Monday, April 14, 2008

café con leche & platanos

We're here in Florida, north of Tampa, in the community where my parents live. It's lovely and calm and has nothing to do with my everyday life. We went to a little Cuban/Puerto Rican coffee shop this morning for breakfast and café con leche. The locals (middle-aged and older hispanic men) sit around bitching, laughing and pontificating loudly. It was noisy and hectic and perfect. The waitress: "Un momento, Mami, I'll be back to take your order." I love that place.

However, I'm afraid I won't be blogging much, because there is always someone talking in the same room and it's not my house so I can't say, Could you people take your chatter elsewhere so I can think? You know, I can't say that. It's rude. I love them, they're my people. But haysoos cristo, I wish they'd give me a moment of quiet to write.

Mom, Barbara, my sister and I will be driving down to Miami Wednesday to see the Marlins beaten by play the Atlanta Braves. It's stadium #1 of 30 in St. Barbara's Major League Baseball Stadium Tour. It's going to be a blast.


Hey, everyone has quieted down! I think I can stretch this out a bit. My mom is so funny. She plans 12 meals in advance. I never thought of her as the quintessential (jewish, italian, irish, etc.) mother urging everyone to "eat, eat!" but she is certainly that. Thank goodness she's a great cook. My parents house doesn't look sterile or cold. It is very inviting and warm. But fucking surgically clean. Seriously, you could do emergency surgery on any horizontal surface. My mother is a cleaning machine. She's so good at it she has time left over for fun. I, on the other hand, am not so gifted.

The other thing I notice, again, is that my parents are even more cold-natured than I am. Their home thermostat is set to womb.

More later...

3 comments:

Menchuvian Candidate said...

Upon reflection (or obsession, if you want to be persnickety about it), I see no good reason why you can't send me, and everyone else for that matter, Cuban sandwiches from this trip. Kind of like a fruit of the month club package, we can look forward to "What I ate instead of stadium hot dogs" sampler plates.*

* In the case of Cubanos, these samples should be rather large.

I hope you're both having a wonderful time.

epiphenita said...

"'What I ate instead of stadium hot dogs' sampler plates."

MC, I'm sure you meant to write, "'What I ate in addition to stadium hot dogs' sampler plates."

There will be hot dogs et. And cotton candy. And beer imbibed. I almost wrote "beer imbibled" which would be a perfect tag line for our local brewery: St. Arnolds.

Steven, I'm collecting recipes for a Miami meal. MC, you're invited too...

Menchuvian Candidate said...

I'll wear flowers in my hair.