More from the vault

June 30, 2005 at 3:54 pm | In familia, nostalgia, poetry, why i need therapy | 2 Comments

1999
My Crazy Grandma and Her Magical Mystical Telephone

When my grandma moved in, we tried call waiting. You just try explaining call waiting to a 74 year old woman.

When it beeps, you have to push this button.
“Which button?”
This button. It means someone else is calling you.
“Who’s calling me?”
You have to push the button to find out.
“This button? There’s no one there!”
You have to wait until it beeps.
“The phone doesn’t ring anymore?”
Yes, it rings, but it also beeps.
“Which button again?”

So we gave her a private line instead. This went well at first. But then she began calling my phone. She called me all the time. Not just once or twice a day, but all the time. When I was on the toilet, when I was necking with my boyfriend, when I was asleep, she would call. Sometimes she asked for my uncle, or a cousin. Sometimes she just said, “Oh, you’re home,” and hung up.
I think she noticed how tiresome this was getting for me, because she stopped calling. At least I thought she had stopped calling. But she hadn’t.

My grandma had started prank calling me.

It began like this: The phone would ring, I’d pick up, and all I’d hear were blaring Spanish talk shows in the background. It was a great mystery…until star 69. The next time that rapscallion Spanish-talkshow-watching-prank-caller struck, I phoned right back only to hear my grandmother’s soft wrinkly voice answering ever-so-innocently, “Hello?”

So I confronted her right then and there.

Did you just call me?
“No.”
Are you sure?
“I’m sure.”
Because I just did a star 69.
“A what?”
A star 69. It means that I can call back the last person who called me.
“I can do that too.”
But I don’t have to know who it is.
“Why would you want to call someone you didn’t know?”
Because some people call and hang up. Why did you call and hang up?
“I didn’t call.”
Are you sure?
“Yes. I’m sure. Are you hungry?”
Well, you must have a magic telephone, because star 69 doesn’t lie!
“There’s rice in the kitchen.”

So I simply had to resign myself to the idea that my grandma had free reign when it came to prank calls. In time I accepted this bothersome truth. I even stopped calling back, because it cost like fifty cents. I guess when you’re old and you have a magic telephone, you’re allowed to do whatever the hell you want.

Fondillona, Culona!

January 3, 2005 at 11:50 pm | In Family & Friends, familia, nostalgia, storytelling | 3 Comments

My grandmother calls me these things. She’s called me these things most of my life. Or, at least since I grew my big ass. “Rear End,” is what fondillo (close to fondo, meaning bottom) and culo mean. A Fondillona or Culona is a woman with a great one. Not fantastic, but…great. Like the wall in China. It’s like calling someone Assy. You wouldn’t do it in English, it just sounds rude. But leave it to my people to come up with a special term for someone blessed this way. And a festival. My mother insists that it’s not an insult, but a compliment. I don’t know how much I believe that, but for my own peace of mind, I’ll buy it.

So, my grandmother, when she walked on her own, would always manage to pop out from behind an artificial plant just as I was passing by, and lay a great slap on my ass while gleefully exclaiming, “Fondillona!!” It never stopped startling me. Of course, all the while she was pointing out the abundance of said ass, she would encourage me to eat things like Flan, Arroz con Leche, and her perennial favorite, Sara Lee Poundcake. Don’t ask me why Poundcake. All I know is that, as long as I can remember, in Grandma’s fridge there was always Kern’s nectar, Gelatina, and a fresh Poundcake. And she served that Poundcake sliced two inches thick, drizzled with Sweetened Condensed Milk.

Then, then she would call me Fondillona.

When she started using her walker, she would stand in the doorway of the kitchen looking for things in the little basket attached to it (she kept her gloves, glasses, “Grandma” mug, checkbook, wallet, and remote control in there). If I wanted to come in, she’d stand sideways and wait for me to scoot behind her. I never knew when it was coming, but some days after I’d made it past her, she would miraculously balance her weight on one handle of the walker, reach over with her free hand, and (sometimes stretching as far as three feet to do so) swat my bum in the way only she could. That little old lady had a mean arm; it hurt! She’d say “Fondillona,” and then cackle. The emphasis on the third syllable made it sound like a warning.

Now she spends most of her free time in the overstuffed blue easy chair before the living room television watching Spanish soap operas and variety shows starring women who wear silver-sequined bustiers. She still keeps her gloves, glasses, “Grandma” mug, and remote control in the basket of her walker. The checkbook and wallet are gone. My mother had to remove them because they were continually misplaced or doled from without reason.

In spite of all this she still manages, almost every time I visit home, to lovingly pat my booty, and in her voice that is sometimes nearly a whisper, remind me that I am Fondillona.

Studio Christmas

December 15, 2004 at 11:21 pm | In Family & Friends, Here & There, familia, nostalgia, storytelling, venice | 3 Comments

thesmiths.jpg

Christmas is very important to me. It’s the holiday my mom goes all out for. It means happiness. It means peace. It means my family all coming over at once, and fighting over the avocado in our salads, or the last roll, or the best and most crispy yucca bits. It’s the smell of the lechon, the Christmas pig, that we pick up from the Cuban bakery. With his head, and his fuzzy snout, and everything!

I worry that, as we get older, Christmas won’t be the same. My cousins and I, we don’t number as many as my mother and her siblings. We don’t have the same history of growing up, the same stories to tell. They had one world. Here, we each have our own lives. I hope that we can do it justice when our parents are not here to tell off color jokes and launch presents across the room while shouting at the recipient, “Heads up; that’s from Tio!”

So I decorated my studio for Christmas. I have a little fiber optic tree, a couple of strings of LED lights, and some old fashioned bubble lights. And a fiber optic gazebo, which you see above. My mom gave me that! It came with The Smith’s. Of course, I didn’t forget to hang my stocking over the fire place. It’s very festive.

I’ve had the little tree for a few years. I bought it before Adam and I lived together, when he was on his own in a Christmas-cheer-free apartment. Although I lived at home, I spent a lot of time in his place, and not having Christmas around made me sad. So I forced him to go to Rite-Aid with me after I saw a circular advertising the tree on special, for thirty dollars. I must say he wasn’t particularly enthused about the idea. But he went, and we bought it, and it sat in its little fiber optic yuletide glow on his bar anyway, just to make me happy.

It came out one year we lived together. The year that P.B. the Mouse, god rest his soul, came into my life.

Begin P.B. Tangent
For those who don’t know the story and don’t care to read the whole thing, P.B. was a mouse who got into some trouble with me. At first, I wanted to rid my home of him without injuring the little guy. Then he pissed me off. Then he got his leg caught in a trap, and stuck with it hanging outside his mousehole. Then Adam freed him. Knowing he was injured (little drops of mouse blood!) I crushed some aspirin and put it in a soda cap with water to alleviate his pain. I also put out a snack for him. Then he died, and stank up my fucking house. Now I hate and fear mice. And, occasionally, I think I still smell him in my mind.
End P.B. Tangent

The rest of the time, the tree was in storage, forgotten in the laundry room. By last Christmas, I’d already moved back to my mom’s place while I was looking for a new job. Today I picked up The Christmas Box from Adam. Unpacking that box was pretty sad, actually. And the tree is pretty sad to look at, because I think of the first year we had it, and how happy we were. Maybe next year it will make me smile.

As you can see, for a lot of reasons, this time of year is very meaningful for me. My emotions are all over the place. Every year, more Christmas past. Every year, further from home, further from being a little girl putting together her Barbie Dream House with mom in the living room.

Man! I need some egg nog. Make it a double.

Sanksgibbeeng

November 24, 2004 at 5:36 pm | In familia, nostalgia | 4 Comments

So wow, it�s been like a week since I wrote! I�ve been very busy preparing for the first vacation I�ve had in *gasp* two years!! Crazy, I know. I�m going to San Francisco, starting tomorrow, until Monday. No, I don�t have family there. My family is here. Yes, I�m leaving, away from my family, on Thanksgiving. And so are half of my relatives. The big one for us is Christmas. Granted, my family has taken to putting on an awesome dinner, complete with a game of cards after we have stuffed ourselves to oblivion. However, it remains something of an adopted holiday for my Cuban clan. For a few reasons, I�m sure, not the least of which it�s kind of a sad thing to celebrate, if you think about it.

I remember the first Thanksgiving my cousin, Janet, had with us when she came here (already a grown woman) from Cuba. We sat around the table, which was piled high with ham, sweet potatoes, corn on the cob, pumpkin pie�all the delicious, traditional American fare, for this traditional American holiday. We have my Uncle, Al Yoakum, to thank for that! His marrying my mother�s twin, Teresa (aka Tipsy) ensured that we would have an inside track on the strange rituals carried out by los Americanos for life. Over this feast that would probably make most Cubans cry tears of joy to merely gaze upon, Janet was reunited and bonded with a family comprised of her estranged father, his current wife, her aunts, and their children�who she had never met. This is not unusual for people like us. Every so often, a new face will emerge.

Este es tu primo, Pepito!

Meet this total stranger, who is family, and who we treat like family though he is a stranger. It�s a totally inexplicable feeling, to openly embrace someone upon first meeting them. Kind of a relief, actually. Maybe it�s part of the reason I trust people so soon, and feel like I can be totally open with someone who is a stranger.

So Janet is getting her introductory working over by everyone, of course. Particularly from her father, and from Al, who can be merciless in his teasing. Don�t speak English? That ain�t gonna stop him! She was taking it well, happily putting forkfuls of mashed potatoes into her mouth, and being simultaneously annoyed and amused by the ribbing. She then made the mistake of asking what the meaning of Thanksgiving was.

I should explain that Janet was born at 7 months; her twin aunts always cite this as the reason for her� occasionally slow uptake.

She thought the we were celebrating Independence Day, and started to recite the pledge of allegiance. Tipsy explained, �That�s the Fourth of July.�

�Thanksgiving is different. When the colonists came here, there were already people living on the land. They were Indians. We took the land from them, so we could live on it. Thanksgiving was a big celebration of making it through one year here.�

�They stole it?�

�Yes, mijita.�

�From the Indians?�

�Yes, mijita.�

�Ay, que triste.�

�And then they killed them.�

�Ay, no!�

�Yes, they gave them blankets full of disease.�

My Uncle Al nodded his consent on behalf of the colonists. They were clearly enjoying Janet�s nearly theatrical, typically Cuban dismay.

�Ay, NO! Tia! Don�t say that! No digas eso!�

�But they did, it�s the truth. And then they forced them to live in little tiny reservations, and run casinos. And now, some people even want to take the casinos away!�

Janet pushed her plate away, seemingly unappetized. �That�s so sad! How could they do that?�

They tired of toying with her eventually. But sporadically, throughout the evening, she might pipe up, �And they really stole it?�

Yes, Janet.

It�s not your fault, honey, you were born at 7 months.

That was years ago. When I called my mom to compare notes on that year, as I wrote this entry, she told me about a conversation Tipsy had with Janet yesterday.

Janet said that this year, Thanksgiving is on Saturday. My aunt explained that it would be on Thursday, that it was always on Thursday.

�Are you sure?�

�Yes, I�m sure.�

�Then howcome we get Friday off?�

I love having new family!

Kitchen Stone

August 30, 2004 at 7:00 pm | In familia, nostalgia | 4 Comments

I was discussing objects with “history” with someone today, thinking how fond I am of them. My family has very few since almost everything before my parents came here, on both sides, had to be left behind. But there are a couple.

One of my favorites is my grandpa’s manual typewriter. He wrote poetry and stories with it, and so did my uncle. I used it for a little while. My mom has it at the house somewhere. The other real object with history I know about is this stone my grandmother brought from Cuba with her. It is about the size of a fist, heavy, smooth, and black. She used it for tenderizing beef, crushing ice when I got hurt, flattening tostones, finely grinding crackers for the breading of bistec empanizado. Just a good, old, all-purpose rock. I remember asking my grandmother about it once, and she did tell me that it is something difficult to do, to find a good stone like that, that fits in your hand perfectly, with the bottom flat for pounding. She seemed quite proud of it, in fact. Then it gets smoother and smoother with use, of course. This one is so smooth it shines, and it’s so wonderful to pick it up on a hot day out of the kitchen drawer and feel it so cool in your palm.

I explained it lots of times to people who would see it when I was pulling something else out of that drawer, I guess maybe it isn’t so common here?

If any of my family happens to read this, please feel free to post comments with any knowledge you might have on the stone, and if anyone else had something similar in their home, I’d be curious to hear about that too.

Tabby

August 29, 2004 at 4:13 pm | In familia, nostalgia, why i need therapy | Comments Off

I used to adopt stray animals. If they looked dirty and unkempt, I would take them home with me.

One time, this little tabby started following me on my way home. It didn’t have a tag, or even a flea collar, so I wasn’t sure if it was homeless. But it followed me, and I decided if it followed me all the way, I would keep it. A few houses down from me there was a house where three big, loud dogs lived in the yard, behind a waist-high chain-link fence. They used to bark all night, and they were mean whenever someone walked by.

For some reason, when we were passing that house, the cat slinked through the space in the gate and started walked along the inside of the fence. I stopped, seeing the sleeping dogs come to life.

Come on kitty, I tried to quietly lure the cat over to my side of the fence.

But the cat kept walking, stopped to sniff a blade of grass, and the dogs were on her. The growling, yowling, hissing, and barking was deafening. She bolted out of the mess, and tried to climb up a tree in the middle of the yard. But she couldn’t get her claws in, the dogs pulled her back down and continued to maul her.

I was screaming at the top of my lungs, crying and yelling for someone in the house to come out and pull these beasts off of the little orange cat. Finally, two young guys came out and hauled the dogs away by their collars. The cat was lying very still in the grass when they moved away. I opened the gate and ran in, picked her up, and stumbled to my house holding her.

One of her eyelids was torn and hanging over her eye, her coat was wet with the dog’s saliva, and a little bit of blood. But you could tell what was killing her was the shock, her heart was beating so hard and fast that I could feel it with my hand on her little furry chest, like something trapped inside that was trying to get out.

My mother opened the door in response to my pounding. She saw the cat, and I started to try to explain through my tears and panic, that the dogs had gotten her, she was going to be my cat if she made it home, that we had to save her because she was going to die for sure.

Mom has always had the same weakness for strays and injured animals that I have, and she immediately grabbed a towel to wrap the cat in, put her in the Buick, and took off to the vet’s office. I stayed at the front door, on the steps, as the late afternoon turned into dusk.

When my mother came home, she got out of the car with empty arms, and tearfully told me that we would go and find a cat for my very own, real soon.

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