History of Valentines Past

    When I was around eight I had a music teacher from Romania. His name was Ion Cubicec and until today I never wondered why a south eastern european ended up in El Salvador teaching third grade private school brats, first because of the distance and secondly because most of the time he did not even seem to like kids too much. I try to see his face but  I don't have a clear recollection of it anymore. I remember that at what I am guessing was seventy, his short, stocky frame was always clad in a suit and dressy shoes, every bit the old world gentleman, his grumpy voice calling us microbios .I also  remember thinking that along with Mrs Peters the librarian he was the oldest person I knew, and  that on special occasions instead of class we would play Calcetin or "Sock". The game was an invention of his, some sort of dodgeball with a pair of socks stuffed into each other. I loved that game so much it was the first reason I ever had to love Valentine's day, the meaning of which was explained to us by Mr. Cubicec. He told us about the letters written in blood from jail and all of that. Then we would play Sock for the rest of the hour.Besides playing sock, other Valentine bonuses were getting candy and cards from everyone in my class, and I especially remember being fond of a Care Bear one I got one year signed by a classmate with an "i" in her name,where she had replaced the dot on the "i" with a heart. I soon started signing my name with a heart stemming out of the "z" at the end of my name.

  Three years passed, and while Ion Cubicec tormented a new crop of third graders I was starting middle school, being tormented by the beginning of pre teenage years. I liked an older boy, and when a couple of friends told me I had a secret admirer I hoped and prayed it was him. Then Valentine's day came and instead of cards we sent each other candy grams for a colon, chocolate grams for two colones, and rose grams for three colones. That year I got around sixty rose grams, all saying "please say yes". During recess the identity of my admirer was revealed. It was not who I had hoped, and angrily I stepped on his roses and threw away his grams in the trash can in the hall. I gave him the coup de grace by shouting "no!" to his face.I would punch me in the face now If I knew me then.

   I am in New York City walking through cobblestone streets of  the Meatpacking District towards Sofia's apartment on Horatio street. I am smiling thinking of all the people that I saw on the subway platform with roses or balloons, the kids I saw in front of the NYU campus, in their carefully though out "I don't care outfits" , of the girl who stood on tiptoe to kiss her college beau who she probably thinks she will marry someday , on the lips. Oh, to be young and in love!

     I look through every restaurant window and see many tables of two, holding hands, shelling out big bucks to eat at Recette or similar on this special day. How nice, I think to myself, than in a city full of  people who claim to be over everything, bored  of the ordinary, always looking for the next small or big  enthusiasm, or the next small or big disappointment, there is still a day when you drop pretenses of being too cool for everything and celebrate love. I pass a couple getting in their car, he helps her put her flowers in the backseat. Then I pass an Asian couple, more around my age. She has her armed linked through his and is smiling up at him. I think of Matt. He is fishing in West Palm Beach with his father, having left that same afternoon. I am having Valentine's dinner with Sofia and Lola, the frenchie. I am not bothered that he's not there, we had breakfast and a little gift exchange in the morning and then he dropped me off at the train station. Years ago I would have been fuming, I would have analyzed the meaning of this absence to exhaustion and then  used my dooming conclusions as verbal ammo in the next fight.I would have happily  procured the scenario for that fight. Not now. There is no drama, no making storms in glasses of water, there is no need to guard an imaginary territory,  there are no assumptions of attacks, there is no emotional terrorism. There is nothing to prove. I live one happy day after another, and another.  " Oh young Boomer, " I say  to the me in my twenties," there is only one thing better than being young and in love.... and that is being in love and older."

     We order Bareburgers, french fries and milkshakes. I go to bed stuffed, happy and with Lola snoring next to me in my bed.

A Day at Laundroland

    Let me tell you something about Greenwich, Connecticut. As one of the US towns with the most concentration of wealth, mansions by the water, diamonds the size of quail eggs and other extravagances are everyday life for most people. This is not my case. Somewhere in this town there is a game room for a toddler the size of my apartment, an apartment that is comfortable enough for two people and their worldly belongings, except a clothes washer/dryer.

    Deemed guetto by my very white husband, before I arrived, he never went to the laundromat; he had his personal one at his parents' house until the amount of clothes that magically piled up due to my constant change of outfits was too much for the non industrial equipment. I never really knew how he worked the laundry system, but I'd see him load up the car with the bins and then the clothes came back clean, impeccably folded, as if by a magic hamper elf.

     A week ago Matt was away on a business trip and I was left to do the house chores alone.He does most of the cooking, so I stuck to cereal and salads, he does most of the cleaning so I just cleaned a little with my beloved swiffler,and was left to deal with grocery shopping and laundry, which he helps with and takes care of respectively. It then dawned on me that I am the household member with the day off, EVERY DAY, and yet I do very little, or nothing. Driven into action by my GG's(Guilty Garys) I resolutely scribbled down a grocery list and packed a bag with the dirty clothes. I would be damned if my husband couldn't come home to a full fridge and clean underwear.

    I drove slowly down the Post Road, looking for a place to go wash the dirty duds.Then I spotted it, Laundroland. I parked the car and dragged my bags in. It was a bit sad. Stark walls, no music, just the sound of the clothes spinning in the nineteen seventies machines, the dryers big steel boxes that you could fit my three nephews in. A sign claims it is open 24/7 but I don't see anyone who works there.Still, I had a mission, and the sneaky satisfaction the anticipation of surprising Matt with the fact that I had done my housewife duty gave me. Never mind I was only doing what I was SUPPOSED to do in the first place.I felt like I was doing him a favor, yo. Now, this being unfamiliar territory  I took a minute to regroup my thoughts, count the money I took from the piggy and mentally go through the process. First get change from the quarter machine, then pick a machine, then the detergent, shit I have no detergent..First, then , buy detergent ...After I got detergent, had picked a machine and was ready to start I relized I didnt know how they worked. I didnt know where to stick the coins, how to make it start, or if I was supposed to put in the detergent on the clothes first. I was going to have to do the unthinkable. I was going to have to ask for help. Now, this made me nervous for various reasons :a) they all looked like immigrants (and not spanish speaking ones)who did not want to be bothered. Its bad enough to be stuck doing laundry on a nice day, let alone have some newbie looking for a laundry mentor pester you. b) Asking for help would mean my presence would be acknowledged, and  therefore  provide witnesses that at thirty three years old,with a law degree, I was washing my husbands underwear at eleven a.m. on a weekday, and c) I had already gotten curious glances due to my choice of clothes and could bet they thought it was funny that leather clad, diamond sporting,blown out hair girl didnt know how to do shit- that I was a cliche....I turned my engagement ring on my finger until the diamond faced my palm, put my hair up in a ponytail and approached a black girl that looked semi sympathetic. You'd think we we playing three words or less, but I got the hang of it and started doing my thing. When the time to dry came I was embarrassed to ask for help again so I stared at the machine hoping there were instructions on a sticker somewhere,pulling handles, sticking in quarters , pushing the button to get it going. Again. And again. Nothing. (sigh). It was then that a kind english speaking soul (unemployed) told me you had to push it down for five seconds to get it going. In return for the rare gesture of kindness I let him read my New York Post. He suddenly became Chatty Cathy, going on about how he liked The Post because it was more risque, but he didn't get it at home. I said I hoped he would not be disappointed, they really had nothing there today except a little Kardashian article on how they had the Midas touch, but in reverse. Ears perked up, even immigrants know who the Kardashian gypsies are. Suddenly we were all in the conversation, heads shaking side to side to show disapproval of their antics,even the Russian girl who said "bye bye" on her way IN tried to put in her two cents.I learned that nothing bonds people quicker than common hatred. From that, while we waited for our laundry to dry,we went into each others stories of unemployment, marriages,failed careers, hopes for careers, and origins, at which point I found out that the black girl was from Accra, Ghana, and we had lived there at the same time once. The sound of my cargo pants's belt clacking as they went round and round stopped. Russia was gone, Ghana was folding. Unemployed was going on about high school specials (similar to Pollo Campero). I folded my stuff and left. Driving to my second stop, the grocery store, I thought Matt was wrong, the laundromat isn't guetto. It is the real reality show.

Life is Short and I am Not Tall

    On December twenty second of this recently past year a Greenwich, CT bound train left Grand Central Station in New York City at approximately 6 pm. On this train was a little French Bulldog that goes by the name "Lola". She came to my house to be looked after while her owner was away, my duty in a nutshell and  in Sofia's words, " just make sure she doesn't die". I could do that. 

    Lola is a mix between gremlin and Barbie, she came with instructions (gremlin) and  a bag full of gadgets and clothes containing everything from coats and booties to a purple heart that dispenses her  poop bags. (Barbie). As I  read the instruction manual I  realized that Lola's life, with the West Village as scenario, is summed up in a couple of pages: a paragraph on eating, a paragraph on sleeping, a paragraph on her walking schedule, another page with emergency contacts. Structured, predictable, simple.That is Lola's life. She walks, eats, snoozes.Then she goes back in the crate in the corner of her NYC studio apartment. Repeat.

    Now, French Bulldogs are more known for their mellow, smoochy, warm and loving personalities than for their brains, which is why I was surprised to see Lola deciding to milk her days in suburbia the minute her mother left. It's like instantly she knew there was more out here, she broke her cycle and she took great joy in exploring, in looking for first time experiences to revel in,  instead of shying away from them. Lola discovered car rides, endless grass, friends, ponds, rocks, and fire; she worked at a retail store for a day (proving to be a great sales strategy) and  got smuggled into a hospital disguised as a baby. Her biggest  discovery of all though, was a great love of chasing leaves in the wind. I am not sure why she loves this futile enterprise so, but while walking her one day she went from her little mini sashaying to greyhound speed tugging at the leash, making it hard for me to keep up. It was funny to watch her, so intent, so focused, going after it with all the energy and agility a small, stumpy dog can muster... all for nothing as the leaves carried by the wind  were always faster than she was. As a reasonable homo sapiens I was well aware of her shortcomings and felt a little bad for her, but she wasn't and she didn't. She was relentless in her seemingly empty pursuit, going after one, then another, enthralled. How nice, I thought, to not focus on the shortcomings, to go after what one wants independently of if we get it or not, how  liberating to chase just to feel the happiness derived from the pursuit. Even if it is a silly pursuit, even if we look funny chasing after it. Turns out Lolalosophy can be applied to homo sapiens after all. If this terribly cute but stumpy dog can chase leaves in the wind with such zest, if  such happiness can be derived by chasing, focusing, wanting and doing something about it regardless of the results, so can we. So in this new year, I pledge to chase, to get after it and to enjoy the ride. In this 2012 lets take another shot at getting it right, we have 365 days to  go big or go home. Or to the crate, in her case.

Best wishes to you all. Get after it!!!!

Boomer and Lola

Our Wars

  In the order of life a mother should not bury her children. In less than one year my aunt has lived to see two of her sons killed in brutal ways. In a span of five years , a grandson, and a nephew also. She is not a number. Her name is Mercedes ,to me she is my Tia Meches. She is a blonde petite waiflike woman in her late eighties. She has lots of freckles and puts  those plastic fruit shaped things filled with flavored sugar on her Christmas tree as ornaments. As a kid she would let me come over to her elegant old school looking house in la  Flor Blanca and eat them without telling my mom. She loves music..she is a woman who's heart has been broken too many times by wars, her own and our country's. El Salvador is so many things; A small paradise, a little corner of the world full of magical places,  fertile earth for happy people, gente cachimbona.  Sadly it also  has always been a scenario for wars, for violence. From the famous "soccer war", to our very uncivil civil war, to the gang ridden vulnerable place it has become. If I reason it out in my head I think the sickness of our society can be  traced back all the way back to when the civil war ended. The lack of values, the loss of principles, the demoralization in general that comes after a war  could be where the gestation of our present situation started.  To that I would add a string of governments who were unable to truly serve their people, unable to provide employment for those old enough to work and education for those young enough to make a difference down the road. Add the massive deportation of criminals, the disappearance of a sense of community, of the thread that holds society together  and El Salvador is suddenly the saddest paradise there ever was.  It used to be that some of us had the luxury of living in a bubble, that luxury can no longer be afforded. Lurking in any and every corner is someone willing to cheat you out of your life for a cell phone, a watch, some cash. Dehumanized. That is what criminals are, and  sadly it is what we are slowly becoming. The repeated practice of reading about murders every day has led us to register less and less shock as the days go by. As bad news invades our tv sets, our computer screens and our newspapers we are losing the ability to be appalled, to be enraged, to DEMAND the security that we need. Some say we should take it into our own hands, the old "eye for an eye". I don't necessarily think the world would go blind like Gandhi did, but I do think that it would force good people to stain their hands with another human being's blood. And then they wouldn't be good anymore. Violence generates violence, it is a law as true as the law of gravity. It is textbook cause and effect. So how do we fight our wars?  we fight them by bothering to meet our neighbors, by rebuilding the threads of community and solidarity that make a society strong. We fight them by not giving up, by doing anything in our power to make the lives of those around us safer, nicer, happier, easier. We fight by getting involved in civil organizations, be it volunteering to teach impoverished families a trade, or their children how to read. We fight with the one weapon that can touch a human heart, even a hardened one,  and that is kindness.  

I want to give my best thanks to all of you who through emails, texts, facebook messeges  and phone calls expressed your sadness for my family's loss. There is one more thing you can do, tomorrow there is a demonstration against all this violence at Salvador del Mundo, at 10:00 a.m.  If you or your family have been victims of crime, go. If you know someone who was, go. If you  have kids that you wish a better life for, go. The power of masses has been seen all over the world this year, become involved. 

Thank you again from the bottom of my heart.

Beatriz

The sucker in seersucker

I am a sucker. In a town of seersuckers I  have just put the sucker on that word. But how can one possibly resist????????I am only human. I love sales. Sadly, I also have what my husband calls caviar taste on a fish stick budget. So true to form, I have been admiring the Stella McCartney Falabella bag from afar. I pop in to visit her at Saks here and there, I google it just to see the images. I put it over my shoulder, walk to the mirror and admire it. Then an image of "Confessions of a Shopaholic" comes to mind. Becky is admiring the green scarf and she imagines herself walking down the street, saying to herself " people will refer to me as the girl in the green scarf"... I want to be referred to as the girl with the Falabella bag, even if that Kardashian skank owns it. Not even THAT can ruin it for me.  I look at the price tag, sigh and put it back. I am not a shallow ditz with a credit card. I don't believe I am entitled to things just because.I have lived in Africa, I know how many families would eat with that amount. And still, I give it one last longing glance and leave the store. I keep checking it out online. I look for it on ebay in the hopes that a sick shopaholic needs to get rid of hers to buy lunch. No luck. I show it to my husband, hinting Christmas is around the corner. He barely looks at it. No sale. Next day I have a friend in town, she is here to shop. There is a sale at Saks. I am so convinced I am not there to shop but to play tour guide, so much that I leave my credit card at home and only carry my husband's. Who should I run into , but the the gorgeous Falabella  quilted bucket bag. Forty percent off. Take another 10% away if you get the Saks card. I go through the drill, picking it up, throwing it over my shoulder, walking to the mirror, looking at the price tag. This time I don't put it down. The minute it goes back on the shelf another pair of greedy hands will pick it up. I hold it close. I do mental math. It is doable. I call my husband. He says to do what I need to do. It sounds like when I pestered my mother for permission to go out, and she snapped "do whatever you want". I decide to ignore the tone and go merely with the words. Credit card in hand I am informed that since I don't have a  social security number I cannot apply for the Saks card. Too late. I was never good at math anyway. And by the way, I rock it better than Rihanna.

I love you Matt.
B

Girl Gadgets

 Cool gadgets aren't only for boys. I get excited when I find something that's cool, quirky and serves its purpose in not only a functional but fun way. I have always had certain reserves when it comes to the use of cell phones and the radiation they give off when you put it up to your ear. Near your brain.  When it comes to health there is  already  enough bad stuff that can happen to us  that is beyond our control, so my advice is  do whatever is within your reach  to take care of yourself. I found a  pretty cool gadget to fend off brain cancer, a retro handset from www.yubz.com.  There are lots of  them to choose from, starting at US $39.96

Warning: you might get laughed at when breaking it out of your purse, but whoever doesn't get brain cancer laughs last, and best.

Happy yapping!

B

The Beauty Quest

One thing about being a housewife..you can't look like crap. Everyone knows you have all the time in the world so no one will be able to understand why you haven't combed your hair, or fixed those chipped nails. I have managed to find ways to look decent without breaking the piggy or becoming Narcissus. In my quest for effortless beauty I have found that a good haircut is key. There is some major talent around here, problem is they charge anywhere from US$100 to $750. Ay Cisco, how I miss thee. Anyway, the solution? go on wwww.salonapprentice.com where licensed cosmetologists pursuing higher training look for hair models every day. I went on it and picked Kevin Baker of the Mizu Salon on 505 Park Avenue. I could not be happier.I had over $200 worth of services at a majorly discounted price. Hurry and make your appointments,the bargains of today are the Fekkais of tomorrow.



<3