We call them "chancletas"

There used to be a time when clothing and culture were determined based on how close you were  to the equator.  It was ok to see a topless indigenous person on the cover of National Geographic, but, certainly not an American on the beach in carefree Provincetown.

It's interesting then, that for many years now the reverse has been taking place.  Memorial Day and Labor Day do not hold an exclusive to the use of white wear. No longer are we bound by professional and casual dress. Unless of course, you're working that finance beat.

A case in point, flip flops.  In Cuba, we call them chancletas.
Not sure what they call them in Brazil, however I would venture to say that flip flops may be one of their biggest exports. These humble shoes are made out of rubber. Before being skyrocketed to cult status, flip flops were found in solid colors. Usually accompanied by some sort of house dress and hair rollers, only the poorest of the tropics' poor would be caught out in these. Now, they are fashionable garb at ivy league graduations and hip, professional klatches.

As a newly arrived 9 year old to the States, I lived with my sister, mother and
father next door to my aunt, uncle and 2 younger cousins: (Eddie and Lizzie)  in side-by-side apartments. Lucky for us, during the long winter months we had an extended playground without having to go out in the cold. One day, my aunt's boss stopped by for a casual visit. She was a nice lady named Pat. I guess that Pat was invited over for some Cuban coffee and then she was introduced to the children. All of us girls were well-behaved and polite. And then, it came time to meet my little cousin Eddie. Eddie didn't get out much (he was probably 4 or so).  Eddie looked at Pat, proudly pointed to his furry-little-man flip flops and asked "do you like my new chancletas ?" When the poor lady failed to understand, Eddie did what any American boy his age would have done. He asked again, but, this time he Americanized the term, "do you like my  new chanclets?" and also pointed to his feet.  Mission accomplished.

If you wear chancletas you will probably engage in an activity known as chancletear; or that slip- slap sound that can be heard from miles away as you walk in them. If you do this often enough you can be called a chancletera. The meaning of chancletera goes beyond the noun form. It's vernacular that says that you're a very sassy, crude, street or vulgar person.  Of course, this kind of behavior is totally acceptable  in fashionable circles, making the chancleta synonymous with easy-breezy casual elegance.

And there you have it. No need to over think it. It's the dog days of July. It's hot. It's really hot. What will you wear?

CHANCLETAS!!!!

FULOP'S FIRST DAY

It's official. Jersey City has a new mayor. It happened last night @6PM in front of City Hall.


In preparation for this event, the streets around my neighborhood were closed to traffic as of 9:00AM yesterday morning. I had to walk over 2 blocks to wait for my ride by the main public library on Jersey.
Not complaining, just saying.

Here's a  view of the big party from my rooftop.

NOT YOUR COMPADRE'S TORTILLA

LA TORTILLA

This past Monday night, my very Spanish and very fabulous friend Marta came by to show me some love.  After working all day , she took the PATH train, chez moi. She hunted & gathered ingredients on Grove Street: potatoes, onions, lettuce, bread and chocolate @the Korean grocer & a nice bottle of Chilean Carmenere @the booze shop. Did I mention that she also picked up some beautiful coral tulips and artfully arranged them on my dining table?

For those of you not schooled in authentic Spanish cooking, la tortilla española, a very simple, humble dish is the piéce de resistance of most informal or formal Spanish gatherings and, of course, the tapas table.

Although la tortilla has endless variations, (where you're from in Spain or your Abuela's recipe), typically, it is comprised of potatoes & onions. This classic is what Marta cobbled together.

First, you peel the potatoes.  Then, you are extremely liberal in pouring a good quality olive oil into the pan.  When this is nice & warm (but not sizzling) you cook & barely brown the potatoes.

This is an important detail. Marta obsessed about the potatoes sticking to the pan. This will not do because the eggs will stick later & the structure of the tortilla will be compromised. Then you add the onions. As the onions start to cook, you will probably have had some wine while you munch on almonds.  The smell of the onions wafting is lovely, earthy, yummy...& the spiciness of the Carmenere grape heightens the experience.  The potatoes & onions need to structurally bind & then we're ready for the eggs. In this case, we needed to clean up the pan to get rid of any sticky pieces of potatoes.  (This was my contribution, on one leg) 

 Olé!!! Now the artistry of La mano de Marta comes into play. The eggs have to cook nicely (without burning of course) on one side & then it needs to flip onto a dish in one piece to cook the other side. This is easily done with tiny, skinny omelets, but, this is no ordinary tortilla. Marta deftly does the flip. She loses a corner of the tortilla, but, she is able to later recover it. Bravo!!!

We sit down to eat the omelet & drink the wine. We finish with a crisp salad of Bibb lettuce & vine tomatoes...refreshing.  There is dark chocolate with ginger for dessert. Qué bien!!!!

Well, "we sit down" is a figure of speech. I had been on my wheelchair watching Marta assemble & cook most of the night. Here is a cheesy, iphoto vignetty vantage from my sock clad perspective. On one leg, but, still hanging.

Footbridge progress

This weekend's weather was awesome....sunny, super clear, blue skies and a balmy 50 degrees. The birds were chirping and you could smell spring. I decided to venture into Liberty State Park, even if the footbridge was down.  Here's the first time I've seen the ravaging effects of Sandy on the little footbridge. Prior to this, 2 to 3 police cars guarded  the little bridge's view @the jersey avenue cul-de-sac.

Now, the comforting presence of huge trucks holding cement pilings point towards the rebuilding of the bridge. So, maybe my fantasy of a more solid footbridge might be realized. With spring in the air and hope for a new footbridge, I went the long way into the park.

The  long way is an abandoned road with abandoned structures that sits right under the Turnpike extension and makes room for the Lightrail lines. All this makes for a cool urban playground for skateboarders & those funny little bicycles they love to ride....

I guess all the hipster skateboarders were busy having a hipster Sunday brunch during my LSP tour.
Or maybe they haven't discovered this little piece of Jersey City yet.  

SNOW!

The massive storm that the weather people have been talking about for about a week, finally landed in Jersey City and the New York metropolitan area.  While most people stayed home, nice & toasty under the covers & sipping hot cocoa, I was braving the walk to the PATH to get to work.

Pretty goddamned beautiful to look @from behind windows & doors, but, hard to navigate without an umbrella; today's snow & rain will hopefully be short-lived as we're expecting 50 degrees tomorrow.
One can only hope that the warm weather will be accompanied by some sun, so we can wear our flip flops instead of our rain boots.

Some time back in February, Phil the groundhog said it was going to be an early spring.
On Saturday night, we have to spring the clock ahead by one hour, for now we're dealing with this crazy weather. Will this finally make converts of those folks that don't believe that we're experiencing unusual weather changes?

These are some of my pictures from my walk to the train. I would have taken more, except it was hard to snap & hold an umbrella. You'll notice they're from a low angle, it wasn't a deliberate artistic choice, that's where my eye line is  for the tree outside my house, Montgomery & Grove, and the Jersey City Hall. Some brave soul actually rode a bicycle today. ... Go figure.

I just googled my own blog & am aghast & horrified @the fact that someone else is actually using the same blog name as yours truly  & it's also a blogspot post!!! Don't they monitor these things for god's sake?
Who else wants to be onecrazycuban? Clearly another cuban, who probably wasn't even  born there...

What to do? Please feel free to comment, if you know...

Morning Power Walk

It's been a looooong fall into winter...with rivers surging, skies thundering, and transformers lighting up the sky.  The days short with dark nights made for hibernating and staying in.  Is that why the Oscars were so boring and felt like forever last Sunday night?

But, have you noticed that the sun is coming up earlier in the mornings and the sunsets are stretching past 5PM? Exciting stuff to be springing into spring soon.

I went for a power walk this morning, this is one of the things I saw.  A tug boat exiting the JC marina into the harbor with Liberty State Park on the right. LSP is a haven for nature lovers in the middle of urban Jersey City. It holds the old Central Railroad terminal, this is where the Europeans that were processed @Ellis Island took trains to their final destinations in America. Although closed to the general public, there is a bridge that connects with Ellis Island. Ferry service shuttles passengers from the park to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.  LSP also has the best view of Ms. Liberty's red thong. ;-)...and it's home to Liberty House Restaurant and Maritime Parc... The footbridge that links my neighborhood to the park has been down since Sandy. It was a rickety old thing, but functional. There was a lingering putrid odour from the low lying water which made me think they dumped bodies there.  The wood planks rattled when one rode, ran or walked over it. I fantasized that they would rebuild the footbridge more along the lines of the romantic Bow Bridge in Central Park.  But that may be out of character or perhaps unrealistic with today's economy.  If we get lucky we might have a new footbridge by the spring. Come to think of it, I rather miss that little footbridge now.

On after work cooking & good wine

It's hard to cook after work, especially if you're in advertising, work late & like to get in a workout.

A good solution is to plan, but, this might not be so easy if you like to cook local, fresh & are not near walkable grocers.

I was lucky tonight. Out by 6ish, which meant I could still local shop @my Korean grocer on Grove & pick up an interesting bottle of wine @my local wine shoppe: Jersey Wine & Spirits on Jersey Aveneue. For almost no $$$, I made a lovely vegetarian quinoa with garlic, onions, tomatoes, carrots, italian parsley, and lemon zest and lemons. A nice accent of coriander seed grounded the dish. No pix of this, although I did brown it in the broiler with some panko & looked beatiful. For my eyes only.

I do have a pix of this lovely Fiano wine.  Gosh, what can I say. It starts out so innocent..a little floral maybe...and then it goes into this minerally world and ends up nutty which reminded me of the hazelnuts I always ate during the Xmas season when I was a kid in Cuba. Am I exagerating...I don't think so...try it!

I am disgusted with the state of the union.
As a Cuban refugee and a citizen of the United States, I have always been grateful to this land we call home.
Rather, than banter about, I suggest this viewing sent to me by a fellow Cuban/American.
It takes about 5 minutes to watch.

http://www.truthout.org/multimedia.htm

MY LEFT FOOT

Yesterday was a regular day.

I woke up, had my morning Cuban coffee and proceeded to work from home. I went for my usual run around noon.
To Hamilton Park, nothing unusual about that. I like this run, it's like a Village Voice tour of downtown Jersey City.
Strolling, running or jogging down Jersey Avenue you get to see the newly opened shops, cafes, renovated homes,
and my favorite: the corner Pentecostal Church which I secretly think I will buy someday.

The air was crisp, and the day cloudy, kind of a regular October day. Newark Avenue had its share of commercial traffic,
but all was uneventful. I did 2 laps around the park, this might be a mile and half. On the 3rd lap, I was sprinting hard,
('cause I don't want to turn into one of those flabby joggers) when out of nowhere a seemingly innocent pine cone--
ya know, one of those that fall from any of those evergreens, appeared right in my left foot's sprinting path.
The left foot did not see it. The left foot landed on the pine cone, the left foot's ankle twisted into a pretzel, the left foot
recovered as it walked it off, quite painfully, but proud of its quick recovery.

Ahh, but the recovery was short lived. About an hour and a half later, showered, and dressed, ready to begin all my errands,
my left foot began to throb. I ignored my left foot, thinking that it would go away. I got in the car and went to get gas.
Right about then, my left foot refused to be ignored. It started throbbing so hard that I felt like crying. What does a grown woman do when she cries? She calls her mother and tells on her left foot.

Sobbing hysterically, and with Mom in the car, I drove myself to my brother-in-law, the doctor, who, said he could see me.
My brother-in-law , the doctor's office is in the heart of Union City. Right across the street from the police station. I double parked in front of the doctor's office. A very compassionate police officer put on his wailing siren and told me to move.
Annoyed to no end, I drove around the block and found a spot. I realized I would have to hop or crawl all the way
to the doctor's office. I figured I could possibly start a new trend: The Union City bunny hop. Ready to be the fabulous
fashionista that I am, with tears streaming down my face, I was redeemed by the other kind of police officer, the kind
who actually has electrons that wire the brain/heart connection.

So, I double parked in front of the doctor's office and hobbled inside. That's when the hysterics started. That's when my left foot demanded all the attention it deserved. The usual took place: my brother in law tried very hard to make me laugh and forget about the pain, prescribed crutches, an ankle brace and x-rays. (My brother in law is a very cool person)
And that's pretty much how it went. The left foot was driven to get x-rays and had his sexy little mug photographed in soft tones of x-rays hues.

The left foot is feeling better today, although looking a little ragged. A little swollen, a little bruised.

Me, I think I'll abandon running for crutches, if only for now.

On all things technology and why it takes a man to figure out how to remove the back of a phone handset...

Call me clumsy if you will.

I run, take pilates, and can dance all with pretty good rhythm. So, I'm not entirely uncoordinated.
I'm also pretty strong considering my size.

However, lately, there are some things that just ellude me and frustrate me to no end.

A case in point. I've just installed Vonage (I'm not getting paid for this by the way) in an effort to cut
down on my ridiculous cell phone bill since I've left the full time job.
The installation was pretty simple, since I'm not color blind. (Match the yellow cable to the yellow port, etc.)
What was complicated was the simplest and yet mos elusive
task of all: sliding down on the back of the new phone handset and installing the battery. Why does this
have to be so difficult? Why is it designed for an expert chef's wrist action...or the quickness of a bricklayer?
And why does this have to happen just when you're feeling like you're independent and can install your
own Vonage device without anyone else's assistance?....

All's well that ends well.
Both computer and phone seem to be working together.
Teamwork, what a concept!
Best of all, I can't wait to get on the phone without worrying about those cell gouging daytime minutes.
But, it will have to wait for a rainy day!!!

The World of Freelancing , America's New Economy and what I learned on my Summer Vacation

Welcome to my world. Layed off just a little over a month ago from the closest to job security in advertising as you were ever likely to get. The people I worked with were even nice. No need to worry about the proverbial advertising/mafia knife in the back. Scratches and near misses were acceptable, but, rarely the former. So.. what happens?

I"m terminated...yes, that's what it's called. Just like that. Not like Kafka's Metamorphosis, That's big. This is small.
And.. you have to deal with the smallness of severance, and unemployment insurance and polishing up your resumé, and starting all over again.

So, what does the fabulous me do? I take a vacation. Yes, I take a vacation. To Spain. To discover my Galician roots. I take my mother (who knows all about being Galician without ever being there) -- but that's another post. I invite my sister. This is utter suicide. It could have been. But, it wasn't. It was AMAZING. The place was wonderful, (even with the crazy fires) and my family: the one I took and the one I discovered were wondeful. I'll post pics.
Discovery is a wonderful thing, it converts old prejudices into wonderful new insights and new ones, well, the new ones are just new.

Santiago de Compostela, for those not in the know, is a wonderful little city. It's probably second to Jerusalem in pilgrimages.
It's interesting, because the pilgrimages tie in the pageantry and history of the Catholic religion with Celtic traditions and all kinds of crazy lore. It's for the faithful, but, also for the athletic. Particularly for the fervently athletic. People can hike, walk or bike from several different paths to Santiago. What do they do once they arrrive? They go to mass at the Cathedral. At a strategic point towards the end of the Mass -- several of the attendant priests help to maneuver the very old and large "botafumeiro"--(this is an incense burner) so that it effectively begins to swing from one end of the vaulted cruciform to the other. This is the best show in town. Originally, (and now as well) this served to clean the air from the pilgrims' foul smelling odors . Nowadays, deodorants, notwithstanding, it still helps. Remember, they've hiked and biked for miles. Yes, some are in great shape and even handsome, but, they have not showered yet.

Aside from the Mass, if one is inclined and a believer (in any faith, really) one prays. I prayed for work. My mother prayed
for me to get work. My cell phone rang. They were calling from New York. I had an interview. I had an interview for a freelance job. And there you have it.

Now, I'm in the throes of it. I'm experienced, yes, I'm fabulous, yes. Before, however, I had a support team. Here I'm my own one (wo)man band and figuring out what programs I have or have not installed on my Power Book G4. Dealing with the expectations of a smaller agency culture and adapting to new environments on the fly.
Forgetting about the match in the 401K and health insurance.... Oh, heck, it's called free...lance....and it's what America's working culture does.