A mothers grief...

       

It's been a very sad time. My daughters father has three daughters by his first marriage. I was very close to the youngest one as she lived with us for a while, and when I had my daughter she even helped me a bit with things as I had to have a C section. Anyway long story short, she married and after a long period without being able to conceive  she finally had two boys. I was also close to them as they were always around me. The youngest (25) to whom she had given the names of my two sons, had gone to the states to work, things were going well and he was to be married soon.

This past December 31 he attended a New Years Eve get together at his fathers house, left right after New Years, snow had been falling and the roads were very icy, his car skidded on the ice and ended up crashing against a tunnel wall, he wasn't driving, his friend was, he was in the passenger side, the so called death seat. And so it was, he died as a result of his injuries. His mom was called on New Years Day with the horrible news. Anyway, the body could not be flown in because the airport closed due to the snowstorm, it wasn't till a week later that he finally arrived and the funeral could be held. Quite horrible.  I feel so sorry for her, she loved her sons so much. She is suffering so very much. The loss of a child is a forever hurt, for the rest of her life, and his brother is suffering also.

One of my memories of him is of him and his brother running into the house all scared looking and the oldest said to me, "Gaby shaved off half of his eyebrow and mommy's real mad" He had tried to trim them or something and lopped off half of his left eyebrow! So I looked at the damage and told them "come on I can fix that" I remember his little face as he looked up at me with such relief and said really can you?

I got two well sharpened eyebrow pencils, a brown and a black one, and began to draw in tiny little hairs and by the time I'd finished it looked like real hairs and a real eyebrow. They were so happy, they ran out to the mom she was visiting the house in front, and excitedly said "look mommy it's all fixed". She liked it : D I walked after them and showed her how to do it. I'll just never forget his little face of relief... Life is so freakin fleeting, it can be snatched away in a second...

Oh boy! Now this!

So today unexpectedly and abruptly when Sam's Clubs employees showed up for work they were told that the store was closing. It happened at two or three stores in the metro area and the Mayaguez one which is the one closest to me has also started downsizing employees and telling it's employees to take everything out of the warehouse!

One store let go of close to one thousand employees! 

I can only hope that a Costco will take over, those stores are such fun! So many things they bring and a continuous turnover of merchandise. 

and I might add, I went to a Home Depot the other night at 8:30, (another fun store I love to wander in) they usually close at 10 PM, well the doors were closed, a security guard stood outside directing everyone to a sign with the new hours. They now close at 8PM. I guess they're not selling as much cause so many small businesses shut down?

http://www.businessinsider.com/sams-club-closures-leave-hundreds-without-jobs-in-puerto-rico-2018-1

Tsunami!

So there's been a 7.6 earthquake off the coast of Honduras and a a tsunami warning has come into all the cel phones here.

The news says it may be only about 3 feet tall here, but who knows...

The warning is for all of the islands in the area. All of them!

My fear is the trembling will continue and we get a big one here too.

Oh Lord...

https://www.ft.com/content/0c5af231-1125-3e0c-b6c2-979e25253128

Three Kings or Three Wise Men Day

Three Persian Kings or Wise Men from the East

I was going to, I tried to upload a couple of fun videos of the New Years Eve party at the hotel but I'm having trouble uploading them, so I couldn't. I can only post the url.

First one's a tremendous electric mandolin player:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0p0Jo5WQec

This one's the fireworks at midnight:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joeiylTiMdc


Well tonight marks the end of the Holy Days here. Tonight The Three Kings, Gaspar, Balthassar and Melchior come riding in on their camels who then eat the grass in the boxes that the children have put under their beds. They leave gifts for the children, just as they gave the baby Jesus gifts upon arriving at the manger guided by the star of Bethlehem. It's so much more romantic than the Santa story.

They gave him gold as a symbol of kingship on earth, frankincense (an incense) as a symbol of deity, and myrrh (an embalming oil from Africa and the Middle East) as a symbol of death.

I hope that the Three Kings, Wise Men, or Magi as they are known, will bestow upon us all of our petitions and wishes.

Sofrito

Sofrito, Cilantro, ajies dulces  (sweet small peppers, not the hot ones), onion, garlic, bay leaf, annato oil.  I'm making canned corned beef and white rice for lunch.

Gotta get rid of all the hurricane food and I like to eat before I go to a party cause you never know...:)

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!!!

We're aliveee!

Well tomorrow is the last day of the year. I guess all years are good and all days are good...but this year was a beyotch!  Man oh man! Raining all year,Saharan dust coming in all year so I was really ill several times, and then the hurricane, I don't even want to say it's name. Lord have mercy, that's all I can say, words cannot describe...better to forget...

It hasn't rained in a couple of weeks, just a couple of light showers so I've been relatively asthma free, thank you baby Jesus! Now may we have a drought please God!  :)

Hopefully tomorrow the lights will stay on, hopefully...A toast to the New Year, health, wealth and happiness.

We're ALIVEEEEE!!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

Merry Christmas,happy Holy Days

Well here we are, made it to another Christmas thank God!  Everybody here is looking for some kind of joy after all we've been through. Those of us that have all the utilities are so glad and relieved, but in our hearts and thoughts are those that don't have any of those commodities yet! So our happiness is not complete. It's tough living with noisy, smelly generators, (those that have them) and buying bottled water or carrying heavy buckets of water to bathe. Especially for those with family members that are sick and/or disabled. I have a friend, actually one of my sons ex girlfriends,  that lives on the side of a  'cerro' (small mountain), and she as well as many, many others are still without, sadly her husband now has a chronic illness and is bed bound most of the time, you can imagine.
My grandchildren live an a mountain in an area called Atalaya, they power their house with a generator, have a cistern which they have to refill somewhere. They do the laundry here every week, and my granddaughter flat irons her hair here also.

So, here is the pernil, I think it's also known as Boston butt, and/or picnic shoulder. Yesterday I defrosted it and took off the skin. All of our knives are dull! so I had a rough time. I roast the skin apart as I have found that this is the only way (for me anyway) to get the skin nice and crispy and crunchy without being hard. This way it's very 'biteable'. I poked holes in it and seasoned with a mixture of crushed and ground (with wooden mortar and pestle) garlic cloves, dried oregano, 2 Sazon seasoning packets, salt and pepper. It marinated in the fridge overnight, and went into the oven at around 8:30 AM, but it's still not done, I just turned it.

My daughter is making the traditional  'arroz con gandules',  potato salad (which I just tasted and its delicious!), green salad and I made chocolate cupcakes yesterday. Traditionally one also has 'Turron' which is made of almonds and comes in a variety of textures, also nuts of all kinds, and 'coquito' which is a punch made with rum, coconut cream, evaporated milk and spices such as anise, cinnamon, nutmeg.

The grand kids will be here later to get their gifts, so life is good thank God and baby Jesus whose birth we are celebrating tonight.

Latah y'all :)