back and forth as cousins visit and hug. Late cummers come over and everyone hugs and kisses. There are two men, dressed in Mexican cowboy style with big straw Cowboy hats a Mandolin and Harp. They are clearly brothers, it turns out they are old friends of don Pepe. Jaraneros, sing off the cuff verses. The name means little mandolin. These verses are sung with the same tune but the words are always stories of the individual they are singing about. Someone clues the singer in and he takes it and makes these wonderful witty mini songs. They even made one for me at the behest of Don Pepe.
The food this afternoon is strictly Italian. The chef a dapper gentelman hovers over the hot steam tables with a blend of anxiety and pried, this after all is a very important family. More family than anticipated has shown up and the food dwindles quickly with only some Risotto, and salad left for the last few tables. I must admit the hot fare is dissapointing, Rossana agrees. As soon as the plates are cleared, the buisness of family begins. More wine and the like is poured and we settle in to listen to the story of the Torio saga. Now to many New Yorkers the name Torio has a familiar ring. The infamous Johnny Torio mob boss and patrone to Al Capone was Rocco's first cousin. They call this the dark side in the family. Everyone listens with rapt attention as the two cousins who put this event together tell the stories of emmigration, opportunity and love. They tell the stories of home made wine and customs, relatives who have passed and stories about each other. It has hard to not undersatnd it all, I get glimses of things, so as the observer I watch everyones faces and feel the crowd. You can tell when someone is mentioned which branch they hailed from, members sniffle and shed tears clap and call out. In all it is a wonderful presentation. The Family tree is revealed with the family crest. A huge core board creation done by Raffa, it is extensive and well layed out. One by one members get up to talk about thier branch and exchange humorous stories. Don Pepe has declined to speak he has become very emotional since his heart attack.
Dessert is served little powdered cookies that are jaw breakers meant to be dunked in rich red wine or cafe au lait, and home made desserts pile along a table. More wine is poured and now the music is all Mexican, popular style. Everyone runs to the front and begins to gyrate and dance with steps and movements I do not know. Rossanas brothers have been imbibing steadily and they are dancing with fluidity. Young, old,men, women, it continues on for hours. New York affairs follow a stricht pattern, a lot of food, less talk and very little celebration. As soon as dessert is offered we haul our over fed bodies out of chairs and stuff our selves into our cars to rest the evening away. Not so my Mexican family, they are heedless of time and heat. The party began at 1:00, in the afternoon, at 11:30 p.m. Tacos are served, as waiters run back and forth tirelessly with booze and bottles of wine. Even desserts that have sat in the heat for many hours are being revisited as the group energy feeds itself. I am amazed, soaked and more than a little tired. We have had a blast and a party like none I have ever attended. Before we leave, Rossanas' Aunt and Cousins have promised us a reservation for thier hotel on Vera Cruz beach for Monday, we fly out on Tuesday. I check and it is 1:00 a.m. We drag Pepon out to drive us back home. What a day, what a party!
Sunday, we have brunch with Betty at a lovely resturant another former residence transformed They feature Crepes, which are very popular here. I get the mushroom cheese. The crepe itself is tender, but my filling is stuffed with canned warmed over mushrooms with a sauce napped on top. Not very tasty and I am very disapointed. We do buy these wonderful Merangue cookies to bring with us to Betty's ranch. After a ride just out of town, among fields of corn and sugar cane are a pair of huge metal gates with an immense cement wall running along the property.
Imu's!! Roaming freely and hindering our progress through the gates onto the Ranch are Imus. We drive the length of a rutted road to a two story structure that is still in the building stages. Betty her two daughters and husband are dining alfresco on Pollo and Riz. Immense wine glasses with blood red wine are full as the bones of the meal lay about. We pass the cookies around I have a beer. They are wearig long pants, riding boots, leggings tucked in, and long sleeved safari shirts. The bugs are wicked. MY eau de cologne has been Listerene all week I hope I am immune. We spend the rest of the afternoon inspecting the grounds pens filled with animals. From ducks to sheep, goats, pigs and cows. I make friends with as many of the flying, bleeting fawna as I can. Chickens run every where, troughs are filled, and water bins are replenished. It is fantastic. There are mounds on the property that yield ancient Mayan relics and we are shown carvings and shells of every discription. Peppon and family have been visiting and the younger girls have been digging the mounds and visting the animals with young abandon. They show us their dug up treasure. Betty puts them away, so that when they have built their home all will be displayed. Flint is everywhere, this is a treasure trove of Mexico's past. The grounds have been planted with hardwood trees from South America, they will be sold as lumber when all are mature. Every thing on the ranch is sold as food. At some point I can see this as a self sustaining homesite. The work involved is immense.
We stop for Tacos on the way home, I smell like goat and sheep, but I have had a blast.
Monday and we say our good-byes. It was a wonderful experiance, and Rossana's mother has been a trooper, considering the even tenor of her life, that we have disrupted. We make the ride to Vera Cruz a coastal town off the Gulf of Mexico. Our driver is once again Jose' Luis. He is ours for the day, and he is wonderful driving us all around the new and old town. As we leave Cordoba I look back and see the snow covered peak of a dormant volcano wreated in clouds but clear as can be. Ixtazhuatl. There are people who live along the foot paths of this volcano, and locals often climb this picturesque mountain.
The hotel is one of the first luxury hotels with four stars in the new area of Vera Cruz. Hotel Torremar, Crown Plaza is on a pristine stretch of beach, beautifully appointed with luxurious bedding and bathroom. We are being treated like Queens, and King.
We sight see, The water rolling dark and slightly rough looking. Ships on their moorings, many out on the Horizon, others traversing the water lanes. The jetties are the main staple of town, many shops crammed together lining the water. Waiting for the tourists. At one time large cruise liners paid visits to this port. A few still visit but they are rare these days.
Lunch at an Italian resturant with a sea view. We are taken back to the hotel for our Siesta, we need it.
Many structures are being rebuilt and the reconstruction also lines the very large Cathedral that dominates the old town. Old hotels and many street cafes face the strips of beaches. We go to a bakery so Rossana can pick up the Pan Dolce that Joseph loves, Bolillo. After wandering around old town we go to the most famous cafe' in the area, Parroquia. Their coffee is famous and we sit as they pour it into glasses with a high stream of hot milk that floats on top. It is served with long hard double braided cookies that are to be dunked and sucked on. We have several glasses as we sit and watch the world go by. I am wired. It is not often I drink this much coffee. Parroquia, denotes another form of church. Natives from the mountains show us handiwork of every kind. They are dressed to my imagination like Peruvian woman with full skirts with many slips and bandanas or hats pulling back thick black braides. Their high cheek bones, slightly flat noses and dark skin are intriguing and highlight the faces of the ancients. The linen they show us with embroidery are well done and not made in China, but Papantla, where they grow and harvest the Vanilla orchard and beans. As the day winds down, cars pull in to spots as the well heeled populous visit resturants and cafes. Street musicians get ready to play for the evening crowds, and all manner of peddlers begin to assail us. An interesting exchange on the street takes place. The self appointed parking attendant who also washes his patrons cars with alacrity is having words with a rather pompus musician. He tells him that he may be poor but he has his pride, and he works hard. His patrons know he serves them well and he watches everyones car. No ones car is molested and he helps them negotiate the tiny parking spaces with out mishap. Everyone tips him and he has done his job. Rossana translates the exchange for me, and I am humbled.
We see Jose' Luis and another driver who is meeting Raffas brother-in-law soon, to drive him back to Cordoba. We are droped back at the hotel for an early night for an early 5:45 call, with coffee sent up. I did not sleep a wink, too much caffene. I clip on my new bracelet and earings I bought yesterday in the hotel gift shop, wonderful silver reminders of our trip.
We leave this part of the world unlike our arrival no thunder and lightning heralding us. An uneventful departure and final, if not damp arrival home. I have had a wonderful trip, thank you Rossana, Don Pepe, Betty and all the Torio clan as I have had a most excellent adventure.
Two generations ago Rocco Torio immigrated to New York and then again to Veracruz. Gelsomina Vignola (de Torio) of Italy immigrated to Veracruz and then met Rocco in Cordoba Mexico. Rossanas cousin Juan Bueno Torio, a Senator for the state of Veracruz, decided to throw a Family reunion . A fiesta to celebrate their heritage. Anna Mary Torio, a second cousin, with Juan did the research and they have put together a history and updated family tree. Mr. Torio, Jose' or Don Pepe has been looking forward to this with the greatest anticipation.
In my carry on, are my stacks of cheat index cards in Spanish. I know a lot of vocabulary words but have yet to get the knack of putting them in recognisable sentences. I get flustered and blurt out something in French or German, of which I have a small working knowledge.
Rossana and I will stay with her mother Elizabeth Ramos Echeverria, or Betty. Rossana's parents divorced a number of years ago. Her father will stay with son Rafa and family.
The border we cross is Pharr, and I am doing (far) jokes in my head, it is a Pharr Pharr better thing I do...they are corny but fun. We need to get visas for the week trip, we were warned that it could take up to two hours, and are stamped with ringing finality within minutes. Traffic and the bad roads have eaten more time than we expected, so it is with great urgency we set out again. There is also a need to exchange money for tolls etc up ahead. Don Pepe is unflappable as we negotiate the Mexican traffic on less than ideal roads. Tandem trucks swerve dangerously close on narrow and uneven roads. There doesn't seem to be a speed limit either if they are posted I missed them and so did everyone else.
Monterrey airport small neat and relatively empty. Security is surprisingly old fashioned, an agent paws through our luggage asking a few questions in Spanish, gives a nod to my carry on and purse. Our bags are tagged and gone in a flash.
All day the sky has threatened rain, Barry warned us that about 6-6:30 we would see storms. Right on time it hits with Florida like ferocity with in 20-30 minutes we have lost power in the terminal. The rain comes down in torrents, I want to write about my impressions of the scenery and drive but my fingers are painful and I am not comfortable holding my pen. Instead I read by emergency security lights The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chambon.
Passing through towns that looked little more than nailed together, scrap everything, metal, card board, bill boards. Most of the housing are hovels in decay and disrepair. The more fortunate families live in Gov't built concrete oblong block structures with a cantilevered upper level. All built cheek and jowl, stepped in rows. A lone white steeple the tallest structure somewhere embedded in a place that generations have inhabited. Lean to tiendas, auto shops, and Taquerias heave crazily this way and that, forever twined with one another in decayed and faded camaraderie. Structures so close to the road it is miraculous, how manically driven trucks have not pushed them over while careening down the road. Mexico is no holds barred in every way. Mexicans drive, eat, drink and party with abandon. They also as I have come to learn, work with the same intensity, and drive for detail.
Rossana points out that the Motels, "El Eden" and the like spanning the road to the airport every thousand feet or so. These are not for the weary traveler, they are rent by the hour, discreet rendezvous places. Enclosed garages with bedrooms up stairs allow discreet access. Although very well advertised the entrance way and exists also afford quite a bit of discretion. Every town big and small Cosmopolitan and rural have these Motels.
Seduction and cheating is an art form here so I am informed. Men rich and poor maintain Mistress's locally and in neighboring areas. Some form lifelong attachments and others play the proverbial field. Everyone knows who is cheating with whom, some spouses know and disregard others are in the dark. Woman more than match the men, cuckolding husbands who are too busy with their paramours to notice. There are a few scandals of course and more than a few post cheating divorces, but on a whole it is part of the daily life in Mexico.
We are delayed, the rain is falling with less ferocity but lightening and thunder still ring the airport. Lined up once again I am laughing at the idea of having to run pell mell down a ramp in the blowing wind and rain to mount the steps to our aircraft who's jets are spinning impatiently. Wind blown and soaked I am handed two small pieces of paper towels to mop myself up. Seated we take off within minutes during an active storm, piercing the lowered ceiling of clouds in our escape. Veracruz is hot, humid and very sticky it is also very late. There is no rain here, yet everything is wet. We will not be seeing this Gulf resort town tonight, perhaps on our way back. It is becoming more of a destination for tourists.
Our driver sent by Raffa, Jose' Luis drives us, it is about one hours drive. Coffee is grown in abundance here as well as sugar cane and the distinct pong of burnt sugar cane fuses with the damp hazy air. I can see nothing of the surrounding countryside and only a hazy outline of the Mountains.
Having eaten a little rice at the Monterry airport hours before we are very hungry and thirsty, when we get to town we stop off for Pambazos at Las Brazas. Like a sandwich, they are spicy and very good, some have a slice of cactus, Nopalito in them with beef others beef with sauce. I am eating only cooked foods and drinking from bottles. Rossana has a horchata, I stick with bottled water.
Greetings and introductions over we head down stairs in the heat of the night to our respective bedrooms. I have perfected Mucho Gusto, and igualmente. It is a little cooler down the stairs, but still feels a little damp. The house reminds me of several I have visited, in Israel and other tropical locals. Two stories with second story balconies this one higher up on one of many hills over looking the mountains. Plenty of windows to catch the breezes. The stone floors are welcomed cold under my feet. I hand Rossana ear plugs, we will need them. As well as over looking mountains, lawns and other homes, the main road runs bellow not more than a block or two from the house. A traffic light is at the bottom of the hill, all vehicles and trucks have to shift down gear to stop and then rev mightily in first gear to begin the next climb up. With attending noises of motorcycles, gears gnashing, and general traffic it is necessary to use ear plugs. A tower fan runs humming at the foot of my bed and a steady stream of air flows through my room.
Thursday morning brings clear views of the mountains with tower clouds rising behind them against blue skies. The scents of fresh morning air flowers and tamales fill the air. Canela the chihuahua jumps ecstatically for attention spinning herself around and pawing the ground. How can I resist she looks like a tiny fawn, her great big eyes fix upon me hoping for a cuddle. She is sweetness itself. Both Barry and I had not been too enamored of this breed but Canela is winning me over. Cafe con leche, fresh squeezed orange juice and really good tamales finished with tiny cookies we have made up in one meal the sparsity of food yesterday. Now a tour of the gardens we could only scent out last night.The driveway is lined with exotic and abundant flora, each perfectly in alignment and harmony with it's neighbor. Butterflies alight and drift from flower to flower, Orchids hang from moss and wood bark platforms. Everywhere I turn the names of plants and flowers spring to mind I see some that are new, native to the area. It is a cornucopia of flora and I am in gardeners heaven. A postage stamp lawn is surrounded and pots, wheelbarrows and tables are heaped with floral abandon. Canela keeps up with the tour sniffling the air and nosing around the small grounds. I carry her about as much as I can and Rossana's mother warns me that I will spoil her. With pleasure.
It is time for Betty to go to the lighting store downtown that she runs for her daughter Betty older sister to Rossana. She is married to a retired engineer who is now in politics. Currently he is a diplomat of some kind and they travel all over the world. Sister Betty also owns a wine and gourmet store in town. Down town is a mix of the very old and traditional architecture and the newer. The central square is all traditional a beautiful park rebuilt and designed by Rossanas younger brother Pepon, the cathedral, the city legislature and on one side stores, the other restaurants. Rossanas brother-in-law before he became a diplomat was vice mayor of the city and helped restore the gov't building and the park. Central to the park with it's many shade trees, and benches is a large band stand where music and dancing go on nightly. A lovely fountain provides another layer of rest and respit from the intense heat and languor that develops. The park is filled. From young to old people stroll, sit and read or gossip with one another. We sit and absorb the atmosphere and try to cool off before returning to sight seeing. All around the park is hustle and bustle there are many street vendors and many shoe shines, men and women. At night roving bands of Mariachis play for the diners and strollers. We take pictures just outside the Cathedral. Inside it is only a fraction cooler but much darker, this is a lovely well kept church. They are doing restoration work I can imagine a full time job given the age and climate. Ceilings or multi domes look to me like Faberge eggs with the rich icing and detail work, gold and gold gilding shine with intensity. The pastel colors harmonize with each other, and bring a lightness that uplifts the spirits. I am a little non plussed at the sight of Jesus with a full head of human hair, in several statue vignettes. This is also a busy and well used area, like the park it is filled with many people in the middle of the day.
On to the streets we explore while finding a money exchange. Hot and thirsty Rossana has some kind of coconut water, I am apprehensive she has Colitis, and I am afraid it will be too indigestible for her. She has two. I sip bottled water with a sinking feeling. As we explore Rossana has a need for el bano, and we duck into this massive building, The Italian club. Visiting rooms and I think a restaurant downstairs and a disco, and dance floors upstairs. Lunch with Betty at one of the restaurants ringing the park. It is pre-fix from soup to desert. I enjoy the meal, it is the dinner if you will of the day. A large lunch with the stores and businesses closed around two in the afternoon, then siesta until after five. It truly is too hot for anything else. we head home as Betty maneuvers the car expertly up and down the treacherous roads shifting with expert ease. Rossana is not feeling well. So goes the next 24 hours of grief for her. After siesta Patty, Pepons wife and four daughters visit. The girls ranging in age from 20-9 want to practise their English. They are sweet lovely girls all different all well mannered. The youngest is a tiny thing with a big personality and zeal. Betty heads back to the store and we go in the van with Patty and girls for a guided tour of a very wealthy area of town, the Italian club has a country club up here. Then we head across the road to Rossanas older brother Rafa's compound. Mary Elana, his wife's family owns acres of beautifully maintained grounds and gardens. The family home rambles all over a central cobblestone courtyard, the stables now turned into another home for a daughter and family. Just beyond is the home of a son and behind that Raffa's and Mary Elana's drive and homestead. The gardens here are designed and tended by Raffa, he has two aviary's at the back wall behind the house with canaries and many other birds. Flitting from time to time in Cordobas trees you see canaries, family pets now gone wild and breeding. Scratching my legs, I have been bitten badly with mosquitoes and they are coming out again as evening drops. We meet the four children two handsome boys and two beautiful girls intent on serving us their jello treats that they make for their uncles catering service. They also with the help of a cousin run inside to bake us a cake. Don Pepe greats us and we chat for quiet awhile as warm chocolate cake is served with pitchers of Tamarind water. Rossana is really feeling it now. Heading home we spend the rest of the evening watching Rossana suffer and the Olympics (she is a very good sprinter.) Our plans to head over to Puebla with niece Paulina are in doubt for Friday.
After, a phone consult with Rossana's state side Doc via Geoff, we run and get Cipro and a few other things late at night.We don't need a prescription and conduct our business though metal grates at the pharmacy. By morning the Cipro and the imodium we have been pumping in her has done half a cure and poor Ross, is feeling better. Our morning starts with Gloria, the wonderful housekeeper regaling us with her life's story and very spicy hand made gorditas, a masa flour shell with salsa, manchego cheese and raw onions. Sometimes they are served with beans and or chicken or creme instead of cheese. Sort of like a tortilla. We had ours straight up and I added an oil from hot peppers (Salsa Macha). WOW as breakfast goes this is a kick in the head. Again we have Cafe con leche and fresh orange juice. Cookies follow, I could really get used to this. I can understand every word Gloria says, she is very loud and pronounces her words very clearly. With an enormous grin and an infectious laugh. She is working for the shear joy of working, her son is well to do and tried to retire her. She was clinically depressed and her doctor told her go back to work, you love it, forget retirement. So everyday she gets up and works for 6 hours and is paid 14.00 dollars a day and is the happiest person I have ever met. I wanted to steal her and bring her home with me for the delight she carries with her as an energetic gift to all. She said she would come but her kids would never let her. Oh Blast.
We rest, I read and write. As a weather weenie, married to a meteorologist I pried myself in predicting the wx. When we first got up I noted the huge towers behind the mountain and told Rossana who does not share my weenieness, that if THOSE clouds make it over the mountains we are in for it. Fast forward we are now late in the afternoon having tea at Betty's home (sister)somewhere in the hills of Cordoba, meeting another sweet niece and getting a tour of one of the most intricate wine cellars I have been to. Through a mechanical trap door in one of the rooms we have descended to an up to the date temp controlled Wine enthusiasts dream. It has started raining, so we all run out to waiting cars, Rossanas mom back to the lighting store, while we get a tour of the beautiful converted home now cum store. Wine and every cheese, ham including the rare black hoof Sorrano illegal in the U.S. Room after room in this architectural dream, is filled with wine, cafe, deli store and expensive nick knacks for sale. Betty is being trained as a coffee Barrista and is opening her cafe soon. Everything has been lovingly stocked, and hand carried back from Italy. The coffee will be locally grown and roasted and ground to her specifications. The skies are pouring forth and leaks are springing everywhere. The road out front is flooding and customers are soaked to the skin. It is a monumental deluge, we are stuck while Cordoba is flooding. Finally Ross' mom Betty, plucky as can be comes and gets us and we brave the rushing waters to get home. Left overs and Canela on my lap while we watch the Olympics with Spanish commentary. The Torio Sanchez branch of the family will wear blue shirts, other branches will be in green, orange, pink, and yellow. So we lay out our things in anticipation for the big Fiesta mannana. We will be picked up by Pepon and the girls in the morning. The sky has emptied itself and left a cooler evening.
Today is clear no Towering clouds behind the mountains. It is still hot and damp and promises to stay that way. We look great in our Fiesta togs, I've flat ironed Rossana's curls into submission, she looks like a million bucks. Her happy eyes flashing in antiscipation of seeing all her long lost cousins, and others she has never met. The property is a huge 60's Modern home and grounds. The pool and covered areas immense and very sleek. The bar sweeps accross the back of the house all white concrete and curved lines. Tabels for 120 are set under the low roofed patio. They have an area for the children down the slope, with inflatable slides and the like. Family trickles in, everyone kisses, everyone even myself, although I am clearly out of place. They greet me with warmth and as much English as they can muster. Rossana is feeling great and has decided to eat whatever is served. I have been blessed with no "tummy" trouble and vow to keep up.
When the bulk of the Torio crew is gathered a slew of roaving photograpers gather the various family branches for photos. As soon as they are clicked, children with or with out bathing suits are happily splashing in the 3-4 foot depths. Don Pepe is so happy and proud his feet are barely able to touch the ground. We meet his brother and sisters, cousins and nephews and nieces. This is a good looking family. Many of the men though have strong faces with very Romanic nosses. Two girl cousins are DJ'ng and the music that pours forth is all Italian. Everyone receives a family tree book and CD of the afternoons tracks.
Wine truly flows like water along with beer and what all else. Fabulous trays of anti-pasto are on the tables, although not a pork eater I partake, with cheese and Salmon carpacio that is out of this world. Good crusty bread and olive oil. Crowds around the tables flow back and forth as cousins visit and hug. Late cummers come over and everyone hugs and kisses. There are two men, dressed in Mexican cowboy style with big straw Cowboy hats a Mandolin and Harp. They are clearly brothers, it turns out they are old friends of don Pepe. Jaraneros, sing off the cuff verses. The name means little mandolin. These verses are sung with the same tune but the words are always stories of the individual they are singing about. Someone clues the singer in and he takes it and makes these wonderful witty mini songs. They even made one for me at the behest of Don Pepe.
The food this afternoon is strictly Italian. The chef a dapper gentelman hovers over the hot steam tables with a blend of anxiety and pried, this after all is a very important family. More family than anticipated has shown up and the food dwindles quickly with only some Risotto, and salad left for the last few tables. I must admit the hot fare is dissapointing, Rossana agrees. As soon as the plates are cleared, the buisness of family begins. More wine and the like is poured and we settle in to listen to the story of the Torio saga. Now to many New Yorkers the name Torio has a familiar ring. The infamous Johnny Torio mob boss and patrone to Al Capone was Rocco's first cousin. They call this the dark side in the family. Everyone listens with rapt attention as the two cousins who put this event together tell the stories of emmigration, opportunity and love. They tell the stories of home made wine and customs, relatives who have passed and stories about each other. It has hard to not undersatnd it all, I get glimses of things, so as the observer I watch everyones faces and feel the crowd. You can tell when someone is mentioned which branch they hailed from, members sniffle and shed tears clap and call out. In all it is a wonderful presentation. The Family tree is revealed with the family crest. A huge core board creation done by Raffa, it is extensive and well layed out. One by one members get up to talk about thier branch and exchange humorous stories. Don Pepe has declined to speak he has become very emotional since his heart attack.
Dessert is served little powdered cookies that are jaw breakers meant to be dunked in rich red wine or cafe au lait, and home made desserts pile along a table. More wine is poured and now the music is all Mexican, popular style. Everyone runs to the front and begins to gyrate and dance with steps and movements I do not know. Rossanas brothers have been imbibing steadily and they are dancing with fluidity. Young, old,men, women, it continues on for hours. New York affairs follow a stricht pattern, a lot of food, less talk and very little celebration. As soon as dessert is offered we haul our over fed bodies out of chairs and stuff our selves into our cars to rest the evening away. Not so my Mexican family, they are heedless of time and heat. The party began at 1:00, in the afternoon, at 11:30 p.m. Tacos are served, as waiters run back and forth tirelessly with booze and bottles of wine. Even desserts that have sat in the heat for many hours are being revisited as the group energy feeds itself. I am amazed, soaked and more than a little tired. We have had a blast and a party like none I have ever attended. Before we leave, Rossanas' Aunt and Cousins have promised us a reservation for thier hotel on Vera Cruz beach for Monday, we fly out on Tuesday. I check and it is 1:00 a.m. We drag Pepon out to drive us back home. What a day, what a party!
Sunday, we have brunch with Betty at a lovely resturant another former residence transformed They feature Crepes, which are very popular here. I get the mushroom cheese. The crepe itself is tender, but my filling is stuffed with canned warmed over mushrooms with a sauce napped on top. Not very tasty and I am very disapointed. We do buy these wonderful Merangue cookies to bring with us to Betty's ranch. After a ride just out of town, among fields of corn and sugar cane are a pair of huge metal gates with an immense cement wall running along the property.
Imu's!! Roaming freely and hindering our progress through the gates onto the Ranch are Imus. We drive the length of a rutted road to a two story structure that is still in the building stages. Betty her two daughters and husband are dining alfresco on Pollo and Riz. Immense wine glasses with blood red wine are full as the bones of the meal lay about. We pass the cookies around I have a beer. They are wearig long pants, riding boots, leggings tucked in, and long sleeved safari shirts. The bugs are wicked. MY eau de cologne has been Listerene all week I hope I am immune. We spend the rest of the afternoon inspecting the grounds pens filled with animals. From ducks to sheep, goats, pigs and cows. I make friends with as many of the flying, bleeting fawna as I can. Chickens run every where, troughs are filled, and water bins are replenished. It is fantastic. There are mounds on the property that yield ancient Mayan relics and we are shown carvings and shells of every discription. Peppon and family have been visiting and the younger girls have been digging the mounds and visting the animals with young abandon. They show us their dug up treasure. Betty puts them away, so that when they have built their home all will be displayed. Flint is everywhere, this is a treasure trove of Mexico's past. The grounds have been planted with hardwood trees from South America, they will be sold as lumber when all are mature. Every thing on the ranch is sold as food. At some point I can see this as a self sustaining homesite. The work involved is immense.
We stop for Tacos on the way home, I smell like goat and sheep, but I have had a blast.
Monday and we say our good-byes. It was a wonderful experiance, and Rossana's mother has been a trooper, considering the even tenor of her life, that we have disrupted. We make the ride to Vera Cruz a coastal town off the Gulf of Mexico. Our driver is once again Jose' Luis. He is ours for the day, and he is wonderful driving us all around the new and old town. As we leave Cordoba I look back and see the snow covered peak of a dormant volcano wreated in clouds but clear as can be. Ixtazhuatl. There are people who live along the foot paths of this volcano, and locals often climb this picturesque mountain.
The hotel is one of the first luxury hotels with four stars in the new area of Vera Cruz. Hotel Torremar, Crown Plaza is on a pristine stretch of beach, beautifully appointed with luxurious bedding and bathroom. We are being treated like Queens, and King.
We sight see, The water rolling dark and slightly rough looking. Ships on their moorings, many out on the Horizon, others traversing the water lanes. The jetties are the main staple of town, many shops crammed together lining the water. Waiting for the tourists. At one time large cruise liners paid visits to this port. A few still visit but they are rare these days.
Lunch at an Italian resturant with a sea view. We are taken back to the hotel for our Siesta, we need it.
Many structures are being rebuilt and the reconstruction also lines the very large Cathedral that dominates the old town. Old hotels and many street cafes face the strips of beaches. We go to a bakery so Rossana can pick up the Pan Dolce that Joseph loves, Bolillo. After wandering around old town we go to the most famous cafe' in the area, Parroquia. Their coffee is famous and we sit as they pour it into glasses with a high stream of hot milk that floats on top. It is served with long hard double braided cookies that are to be dunked and sucked on. We have several glasses as we sit and watch the world go by. I am wired. It is not often I drink this much coffee. Parroquia, denotes another form of church. Natives from the mountains show us handiwork of every kind. They are dressed to my imagination like Peruvian woman with full skirts with many slips and bandanas or hats pulling back thick black braides. Their high cheek bones, slightly flat noses and dark skin are intriguing and highlight the faces of the ancients. The linen they show us with embroidery are well done and not made in China, but Papantla, where they grow and harvest the Vanilla orchard and beans. As the day winds down, cars pull in to spots as the well heeled populous visit resturants and cafes. Street musicians get ready to play for the evening crowds, and all manner of peddlers begin to assail us. An interesting exchange on the street takes place. The self appointed parking attendant who also washes his patrons cars with alacrity is having words with a rather pompus musician. He tells him that he may be poor but he has his pride, and he works hard. His patrons know he serves them well and he watches everyones car. No ones car is molested and he helps them negotiate the tiny parking spaces with out mishap. Everyone tips him and he has done his job. Rossana translates the exchange for me, and I am humbled.
We see Jose' Luis and another driver who is meeting Raffas brother-in-law soon, to drive him back to Cordoba. We are droped back at the hotel for an early night for an early 5:45 call, with coffee sent up. I did not sleep a wink, too much caffene. I clip on my new bracelet and earings I bought yesterday in the hotel gift shop, wonderful silver reminders of our trip.
We leave this part of the world unlike our arrival no thunder and lightning heralding us. An uneventful departure and final, if not damp arrival home. I have had a wonderful trip, thank you Rossana, Don Pepe, Betty and all the Torio clan as I have had a most excellent adventure.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
She Huffed and She Puffed...
Post Dolly; a beautiful Sunday, sun shining and insects buzzing. Laundry rolling around the dryer and cats snoozing in various positions and locations.
A week ago we were on the beach at S. Padre Island. It was a perfect beach day with the surf beginning to rise, the scent of suntan lotion, beer and salty breezes gently lifting and snapping the umbrella skirt adding to the surf sound the rhythmic beating of material. All the bikini clad elders and their slender nubile younger counterparts parading up and down the shore line. Young men with mini fros and crazy torn hats or stick straight hair, cigarettes dangling from slender almost girlish fingers furtively checking out the glamours girls with hats and headbands winding through their beautiful dark hair. Joggers with and without sneakers, boogie boarders, ladies in Jewelry, all made up with Dixie cup Margaretta's. Older men sucking up/in impossible bellies as they stroll with obvious eye candy enjoyment. Young and old posturing, swimming, squealing, eating, drinking and enjoying a Sunday on the beach. Barry is checking his e-mails and the Internet storm data trying to relax while his body burns in the exact same places it always burns. Talking storms and weather until Rossana is cross eyed. He gets calls from everyone for updates, yet he is soaking in the nirvana of the beach. It was a perfect day, later on I'd begin to get my storm headache, that would last through Wednesday. Later I would worry that maybe we should have boarded up because as the storm approached I didn't see anything of Barry but a few hours after.
Monday I went on a storm buying spree, no one else was stocking up no one else in a frenzy to remove outside things that could be broken or become projectiles. Jeral the Sio (science officer) at the office was stoked and lowered his Metal shutters battening down with $400. worth of water and emergency food. Battery operated cell phone chargers, and what else. He has been banging the drum all season that we will get the big one this year. Their house is armed and ready, I am sitting with a 20thousand gallon yet to be pool hole in the ground. No word from my builder, no sounds of cement trucks at my yard. I tuck a few things into my emergency go to closet round up the cat food and take two Aleve and clench my teeth.
I hear from Ernesto finally, he is at the inspectors office and won't leave until he is delivered home to my pool with the OK to pour. Ernesto, has two cement trucks of immense volume standing ready. Relief sweeps through me, and I text Barry the news. True to his word the inspector, Ernesto and cement all arrive close to 3 or 4 I've lost track of time as I move more things to ready for the storm. Aunt Pat has been calling about up dates as well as Adam, from Ft. Knox, friends and family.
Tuesday, and sounds from my neighbors boarding up richochet around The Woods, people are paying attention and are begining to stock up more huge trucks of materials arrive from Home Depot to the Lower Rio Grande. Rossana comes for lunch, I baked a frozen veggie pizza as I try to cook and eat my way through our freezers and fridge as not to have too much in case we loose power. We gorge on cake and coffee as well, both of us jittery and nervous she wants me to stay there, but I won't leave the cats. The captain will go down with her ship and not abandon her crew. B said he'd come home about 3 put up boards and then go back he is not here.
I had taken pics as my pool took shape while the men wrestled the spitting snake that spewed forth cement in vast furious quantities. Three men held on to her and guided her as two other formed and smoothed her into shape; sides, steps and floor begin to appeared carved in wet stone. They went on this way till nearly eight at night. Barry came home around nine and he draged our patio stuff off to the garage and tightens down what ever he can but we do not board, and he is now covered in mud and cement. Our fence has a huge gap, he weighs down the foundered section and we pray the rest of it does not become a sail.
Dolly day;
It is beginning to sputter rain. Barry is gone by 2:30 a.m. I packed sleeping bag, pillow, blanket, towels, into his car before the rains really started the night before.
The morning is dark, dismal and the winds are high, water is lashing and spinning around the barrel tile roof. I check the house all is well, watching the news, I look at the radar it's jogged a bit north and west but we are 10 miles from the projected land fall when it does land. She, Dolly, is stalled taking her time. I move the cats food and boxes into the hall way away from windows and outside walls. I fill our garden tub with water and put batteries in the portable TV radio, all the candles are out and ready. 10:20 we loose our electric, my bed is made and the house is clean, the cats are alternately badgering me or sleeping fitfully. Pablo is running around like a vildachia. I down two more Aleve and turn on the radio only to hear my husbands interview about the storm. Another reconnoiter, I eat some cereal sin milk and marvel at the wind and rain, it's 1:30 my radio blaring, I see Pablo scooting into the kitchen hind quarters soaked I am on the phone with my Uncle Mark and I have to investigate. Water on the floor of the dining room, the root is the front doors my gorgeous front hall is awash. I quickly move the furniture and breakables out and begin sweep moping the flooding waters towards the door as I gather rags and towels to stem the tide. I have to hold the doors down with my full body weight as the wind pounds and pummels the front of my house. After so many hurricanes in Tampa and New York I have to tell you none of them sounded like this one. The rain is driving straight at my home unrelenting, trees are bent sideways and debree skips along the empty lots. My deep end is filling up with water and rises along the slanted pool towards the shallows.
I am sweating in the eighty degree hall way as wringing and moping goes on unabated. Callie and Piper are holed up in the den where you can't hear a sound of wind. The hall is a tower with barrel roof tile and the wind sounds like someone pounding bass drums. Every so often Callie girl pokes her head around the corner and lets me know just what she thinks of the whole thing. Pablo brings me his toys and stays as close to me without getting too wet as he can. All told nearly seven full buckets of water. At some point I text B the news and he texts back that as soon as it's safe he'll try to get home. I tell him to just stay put as I'm afraid he won't get into the front door, flooding and high winds make it too dangerous to travel in our little Honda. Barry as good as his word comes in at 7:30 p.m. but the wind is shifting around and the moping up is not as great. I am so afraid that my porcelain tiled floors will buckle. I eat a can of cold soup and we trundle off to bed, I check on the door once during the night as all three cats sleep as close as they can to us in the close muggy heat of the night.
Barry is on at 6 I am pretty sure he just put on a cap brushed his teeth and shaved. I never heard him leave. Heavy soaked masses of towels and rags greet me at my door but a light mop up and all is as good as new. I move the cats stuff back into the laundry room and turn on the radio listing to aftermath coverage. Around 10:30 Rossana arrives and helps me with moving the wet towels to the laundry. She is here to help me disconnect my garage doors so I can pull out my car and charge my phone etc. Flashlight in hand we open the door and she says in amazement Michele the lights are on in your garage! So they are, and we see the lamp on in the kitchen and my led clock flashing its violent gummy green glow. Power blessed power. I wait awhile before turning on one of our two air units and keep it at 78 just in case. I began rescuing stuff out of fridge and freezer and had meatballs in sauce and Hurricane soup bubbling in a flash. The cats are acting as if nothing at all untoward has happened and they don't care that we have power. They eat and nap and lick at appropriate body parts and Pablo dunks his toys in his water bowl like a Raccoon washing it's food. He has tried to dunk everything into the jacuzzi tub but I have rejected this practise vociferously. So he contents himself with the little body of water.
Rossana checks out the Temple and there is massive flooding and ceiling damage. Irwin the president has his shop vac and is cleaning up. Mesmerized I sit and watch the storm through the medias eyes and see the damage to S.Padre, Harlingen, and Los Fresnos, all areas just north of us some less than 10 miles away. So thanks for all those whose energy protected and gave me the strength to keep the house from flooding. I even got to the Hairdressers Friday for a much needed touch up, I am going grey! My hairdresser Mary had her baby on Wednesday at the height of the storm something I was very sure would occur. No, I was reassured she did not name her Dolly.
Barry, Geoff, Rossana and I celebrated the successful work they did as well as B's birthday Saturday night with obscene amounts of sushi, cold Saki at Uchi, and finally compliments of Rossana dessert at Tres Fratelli. My dear friend Sandy Crocker admonishes me when I don't blog, I really didn't think anyone read this, I've been treating it like a think piece. Anyway, yesterday she said blog it! So here it is by popular demand.
A week ago we were on the beach at S. Padre Island. It was a perfect beach day with the surf beginning to rise, the scent of suntan lotion, beer and salty breezes gently lifting and snapping the umbrella skirt adding to the surf sound the rhythmic beating of material. All the bikini clad elders and their slender nubile younger counterparts parading up and down the shore line. Young men with mini fros and crazy torn hats or stick straight hair, cigarettes dangling from slender almost girlish fingers furtively checking out the glamours girls with hats and headbands winding through their beautiful dark hair. Joggers with and without sneakers, boogie boarders, ladies in Jewelry, all made up with Dixie cup Margaretta's. Older men sucking up/in impossible bellies as they stroll with obvious eye candy enjoyment. Young and old posturing, swimming, squealing, eating, drinking and enjoying a Sunday on the beach. Barry is checking his e-mails and the Internet storm data trying to relax while his body burns in the exact same places it always burns. Talking storms and weather until Rossana is cross eyed. He gets calls from everyone for updates, yet he is soaking in the nirvana of the beach. It was a perfect day, later on I'd begin to get my storm headache, that would last through Wednesday. Later I would worry that maybe we should have boarded up because as the storm approached I didn't see anything of Barry but a few hours after.
Monday I went on a storm buying spree, no one else was stocking up no one else in a frenzy to remove outside things that could be broken or become projectiles. Jeral the Sio (science officer) at the office was stoked and lowered his Metal shutters battening down with $400. worth of water and emergency food. Battery operated cell phone chargers, and what else. He has been banging the drum all season that we will get the big one this year. Their house is armed and ready, I am sitting with a 20thousand gallon yet to be pool hole in the ground. No word from my builder, no sounds of cement trucks at my yard. I tuck a few things into my emergency go to closet round up the cat food and take two Aleve and clench my teeth.
I hear from Ernesto finally, he is at the inspectors office and won't leave until he is delivered home to my pool with the OK to pour. Ernesto, has two cement trucks of immense volume standing ready. Relief sweeps through me, and I text Barry the news. True to his word the inspector, Ernesto and cement all arrive close to 3 or 4 I've lost track of time as I move more things to ready for the storm. Aunt Pat has been calling about up dates as well as Adam, from Ft. Knox, friends and family.
Tuesday, and sounds from my neighbors boarding up richochet around The Woods, people are paying attention and are begining to stock up more huge trucks of materials arrive from Home Depot to the Lower Rio Grande. Rossana comes for lunch, I baked a frozen veggie pizza as I try to cook and eat my way through our freezers and fridge as not to have too much in case we loose power. We gorge on cake and coffee as well, both of us jittery and nervous she wants me to stay there, but I won't leave the cats. The captain will go down with her ship and not abandon her crew. B said he'd come home about 3 put up boards and then go back he is not here.
I had taken pics as my pool took shape while the men wrestled the spitting snake that spewed forth cement in vast furious quantities. Three men held on to her and guided her as two other formed and smoothed her into shape; sides, steps and floor begin to appeared carved in wet stone. They went on this way till nearly eight at night. Barry came home around nine and he draged our patio stuff off to the garage and tightens down what ever he can but we do not board, and he is now covered in mud and cement. Our fence has a huge gap, he weighs down the foundered section and we pray the rest of it does not become a sail.
Dolly day;
It is beginning to sputter rain. Barry is gone by 2:30 a.m. I packed sleeping bag, pillow, blanket, towels, into his car before the rains really started the night before.
The morning is dark, dismal and the winds are high, water is lashing and spinning around the barrel tile roof. I check the house all is well, watching the news, I look at the radar it's jogged a bit north and west but we are 10 miles from the projected land fall when it does land. She, Dolly, is stalled taking her time. I move the cats food and boxes into the hall way away from windows and outside walls. I fill our garden tub with water and put batteries in the portable TV radio, all the candles are out and ready. 10:20 we loose our electric, my bed is made and the house is clean, the cats are alternately badgering me or sleeping fitfully. Pablo is running around like a vildachia. I down two more Aleve and turn on the radio only to hear my husbands interview about the storm. Another reconnoiter, I eat some cereal sin milk and marvel at the wind and rain, it's 1:30 my radio blaring, I see Pablo scooting into the kitchen hind quarters soaked I am on the phone with my Uncle Mark and I have to investigate. Water on the floor of the dining room, the root is the front doors my gorgeous front hall is awash. I quickly move the furniture and breakables out and begin sweep moping the flooding waters towards the door as I gather rags and towels to stem the tide. I have to hold the doors down with my full body weight as the wind pounds and pummels the front of my house. After so many hurricanes in Tampa and New York I have to tell you none of them sounded like this one. The rain is driving straight at my home unrelenting, trees are bent sideways and debree skips along the empty lots. My deep end is filling up with water and rises along the slanted pool towards the shallows.
I am sweating in the eighty degree hall way as wringing and moping goes on unabated. Callie and Piper are holed up in the den where you can't hear a sound of wind. The hall is a tower with barrel roof tile and the wind sounds like someone pounding bass drums. Every so often Callie girl pokes her head around the corner and lets me know just what she thinks of the whole thing. Pablo brings me his toys and stays as close to me without getting too wet as he can. All told nearly seven full buckets of water. At some point I text B the news and he texts back that as soon as it's safe he'll try to get home. I tell him to just stay put as I'm afraid he won't get into the front door, flooding and high winds make it too dangerous to travel in our little Honda. Barry as good as his word comes in at 7:30 p.m. but the wind is shifting around and the moping up is not as great. I am so afraid that my porcelain tiled floors will buckle. I eat a can of cold soup and we trundle off to bed, I check on the door once during the night as all three cats sleep as close as they can to us in the close muggy heat of the night.
Barry is on at 6 I am pretty sure he just put on a cap brushed his teeth and shaved. I never heard him leave. Heavy soaked masses of towels and rags greet me at my door but a light mop up and all is as good as new. I move the cats stuff back into the laundry room and turn on the radio listing to aftermath coverage. Around 10:30 Rossana arrives and helps me with moving the wet towels to the laundry. She is here to help me disconnect my garage doors so I can pull out my car and charge my phone etc. Flashlight in hand we open the door and she says in amazement Michele the lights are on in your garage! So they are, and we see the lamp on in the kitchen and my led clock flashing its violent gummy green glow. Power blessed power. I wait awhile before turning on one of our two air units and keep it at 78 just in case. I began rescuing stuff out of fridge and freezer and had meatballs in sauce and Hurricane soup bubbling in a flash. The cats are acting as if nothing at all untoward has happened and they don't care that we have power. They eat and nap and lick at appropriate body parts and Pablo dunks his toys in his water bowl like a Raccoon washing it's food. He has tried to dunk everything into the jacuzzi tub but I have rejected this practise vociferously. So he contents himself with the little body of water.
Rossana checks out the Temple and there is massive flooding and ceiling damage. Irwin the president has his shop vac and is cleaning up. Mesmerized I sit and watch the storm through the medias eyes and see the damage to S.Padre, Harlingen, and Los Fresnos, all areas just north of us some less than 10 miles away. So thanks for all those whose energy protected and gave me the strength to keep the house from flooding. I even got to the Hairdressers Friday for a much needed touch up, I am going grey! My hairdresser Mary had her baby on Wednesday at the height of the storm something I was very sure would occur. No, I was reassured she did not name her Dolly.
Barry, Geoff, Rossana and I celebrated the successful work they did as well as B's birthday Saturday night with obscene amounts of sushi, cold Saki at Uchi, and finally compliments of Rossana dessert at Tres Fratelli. My dear friend Sandy Crocker admonishes me when I don't blog, I really didn't think anyone read this, I've been treating it like a think piece. Anyway, yesterday she said blog it! So here it is by popular demand.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Hello Dolly
I was hoping to post something else, but as the T.S. soon to be Hurricane Dolly approaches I figured I'd just quick blog. The pool was poured yesterday nothing short of a miracle, Ernesto practically dragged the inspector here and then did a marathon pour until nearly eight last night. This means no sink hole in our yard with yards and yards of mud caving in.
Yesterday I did a quick water /food run and the cats are set for their food needs. I've got my batteries NOAA weather radio, and ice. I baked a cake for the crew at Barry's NWS office. It's a quarter to one here and the wind is definitely picking up. Barry is going to try to get home and board up some windows and secure the outside before going back to the trenches.
I have been battling my Hurricane headache since Sunday night, I don't need no stinking radar.
Someone asked me the other day about living in Brownsville, and I have to admit I love it really. It's a very small town not a lot going on seemingly but we've been scratching the surface and finding some nuggets. We went to a great musical event at the funky art gallery in town 409, and were just blown away by the talent! Blues and Blues/Jazz fusion with a hint of the Latin. What a joy to be sitting in a historic brick building with these great Tin soaring ceilings and old wood floors that vibrated with the bass and drummers. Free booze, and an upbeat eclectic crowd. The walls are hung with art of a very Mexican nature skeletal Hells Angels, dancers, one painting featured a Mogen David, another even a skeleton riding a bicycle with two tornadoes in the background. I found that one very apropos of Barry but I am not sure he'd want it hanging in his office at home aka the cave.
Rossana and I went to Mexico Friday for a quick stop at the pharmacy, and we had a great appetizer, mushrooms au gratin and hot Tortillas at the Irish pub with a two fer Margaretta's. Then we wobbled back to Brownsville replete and ready for the weekend. So far I've eaten four Mexican meals in Montamoros, one in the Paris cafe and the other in the Irish pub.
We had planned to "do" the museums here this week, and one exhibit is the tools of torture with an emphases on the Spanish Inquisition. Personally I am not ready for that one Rossana though, has a personal connection to this and I think I may have to be a very good friend and keep her company.
It just started to rain and the sky is darkening and so it begins. It continues to rain lightly intermittently.
Barry's birthday is on Saturday, and depending on this storm, if we are up and running again we are taking him to WINKS a Bar dance hall out in the wilds, that features a mechanical bull and a riding corral for real buckaroos. The music is pure Country Western & Tejano. I am not a big two stepper but will try to deport myself as well as I can.
This Saturday I was on a roll and baked my Blueberry Buckle, and Yogurt cakes. They both turned out to be nearly the best I have made so I am finally making friends with this stove and oven. If I could have my wishes granted though a gas stove and electric oven would be very nice if the kitchen genie is listening or ah reading as the case may be. All things are good at this moment and I have no complaints about my world, now if Dolly could just shpatzier much further south all would truly be well.
Yesterday I did a quick water /food run and the cats are set for their food needs. I've got my batteries NOAA weather radio, and ice. I baked a cake for the crew at Barry's NWS office. It's a quarter to one here and the wind is definitely picking up. Barry is going to try to get home and board up some windows and secure the outside before going back to the trenches.
I have been battling my Hurricane headache since Sunday night, I don't need no stinking radar.
Someone asked me the other day about living in Brownsville, and I have to admit I love it really. It's a very small town not a lot going on seemingly but we've been scratching the surface and finding some nuggets. We went to a great musical event at the funky art gallery in town 409, and were just blown away by the talent! Blues and Blues/Jazz fusion with a hint of the Latin. What a joy to be sitting in a historic brick building with these great Tin soaring ceilings and old wood floors that vibrated with the bass and drummers. Free booze, and an upbeat eclectic crowd. The walls are hung with art of a very Mexican nature skeletal Hells Angels, dancers, one painting featured a Mogen David, another even a skeleton riding a bicycle with two tornadoes in the background. I found that one very apropos of Barry but I am not sure he'd want it hanging in his office at home aka the cave.
Rossana and I went to Mexico Friday for a quick stop at the pharmacy, and we had a great appetizer, mushrooms au gratin and hot Tortillas at the Irish pub with a two fer Margaretta's. Then we wobbled back to Brownsville replete and ready for the weekend. So far I've eaten four Mexican meals in Montamoros, one in the Paris cafe and the other in the Irish pub.
We had planned to "do" the museums here this week, and one exhibit is the tools of torture with an emphases on the Spanish Inquisition. Personally I am not ready for that one Rossana though, has a personal connection to this and I think I may have to be a very good friend and keep her company.
It just started to rain and the sky is darkening and so it begins. It continues to rain lightly intermittently.
Barry's birthday is on Saturday, and depending on this storm, if we are up and running again we are taking him to WINKS a Bar dance hall out in the wilds, that features a mechanical bull and a riding corral for real buckaroos. The music is pure Country Western & Tejano. I am not a big two stepper but will try to deport myself as well as I can.
This Saturday I was on a roll and baked my Blueberry Buckle, and Yogurt cakes. They both turned out to be nearly the best I have made so I am finally making friends with this stove and oven. If I could have my wishes granted though a gas stove and electric oven would be very nice if the kitchen genie is listening or ah reading as the case may be. All things are good at this moment and I have no complaints about my world, now if Dolly could just shpatzier much further south all would truly be well.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Myles Ave. Summers
I've begun dreaming in Spanish, not full sentences but words here and there, some my subconscious must have picked up. Sleeping is not one of the things I do well, from my earliest childhood I've been a terrible sleeper. Now dreaming in Spanglish has added another layer to my fitful wakefulness. During the sleep gaps I think, I also remember. Some of it not such easy stuff.
I was thinking about the menu for my class, which brought me back to summers on Myles Ave. My childhood home. When Anita passed away we sold the house furnished the only thing missing was the hutch, and tea table. Larry and Pam took those, we divided the china, crystal and good stuff. I was in the middle of selling my home in Spring Hill due to another change in financial circumstances, there was a question as to where I was going to live. Needless to say, I did not need to inherit any large pieces of furniture. At the time I just didn't realize I wasn't going to go home again. There was too much chaos in my life, there had been really since dad died.
My other family home, the one where my children grew up was sold during my divorce, a really lovely home with a very peaceful aspect to it. I know my children have a need for a family home, and I have moved so often now I can't supply that continuity for them, and it's a real shame. No gathering place with the familiar scents and ghosts of their childhood. Just let's go visit mom and now mom and Barry in their new home. I grieve for my lost old home and for my children's.
The last two years I find I dream more and more about the house on Myles Ave. Sometimes it looks just as it did, other times I just know I'm there. We had a difficult childhood, there was a lot of tensions, anger and more than a little insanity. Yet I find myself drifting back, pining for so many things lost. Summers were the best at home, my mother was more balanced. If it wasn't the warmth maybe it was the sunlight. There was no air conditioning for years, then my dad installed a unit in the wall of the master bed room and a door that closed off the hallway from the bedrooms. In winter my sister and I froze, our bedroom was over the uninsulated garage and our pipes would freeze, no amount of bleeding them could keep that room warm. We often woke up and saw our breath in the morning. The old windows leaked like a sieve, we placed rolled up towels as draft barriers everywhere. It was never comfortable, too cold too hot. And yet...
Summers we spent every waking moment out doors. As a little girl I would roam the neighborhoods with impunity, gone from morning until I heard my mothers whistle or later the bell. She had an old fashioned iron bell installed on the pillar of our front porch, so unlike the other mothers who screamed the names of their kids to fetch them home, my mom rang the clapper that could be heard for miles. I installed one for my kids , I also taught them the family whistle. We could play Marco Polo in the stores or find one another in a crowd. Still can. We knew where to look if someone left a note where they were going, and when mom pulled up after shopping we all ran out to help her with the groceries. She didn't have to beep we knew the sound of our cars. Most of them were old, a few clinkers even the Comet as it aged had a unique universal joint gone bad sound. We could hear it squeaking as she turned onto our street and stoped what ever misbehavior we were involved with in time to meet her at the door or the driveway. We were always in fear of breaking my mothers rules, there was hell to pay and her rules changed daily without notice. You had to be on your feet as it were, in my house, always ready to detect her moods. It's taught me to be a very shrewed judge of character,as well as a good negotiator. I am also very easy to get along with, although the last twelve years or so I have been learning about boundaries and self preservation.
Back to summer, when Anita worked, summers it was half a day while we were still young. We'd do our chores in the morning and then get the beach stuff together and when the car pulled up there we were towels et all ready to go. Sunken Meadow or Jones beach, parking lot number 9. One summer we belonged to Monaco beach club, where we shared a cabana with the only non Jewish family at the club. Our cabana consisted of a shower at the back a small changing area cum storage after, swinging doors to a covered patio where tables and chairs for eating and playing games were set up. On the strip of sand in front there was a communal chaise lounge gossip arena. Two chaises to a family umbrellas brought by the cabana boy. I could swear ours was named Stu. Now if you had real money you literally owned your cabana and had both sides, it was decorated and was very cozy. Then there were the half shares like ours, and then there were the families and singles who had lockers. We only did the beach club one season.
When they diagnosed my sister Pam with Scoliosis some how my parents scraped the money together and bought an 18x8 foot, eight shaped steel and aluminum above the ground pool. It was thought that being in the water and swimming would help her back. She could be out of her brace as long as she was swimming otherwise it was 23 hours in her iron maiden. That's when my dads BBQ history really took off. Dad loved to be out side, stripped to the waist in some sagging old shorts mowing, gardening, spraying our trees planting vegetables. He was a man of the land, and loved to putter and cook. Harold was a very maternal man which was very good for us as we had a non maternal mother. He even taught us how to sew a button and fix a hem. I need to say here he was also a man with a temper and a tough customer. Dad was however a good guy, with a lot of energy and was wonderful with his hands. He lived in Brooklyn his whole life before joining the Navy in WW11 with a falsified birth date. He was 16 and six foot tall 119 lbs and Uncle Sam looked the other way. It was always a marvel to me that a guy who had lived in apartments his whole life knew how to fix and build and garden. I inherited my dads fix it Gene, I am also very good with my hands and love to garden. His dad Herman was a sportsman fisherman who didn't have time for his son. He was always running off to their camps on Eastern Long Island where they kept boats and cabins or playing poker with his cronies. I think as a neglected son my father decided he was going to be there for us. That wasn't as easy as it sounds he often worked two jobs and his career was very spotty until his very later years. Then there was the Anita factor.
Way back, there were block parties, everyone got together, the streets were closed off and grills and back yard cedar picnic tables were carried on to the street. Lights were strung back and forth and everyone brought stuff. I most remember the one where I got to sleep over Kathy Harbus' house. I didn't get a lot of sleep overs and this was special she was my very best friend. We slept in her brothers room on the trundle bed. They had these cool round fans you could sit on, before they installed air conditioning. I slept over her house twice more later on and one time her mom Harriet made us rock lobster tails.
During the week on very hot days all the women got the kids together in someones back yard with a oscillating sprinkler and they'd drink iced coffee and smoke cigarettes while we ran around the sprinkler or kiddie pool keeping ourselves amused and cool. They'd drink their iced drink in these colored metal tall glasses, that always tasted just a bit funny to me. They kept it cold, and the sound of ice clinking around those metal glasses evokes something in me. Ice cubes from metal ice-cube trays with water from the tap. Our refrigerator had a tiny box with an insulated door where you placed those trays and your frozen foods. When we sold the house four years ago it was still up and running, over fifty years. It was a squat white GE affair with a large slot machine style handle a small interior and the tiny freezer compartment that needed defrosting constantly.
When I think of summer foods I have to acknowledge dairy. In those days before meat become inexpensive and a larger part of our diet, we ate a lot of cheaper "dairy" meals. I am aware that every kid in America was eating peanut butter jelly, or cream cheese and jelly sandwiches, we had three ways sometimes. Sandwiches of Cheese wiz or Velveeta and as a gourmet change, Pimento cheese. My dad was a fan of Spam from the war and you could not get cheaper than that. When we were flush kosher salami. Either the block roll sausage sized Hebrew National or the really good stuff the large fresh deli sliced Chicken salami. This was also beef where it got it's name Chicken I don't know. Dairy in the summer was it. It was just too hot to eat a heavy meal and as mom didn't cook at the best of times, hey. Let's start with Cottage cheese and Sour cream with garden vegetables, I think this is very Jewish, so let me know if you at this in a non-Jewish home. Large curd cottage cheese with dollops of real sour cream to smooth and moisten, add finely chopped or diced scallions, radishes, cucumber, celery and sometimes carrots, salt and pepper. We had Iceberg lettuce with tomatoes and cucumber and Green Goddess dressing my all time favorite. A lot of Tuna fish was eaten at our house also very cheap with onions, pickles diced and mayo. Egg salad was as unadorned as can be mashed with a potato masher mayo salt and pepper. Later on we started seeing salad olives and three been salads, chick peas with pepper and a dash of creamy dressing, very later marinated artichoke hearts in the salad. Gefilte fish was a dairy staple with a slice of buttered bread, and of course cheese. My mother and brother were partial to Munster, I loathed it. Mom would indulge me every so often and buy Swiss. Although not part of the dairy meals later on sliced boiled ham and Turkey showed up on our table. Now egg noodles and cottage cheese was a winter/ summer cross over. We just boiled up a pot of wide egg noodles put it in a bowl with a pound of large curd cottage cheese and a little butter, salt and pepper. When corn was in season boiled corn on the cob with butter showed up with dairy and with BBQ.
Dads BBq's were legendary. When he died there was a giant jar of his BBQ sauce that's base had to be a dozen years old, that he was keeping for the coming years q's. It was hard to toss out his secret babied sauce of wonder. Chicken, ribs,Skirt steak dogs and burgers. More meat than you could shake a stick at. Dad had a gas and a charcoal grill and used both graduating to an electric grill starter after years of dousing his coals with lethal amounts of fire starter jells and noxious liquids. Salad was also there but the meat was King, when we were older we made the side dishes, but my mom bought tubs of everything as more and more foods became prepacked. It was a boon to us kids who thought a side dish was canned peas or asparagus on rare occasions and white bread was a second vegetable. Harold lived for summer floating in the pool working on his small cottage garden, shlepping the hoses around with the sprinklers. He loved the house and tried to keep it up as best he could with the little funds available. We had a barn red house with white trim and a four foot hedge around the front yard for privacy, that hedge got higher as my mother hated more and more of our neighbors. No more block parties no more ladies visiting after chores were done. Mom didn't house keep, so keeping the neighbors at bay helped hide the riot that was going on inside. There were suburban jealousies and rivalries that tore our post war community into the haves and have not. It affected my sister and I deeply in so many ways. Larry was an athletic kid and that made a big difference for him socially.
Summer meant listening to every sound at night as the community settled down, garbage cans clanking as they were deposited on the curb, music wafting from indoors along with the scents from the kitchens, dogs barking faintly in someones home, infants crying and the noises of domesticity clanging through the hot night air. Mr. Solomon screaming at someone about something and our own knockout drag outs must have echoed around from time to time. We all kinda knew each others business who got up when, who went to bed late all kinds of stuff, that we didn't really pay any attention to. Going to bed at ten when the sun finally dropped, laying with just a sheet for cover and hearing the bugs and birds do there nightly chorus. Calamine lotion, pink patches on our skin, heat rash, insect bites, waking up soaking wet with a limp damp feather pillow, SUMMER.
Sometimes we would head over to the boardwalk at Jones Beach. Watch the lightning over the water as we strolled along. Live bands played and couples danced at the band shell, people ate fried clams, hot dogs, and fries. I loved those nights they were the most special for me. I hadn't a clue until much later what was going on under the boardwalk later at night. Those were the bad girl stories we heard to keep us virginal. It only piqued my imagination and made it seem very European, sexy, in a way.
Drive in theatres, what can I say RIP. It is a terrible misjustice that an American pastime that was affordable and a hug piece of the history for the boomer is gone. I am claustrophobic and I hated the movie theatre experience, drive-ins though...Ahh sigh.
Reading books, and the mobile library every other Thursday parked at the head of Myles Ave. Without that I would have been miserable maybe suicidal. Other memories crowed themselves and wait to be sorted during my waking moments at night. Pablo licks my face and kisses me as Callie moves to accommodate my nightly restlessness, Piper settles deeper on his pillow next to my head, and poor Barry subliminally aware of my wakefulness stirs. Summer now is insulated, I stay in the air conditioning mostly, even baking bread once or twice a week. No sounds of my neighbors, I have none just empty lots, no cricket sounds or chirrups no far off sounds of the trains and whistle , just lots of tropical bugs to kill in the house as the air conditioner pours forth spreading its chill and white noise. I am no longer close to the sounds and rhythms of summer. But my recollection of it sharpens every year I get older.
The gourmet meal I have to plan will be a poor thing compared to the memories of summer meals past, no matter that they were plain or meager, and not my fathers BBQ.
I was thinking about the menu for my class, which brought me back to summers on Myles Ave. My childhood home. When Anita passed away we sold the house furnished the only thing missing was the hutch, and tea table. Larry and Pam took those, we divided the china, crystal and good stuff. I was in the middle of selling my home in Spring Hill due to another change in financial circumstances, there was a question as to where I was going to live. Needless to say, I did not need to inherit any large pieces of furniture. At the time I just didn't realize I wasn't going to go home again. There was too much chaos in my life, there had been really since dad died.
My other family home, the one where my children grew up was sold during my divorce, a really lovely home with a very peaceful aspect to it. I know my children have a need for a family home, and I have moved so often now I can't supply that continuity for them, and it's a real shame. No gathering place with the familiar scents and ghosts of their childhood. Just let's go visit mom and now mom and Barry in their new home. I grieve for my lost old home and for my children's.
The last two years I find I dream more and more about the house on Myles Ave. Sometimes it looks just as it did, other times I just know I'm there. We had a difficult childhood, there was a lot of tensions, anger and more than a little insanity. Yet I find myself drifting back, pining for so many things lost. Summers were the best at home, my mother was more balanced. If it wasn't the warmth maybe it was the sunlight. There was no air conditioning for years, then my dad installed a unit in the wall of the master bed room and a door that closed off the hallway from the bedrooms. In winter my sister and I froze, our bedroom was over the uninsulated garage and our pipes would freeze, no amount of bleeding them could keep that room warm. We often woke up and saw our breath in the morning. The old windows leaked like a sieve, we placed rolled up towels as draft barriers everywhere. It was never comfortable, too cold too hot. And yet...
Summers we spent every waking moment out doors. As a little girl I would roam the neighborhoods with impunity, gone from morning until I heard my mothers whistle or later the bell. She had an old fashioned iron bell installed on the pillar of our front porch, so unlike the other mothers who screamed the names of their kids to fetch them home, my mom rang the clapper that could be heard for miles. I installed one for my kids , I also taught them the family whistle. We could play Marco Polo in the stores or find one another in a crowd. Still can. We knew where to look if someone left a note where they were going, and when mom pulled up after shopping we all ran out to help her with the groceries. She didn't have to beep we knew the sound of our cars. Most of them were old, a few clinkers even the Comet as it aged had a unique universal joint gone bad sound. We could hear it squeaking as she turned onto our street and stoped what ever misbehavior we were involved with in time to meet her at the door or the driveway. We were always in fear of breaking my mothers rules, there was hell to pay and her rules changed daily without notice. You had to be on your feet as it were, in my house, always ready to detect her moods. It's taught me to be a very shrewed judge of character,as well as a good negotiator. I am also very easy to get along with, although the last twelve years or so I have been learning about boundaries and self preservation.
Back to summer, when Anita worked, summers it was half a day while we were still young. We'd do our chores in the morning and then get the beach stuff together and when the car pulled up there we were towels et all ready to go. Sunken Meadow or Jones beach, parking lot number 9. One summer we belonged to Monaco beach club, where we shared a cabana with the only non Jewish family at the club. Our cabana consisted of a shower at the back a small changing area cum storage after, swinging doors to a covered patio where tables and chairs for eating and playing games were set up. On the strip of sand in front there was a communal chaise lounge gossip arena. Two chaises to a family umbrellas brought by the cabana boy. I could swear ours was named Stu. Now if you had real money you literally owned your cabana and had both sides, it was decorated and was very cozy. Then there were the half shares like ours, and then there were the families and singles who had lockers. We only did the beach club one season.
When they diagnosed my sister Pam with Scoliosis some how my parents scraped the money together and bought an 18x8 foot, eight shaped steel and aluminum above the ground pool. It was thought that being in the water and swimming would help her back. She could be out of her brace as long as she was swimming otherwise it was 23 hours in her iron maiden. That's when my dads BBQ history really took off. Dad loved to be out side, stripped to the waist in some sagging old shorts mowing, gardening, spraying our trees planting vegetables. He was a man of the land, and loved to putter and cook. Harold was a very maternal man which was very good for us as we had a non maternal mother. He even taught us how to sew a button and fix a hem. I need to say here he was also a man with a temper and a tough customer. Dad was however a good guy, with a lot of energy and was wonderful with his hands. He lived in Brooklyn his whole life before joining the Navy in WW11 with a falsified birth date. He was 16 and six foot tall 119 lbs and Uncle Sam looked the other way. It was always a marvel to me that a guy who had lived in apartments his whole life knew how to fix and build and garden. I inherited my dads fix it Gene, I am also very good with my hands and love to garden. His dad Herman was a sportsman fisherman who didn't have time for his son. He was always running off to their camps on Eastern Long Island where they kept boats and cabins or playing poker with his cronies. I think as a neglected son my father decided he was going to be there for us. That wasn't as easy as it sounds he often worked two jobs and his career was very spotty until his very later years. Then there was the Anita factor.
Way back, there were block parties, everyone got together, the streets were closed off and grills and back yard cedar picnic tables were carried on to the street. Lights were strung back and forth and everyone brought stuff. I most remember the one where I got to sleep over Kathy Harbus' house. I didn't get a lot of sleep overs and this was special she was my very best friend. We slept in her brothers room on the trundle bed. They had these cool round fans you could sit on, before they installed air conditioning. I slept over her house twice more later on and one time her mom Harriet made us rock lobster tails.
During the week on very hot days all the women got the kids together in someones back yard with a oscillating sprinkler and they'd drink iced coffee and smoke cigarettes while we ran around the sprinkler or kiddie pool keeping ourselves amused and cool. They'd drink their iced drink in these colored metal tall glasses, that always tasted just a bit funny to me. They kept it cold, and the sound of ice clinking around those metal glasses evokes something in me. Ice cubes from metal ice-cube trays with water from the tap. Our refrigerator had a tiny box with an insulated door where you placed those trays and your frozen foods. When we sold the house four years ago it was still up and running, over fifty years. It was a squat white GE affair with a large slot machine style handle a small interior and the tiny freezer compartment that needed defrosting constantly.
When I think of summer foods I have to acknowledge dairy. In those days before meat become inexpensive and a larger part of our diet, we ate a lot of cheaper "dairy" meals. I am aware that every kid in America was eating peanut butter jelly, or cream cheese and jelly sandwiches, we had three ways sometimes. Sandwiches of Cheese wiz or Velveeta and as a gourmet change, Pimento cheese. My dad was a fan of Spam from the war and you could not get cheaper than that. When we were flush kosher salami. Either the block roll sausage sized Hebrew National or the really good stuff the large fresh deli sliced Chicken salami. This was also beef where it got it's name Chicken I don't know. Dairy in the summer was it. It was just too hot to eat a heavy meal and as mom didn't cook at the best of times, hey. Let's start with Cottage cheese and Sour cream with garden vegetables, I think this is very Jewish, so let me know if you at this in a non-Jewish home. Large curd cottage cheese with dollops of real sour cream to smooth and moisten, add finely chopped or diced scallions, radishes, cucumber, celery and sometimes carrots, salt and pepper. We had Iceberg lettuce with tomatoes and cucumber and Green Goddess dressing my all time favorite. A lot of Tuna fish was eaten at our house also very cheap with onions, pickles diced and mayo. Egg salad was as unadorned as can be mashed with a potato masher mayo salt and pepper. Later on we started seeing salad olives and three been salads, chick peas with pepper and a dash of creamy dressing, very later marinated artichoke hearts in the salad. Gefilte fish was a dairy staple with a slice of buttered bread, and of course cheese. My mother and brother were partial to Munster, I loathed it. Mom would indulge me every so often and buy Swiss. Although not part of the dairy meals later on sliced boiled ham and Turkey showed up on our table. Now egg noodles and cottage cheese was a winter/ summer cross over. We just boiled up a pot of wide egg noodles put it in a bowl with a pound of large curd cottage cheese and a little butter, salt and pepper. When corn was in season boiled corn on the cob with butter showed up with dairy and with BBQ.
Dads BBq's were legendary. When he died there was a giant jar of his BBQ sauce that's base had to be a dozen years old, that he was keeping for the coming years q's. It was hard to toss out his secret babied sauce of wonder. Chicken, ribs,Skirt steak dogs and burgers. More meat than you could shake a stick at. Dad had a gas and a charcoal grill and used both graduating to an electric grill starter after years of dousing his coals with lethal amounts of fire starter jells and noxious liquids. Salad was also there but the meat was King, when we were older we made the side dishes, but my mom bought tubs of everything as more and more foods became prepacked. It was a boon to us kids who thought a side dish was canned peas or asparagus on rare occasions and white bread was a second vegetable. Harold lived for summer floating in the pool working on his small cottage garden, shlepping the hoses around with the sprinklers. He loved the house and tried to keep it up as best he could with the little funds available. We had a barn red house with white trim and a four foot hedge around the front yard for privacy, that hedge got higher as my mother hated more and more of our neighbors. No more block parties no more ladies visiting after chores were done. Mom didn't house keep, so keeping the neighbors at bay helped hide the riot that was going on inside. There were suburban jealousies and rivalries that tore our post war community into the haves and have not. It affected my sister and I deeply in so many ways. Larry was an athletic kid and that made a big difference for him socially.
Summer meant listening to every sound at night as the community settled down, garbage cans clanking as they were deposited on the curb, music wafting from indoors along with the scents from the kitchens, dogs barking faintly in someones home, infants crying and the noises of domesticity clanging through the hot night air. Mr. Solomon screaming at someone about something and our own knockout drag outs must have echoed around from time to time. We all kinda knew each others business who got up when, who went to bed late all kinds of stuff, that we didn't really pay any attention to. Going to bed at ten when the sun finally dropped, laying with just a sheet for cover and hearing the bugs and birds do there nightly chorus. Calamine lotion, pink patches on our skin, heat rash, insect bites, waking up soaking wet with a limp damp feather pillow, SUMMER.
Sometimes we would head over to the boardwalk at Jones Beach. Watch the lightning over the water as we strolled along. Live bands played and couples danced at the band shell, people ate fried clams, hot dogs, and fries. I loved those nights they were the most special for me. I hadn't a clue until much later what was going on under the boardwalk later at night. Those were the bad girl stories we heard to keep us virginal. It only piqued my imagination and made it seem very European, sexy, in a way.
Drive in theatres, what can I say RIP. It is a terrible misjustice that an American pastime that was affordable and a hug piece of the history for the boomer is gone. I am claustrophobic and I hated the movie theatre experience, drive-ins though...Ahh sigh.
Reading books, and the mobile library every other Thursday parked at the head of Myles Ave. Without that I would have been miserable maybe suicidal. Other memories crowed themselves and wait to be sorted during my waking moments at night. Pablo licks my face and kisses me as Callie moves to accommodate my nightly restlessness, Piper settles deeper on his pillow next to my head, and poor Barry subliminally aware of my wakefulness stirs. Summer now is insulated, I stay in the air conditioning mostly, even baking bread once or twice a week. No sounds of my neighbors, I have none just empty lots, no cricket sounds or chirrups no far off sounds of the trains and whistle , just lots of tropical bugs to kill in the house as the air conditioner pours forth spreading its chill and white noise. I am no longer close to the sounds and rhythms of summer. But my recollection of it sharpens every year I get older.
The gourmet meal I have to plan will be a poor thing compared to the memories of summer meals past, no matter that they were plain or meager, and not my fathers BBQ.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Bits and Pieces
"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but the moments that take our breath away." George Carlin
Barry said last night that we are going to see a lot of people choose to leave now. Before it gets worse or before it gets better? What did George and Tim know that we don't. I haven't done my Tarot lately, maybe it's just as well. Now George was the conscience of our generation. As a keen observer of our culture he always hauled us on the carpet for being too pompous, too over the top. He also gave it to us, when we didn't have passion or lacked spine. George hated mental and emotional laziness. His whit and court jester antics helped to get stinging messages across. Like Tim Russert in his way, they gave us the straight poop. Something else to note, the white supremest sites have quadrupled their hits since Obama became the Democratic nominee. This does not surprise me nor does it bode well.
"There has never been a statue erected to the memory of someone who let well enough alone." Jules Ellinger
I just reread Spencer's The Faerie Queen and Epithalamion. What a poet, what a guy, now that's what I call unfettered Romanticism. The whole divine marriage concept has fallen out of fashion and with it, the idea of bringing heaven and earth together to produce love ever lasting. Shame that, disposable marriage and all it stands for. I rather like the idea of blessings on ones union from above, and the whole romantic/passionate true love. The very dark down side to Spencerian poetry was his politics. Working with and abetting Lord Grey in the English reign of cruelty in Ireland, his English Protestant hubris ultimately helped foment the Irish rebellion of 1598. Thus loosing everything and fleeing with his family back to England. He passed away shortly after, and was buried near Chaucer his poetic ancestor in Westminster Abbey . There is however no monument to the man who was THE influence for the best English poets, yet to come. I would recommend his poems before tackling the like of Keats, Milton, C.S.Lewis or Dante, they all borrowed heavily from him .
There is a personal battle I wage with certain artists, that is, to love the works of men/women who's politics or actions I find abhorrent. It's been tough to love Wagner, Lena Wurtmuller, Evelyn Waugh, and hosts of others who are the epitome of prejudice and staunchly anti-semitic. Is there room for admiring genius, works, someone can produce without embracing them or their ideals. Is there a place in my philosophy where I can safely separate the two.
It looks like I will start a cooking class here on Lovers Lane. I have quite a few
willing participants. As it's summer, I want to work on a menu featuring only summer produce. Here in TX we have some really beautiful fruits and vegetables that come to us from over the border as well as local. We've been enjoying really good Texas honey and just a month ago the Texas Sweet onions. Tomatoes have been off my menu for awhile and I miss them. I love to save all my left over bread and make a bread and tomato salad (Panzanella) with lots of fresh basil, personally I like to add red onions, roasted garlic and lots of curls of Regiano Parmisano.
Cold soups with dashes of sweet wine or Champagne, topped with a good Yogurt. I have in the fridge Cucumber Yogurt soup resplendent with limes and very green rich olive oil. As I can't get my Greek yogurt here I do have a nice Bulgarian one. Sometimes I use sour cream. I am toying with starting my own culture again, but as the air conditioner may keep it from growing it'll have to wait until late fall. Shrimp can be gotten on the Island and they are huge, pink, and from the Gulf. The local cactus bloomed all spring and on our way to the Island yesterday I saw that the fruits look ready for picking cactus "pears" are deep red on the inside, really sweet and juicy. I just need Rossana to aid and abet harvesting.
I will post my class menu when I've worked it out. It's a funny blog today a little of this and a little of that. Well enjoy the summer evening, the sky here is robins egg blue and cloudless for a change. I see a nice evening walk in my future, so saith the sage of the valley...
Barry said last night that we are going to see a lot of people choose to leave now. Before it gets worse or before it gets better? What did George and Tim know that we don't. I haven't done my Tarot lately, maybe it's just as well. Now George was the conscience of our generation. As a keen observer of our culture he always hauled us on the carpet for being too pompous, too over the top. He also gave it to us, when we didn't have passion or lacked spine. George hated mental and emotional laziness. His whit and court jester antics helped to get stinging messages across. Like Tim Russert in his way, they gave us the straight poop. Something else to note, the white supremest sites have quadrupled their hits since Obama became the Democratic nominee. This does not surprise me nor does it bode well.
"There has never been a statue erected to the memory of someone who let well enough alone." Jules Ellinger
I just reread Spencer's The Faerie Queen and Epithalamion. What a poet, what a guy, now that's what I call unfettered Romanticism. The whole divine marriage concept has fallen out of fashion and with it, the idea of bringing heaven and earth together to produce love ever lasting. Shame that, disposable marriage and all it stands for. I rather like the idea of blessings on ones union from above, and the whole romantic/passionate true love. The very dark down side to Spencerian poetry was his politics. Working with and abetting Lord Grey in the English reign of cruelty in Ireland, his English Protestant hubris ultimately helped foment the Irish rebellion of 1598. Thus loosing everything and fleeing with his family back to England. He passed away shortly after, and was buried near Chaucer his poetic ancestor in Westminster Abbey . There is however no monument to the man who was THE influence for the best English poets, yet to come. I would recommend his poems before tackling the like of Keats, Milton, C.S.Lewis or Dante, they all borrowed heavily from him .
There is a personal battle I wage with certain artists, that is, to love the works of men/women who's politics or actions I find abhorrent. It's been tough to love Wagner, Lena Wurtmuller, Evelyn Waugh, and hosts of others who are the epitome of prejudice and staunchly anti-semitic. Is there room for admiring genius, works, someone can produce without embracing them or their ideals. Is there a place in my philosophy where I can safely separate the two.
It looks like I will start a cooking class here on Lovers Lane. I have quite a few
willing participants. As it's summer, I want to work on a menu featuring only summer produce. Here in TX we have some really beautiful fruits and vegetables that come to us from over the border as well as local. We've been enjoying really good Texas honey and just a month ago the Texas Sweet onions. Tomatoes have been off my menu for awhile and I miss them. I love to save all my left over bread and make a bread and tomato salad (Panzanella) with lots of fresh basil, personally I like to add red onions, roasted garlic and lots of curls of Regiano Parmisano.
Cold soups with dashes of sweet wine or Champagne, topped with a good Yogurt. I have in the fridge Cucumber Yogurt soup resplendent with limes and very green rich olive oil. As I can't get my Greek yogurt here I do have a nice Bulgarian one. Sometimes I use sour cream. I am toying with starting my own culture again, but as the air conditioner may keep it from growing it'll have to wait until late fall. Shrimp can be gotten on the Island and they are huge, pink, and from the Gulf. The local cactus bloomed all spring and on our way to the Island yesterday I saw that the fruits look ready for picking cactus "pears" are deep red on the inside, really sweet and juicy. I just need Rossana to aid and abet harvesting.
I will post my class menu when I've worked it out. It's a funny blog today a little of this and a little of that. Well enjoy the summer evening, the sky here is robins egg blue and cloudless for a change. I see a nice evening walk in my future, so saith the sage of the valley...
Monday, June 16, 2008
Brownsville June 2008
I wanted to just take a moment to acknowledge the passing of Tim Russert journalist, writer extraordinaire. As a lover of the written word and an admirer of straight shooting, plain talking, no phony baloney people, I was in love with Tim. Through his interviews and forums he educated me and lifted me up with his stories. His lilting impish smile and warm crinkled eyes belied his intelligence, but couldn't hide the warmth and happiness he carried from within. These few that carry on the non partisan tradition of informing and cutting out the crap in the news are shrinking and the demise of real journalism I fear is immanent. Goodbye Tim and thanks .
Well now Brownsville is indeed very hot and still the wind off the dessert blows. We have made a few trips to S.Padre Island and the beach is everything a beach should be. Soft sand, unending horizon, and depending on the prevailing wind some very nice wave action. We even encountered a beached man of war.
I dropped Barry off at the airport in Harlingen the other day, we had been hosting his family for a few days and they'd left earlier. I was on my way back, when I saw the crazy golf ball water tower in Rancho Viejo. I felt a lift to my spirit and thought gee Brownsville is getting under my skin and it is now really home. I usually call Rossana and say I'm waving at you, as they live on the golf course, near the golf ball, on the street with the clock house, but they are in Steam Boat Springs on vacation.
We took the Goldsmith clan to Matamoros Mexico, spent some shopping time at Garcias and then took the free open window cooled jitney to the market. Our driver a sweet man warned us where to go and not to, passing out little flyer's for shops and restaurants. Since I'd made a few trips with Rossana I was our guide, although I hadn't been to the "market" before. It was very much like a Souk or Medina in Turkey or the Arab sections of Israel. Tiny shops crammed with all kinds of merchandise: leather goods, cotton Ropas, pottery, jewelry, nick knacks, liquor 40 kinds of tequila. Botas or boots are big here, leather, skin both fake and real. Western hats and belts and buckles of every size and description. Crosses of every material and value adorn every inch of wall space. I suspect they are holding up the walls of these buildings by their spiritual auras alone. Paintings of every skill level and price and yes even a few velvet ones along side of sombreros of every size and description, Mexican rugs and corn husk dolls. The riot of color and scents almost over whelm the sense's as all the store owners try to entice you inside with their deals and of course the golden words air conditioning. Muy caliente, muy. The couple who have the first stall are lucky everyone stops there and then the rest are lucky to catch you as you flee the heat and claustrophobic conditions. We went out into the open streets walking along looking very out of place and very much the tourists. Can't hide the Anglo. We had a good time although walking in the heat was very over powering. We made our way back to where the jitney was going to meet us and found the Paris cafe for comimos. A large space with booths and cafeteria style tables, chandeliers and a Greek frieze running along the border of ceiling and wall. The columns were mirrored, the walls covered in tin tile all painted a mud brown. I think the only thing missing was a disco ball. The food was very good, not memorable and we lucked out as there was no memorable "afters."
Our reentry to the states cost 40 cents and a swipe of the passaporta.
A few weeks ago we flew to Atlanta for a family party. Flying from here is expensive and time consuming, as we need to fly to Houston before we head out anywhere else. Our second leg was with Airtran, and they charged me 29.00 for an over sized bag that on the leg back was miraculously half an inch under the limit! I was scammed and make no mistake, very upset. We'd been to Atlanta three years ago for a quick trip also another family mitzvah. I enjoyed it there, although I must confess I just couldn't imagine the scenes from Margret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind. War torn, corpse strewn and burning. Nothing could be further from that, as modern Atlanta's skyline zooms upwards and outwards and the suburbs rub cheeks with the urban centers. The Metro is very nice and we took it to the Aquarium one afternoon. I really enjoyed it although, it's not very large. Another site was Stone MT. Save your money and just take the gondola up, the train ride was a huge nothing on it's own. We however were treated to a rare performance of "Who let the dogs out" by a group of 5&6 year olds on their duck kazoos. A wonderful spontaneous event I caught on my cell phone camera. The view of Atlanta was obscured by smog and a low ceiling that day. Before leaving though we did make a pilgramage to The Varsity, yes Barry and I, the organic health food nuts piged out on chili dogs with the works, onion rings and french fries! Worth every freeking free radical.
On Tuesday we went up to the Gangs mountain home up in the Smokey's. Thanks Barry and Stef it was just beautiful. A really impressive home site and log home. I'd loved to be snowed in for just a day or two with those views and fireplaces!
Pablo continues to amuse and amaze all. His love of life and exuberance are so endearing. He still has not lost his kitten big eyed tilted headed wonder, nor his ability to defy gravity. I'm not sure how big he"ll be but he is definitely still growing. Callie has lightened up a bit with him and only yips at him for show. He does torture her though, hiding and jumping out at her playing Pablo tag. It's amazing how really gentle he is. His reputation spreads among the workmen who come and go. They all know Pablo, and even if not a "cat" lover they love him. My housekeeper Hilda was a great source of amusement for him and he was her shadow at every step. When our sofas were returned from being recovered today, they went to look for him. I had shut the boys up in the den, it has a glass paneled door. And Luis was talking to Pablo and cooing at him through the door with a funny grin. "Ah, Pablo look at you!"
That's Brownsville in June, hard to believe Barry and I are married two years, July 4th it will be our ten year anniversary. No talking food today too hot and I baked bread so the scent over powers my brain cells. Maybe manana.
Well now Brownsville is indeed very hot and still the wind off the dessert blows. We have made a few trips to S.Padre Island and the beach is everything a beach should be. Soft sand, unending horizon, and depending on the prevailing wind some very nice wave action. We even encountered a beached man of war.
I dropped Barry off at the airport in Harlingen the other day, we had been hosting his family for a few days and they'd left earlier. I was on my way back, when I saw the crazy golf ball water tower in Rancho Viejo. I felt a lift to my spirit and thought gee Brownsville is getting under my skin and it is now really home. I usually call Rossana and say I'm waving at you, as they live on the golf course, near the golf ball, on the street with the clock house, but they are in Steam Boat Springs on vacation.
We took the Goldsmith clan to Matamoros Mexico, spent some shopping time at Garcias and then took the free open window cooled jitney to the market. Our driver a sweet man warned us where to go and not to, passing out little flyer's for shops and restaurants. Since I'd made a few trips with Rossana I was our guide, although I hadn't been to the "market" before. It was very much like a Souk or Medina in Turkey or the Arab sections of Israel. Tiny shops crammed with all kinds of merchandise: leather goods, cotton Ropas, pottery, jewelry, nick knacks, liquor 40 kinds of tequila. Botas or boots are big here, leather, skin both fake and real. Western hats and belts and buckles of every size and description. Crosses of every material and value adorn every inch of wall space. I suspect they are holding up the walls of these buildings by their spiritual auras alone. Paintings of every skill level and price and yes even a few velvet ones along side of sombreros of every size and description, Mexican rugs and corn husk dolls. The riot of color and scents almost over whelm the sense's as all the store owners try to entice you inside with their deals and of course the golden words air conditioning. Muy caliente, muy. The couple who have the first stall are lucky everyone stops there and then the rest are lucky to catch you as you flee the heat and claustrophobic conditions. We went out into the open streets walking along looking very out of place and very much the tourists. Can't hide the Anglo. We had a good time although walking in the heat was very over powering. We made our way back to where the jitney was going to meet us and found the Paris cafe for comimos. A large space with booths and cafeteria style tables, chandeliers and a Greek frieze running along the border of ceiling and wall. The columns were mirrored, the walls covered in tin tile all painted a mud brown. I think the only thing missing was a disco ball. The food was very good, not memorable and we lucked out as there was no memorable "afters."
Our reentry to the states cost 40 cents and a swipe of the passaporta.
A few weeks ago we flew to Atlanta for a family party. Flying from here is expensive and time consuming, as we need to fly to Houston before we head out anywhere else. Our second leg was with Airtran, and they charged me 29.00 for an over sized bag that on the leg back was miraculously half an inch under the limit! I was scammed and make no mistake, very upset. We'd been to Atlanta three years ago for a quick trip also another family mitzvah. I enjoyed it there, although I must confess I just couldn't imagine the scenes from Margret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind. War torn, corpse strewn and burning. Nothing could be further from that, as modern Atlanta's skyline zooms upwards and outwards and the suburbs rub cheeks with the urban centers. The Metro is very nice and we took it to the Aquarium one afternoon. I really enjoyed it although, it's not very large. Another site was Stone MT. Save your money and just take the gondola up, the train ride was a huge nothing on it's own. We however were treated to a rare performance of "Who let the dogs out" by a group of 5&6 year olds on their duck kazoos. A wonderful spontaneous event I caught on my cell phone camera. The view of Atlanta was obscured by smog and a low ceiling that day. Before leaving though we did make a pilgramage to The Varsity, yes Barry and I, the organic health food nuts piged out on chili dogs with the works, onion rings and french fries! Worth every freeking free radical.
On Tuesday we went up to the Gangs mountain home up in the Smokey's. Thanks Barry and Stef it was just beautiful. A really impressive home site and log home. I'd loved to be snowed in for just a day or two with those views and fireplaces!
Pablo continues to amuse and amaze all. His love of life and exuberance are so endearing. He still has not lost his kitten big eyed tilted headed wonder, nor his ability to defy gravity. I'm not sure how big he"ll be but he is definitely still growing. Callie has lightened up a bit with him and only yips at him for show. He does torture her though, hiding and jumping out at her playing Pablo tag. It's amazing how really gentle he is. His reputation spreads among the workmen who come and go. They all know Pablo, and even if not a "cat" lover they love him. My housekeeper Hilda was a great source of amusement for him and he was her shadow at every step. When our sofas were returned from being recovered today, they went to look for him. I had shut the boys up in the den, it has a glass paneled door. And Luis was talking to Pablo and cooing at him through the door with a funny grin. "Ah, Pablo look at you!"
That's Brownsville in June, hard to believe Barry and I are married two years, July 4th it will be our ten year anniversary. No talking food today too hot and I baked bread so the scent over powers my brain cells. Maybe manana.
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