1ST BORICUA IN SPACE!!!

Puerto Rico Astronaut Joseph Acabá Herrero Heads Into Space Tonight On Discoveryhttp://www.primerahora.com/ Pa que se te hinche el corazon!!!... said my fellow twitter Liss! That means so that your heart can swell. Yes indeed, our puertorican hearts are very swollen with the win last night over the USA in the World Baseball Classic and now first BORICUA IN SPACE! Watch launch here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/spacevidcast

PEACE OUT AND MMMMMMMMMMMMM LET ME STAY HUMBLE!

Borinquen Puertorro - Andy Montanez

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLsoeFnCC68&feature=PlayList&p=A857C5BF21CA83A7&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=67

I looked for this because puertorican fellow twitter was a bit upset and I wanted to bring some cheer to her heart.

En PUERTORRO ES DONDE MAS YO GOZO! Which translates to "in PUERTORRO is where I have the most fun!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlctUL9HBnI&feature=related

Gilberto Santarosa singing to his loved one: "Que alguien me diga.... como se olvida como se arranca para siempre un amor del corazon... que aguien que sane mi alma y borre recuerdos que me torturan."

He sings in anguish for having lost his loved one and wants to know and asks everyone how can I erradicate this love pain from my heart, how "do you erase a hurting feeling, how to get rid of these thoughts that torture me. In search of someone that will heal me..." Gilberto Santarosa y known as "el Caballero de la Salsa"... "the gentleman of Salsa." He brought love and smooth romantic Salsa to the world! He is special.

The photo is a photo of lechon asado a la vara and morzillas (roasted pork and blood sausage) which we ate at Guavate, Puerto Rico. A favorite of puertoricans.

I LOVE MY COUNTRY, ITS MUSIC, ITS PEOPLE, ITS FLAVOR, ITS OCEANS, RIVERS, MOUNTAINS. We are very small but we are heard in very far away lands. Can you believe there are salsa orchestras in Japan? Yes indeed! The funny things is that they sound just like the puertoricans playing. Can't even detect an accent. Because of my love for my country, I feel an incredible need to share same with all of you out there. If you read it fine, if not, go in peace and enjoy this glorious day!

PEACE OUT!

... life is what you make it

I find myself in a place in which I have to make a very crucial decision. In doing so I have to list benefits and disadvantages for both parties involved. Define exactly what is the final favorable destination for both. What is the loving thing to do and maybe in tough love there is greater love. Define boundaries to be set and in so doing define time periods.

Somehow thinking back to moments of true happiness and bliss in my life and found this photo taken by Daddy in Pinones, Puerto Rico. It was a beautiful place. My Daddy and I would go to the beach in Isla Verde every Sunday. The rest of the family would stay behind. That was our time together. He was my heroe! The paved road ended at the San Juan Hotel. After that it was a sand road to were Pine Grove Condos are today. Now it is all built up. But my best friend, sister, lives in that beach condo where I spent my childhood years bathing with my Daddy! Is life grand or what!

PEACE OUT!

.........the tree of life

The human ashes of the person who gave me life lay between the roots of this magnificent tree in Guavate, Puerto Rico.

...Santeria, Bomba, Salsa is timeless....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXHxcGgClc4&feature=related

Interesting video of Santeria and the many symbols the slaves used to worship. My people from Puerto Rico are a mixture of Taino indians, Spanish sailors, Black slaves, and the anglos who came in 1898. They brought capitalism and things changed but they could not change the idiosyncrasies of the people.

Bomba was a way of the slaves to sing about their lives and to communicate messages from one village to another. Bomba turned into plena and plena turned into modern salsa by puertoricans who migrated to New York City. The rhythm of my people is outstanding. Just called my friends from PR, my tribal members and they were in the middle of the water on a boat partying... Yes indeed with music and the stars... Listen to this outstanding documentary and more will come.

Love my culture! Do you love yours?

"Las Tetas de Cayey" "The Breasts of Cayey"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Tetas_De_Cayey

I took this picture from the car on my last trip to Puerto Rico on the way to La Parguera. Go into the site above to wikipedia and see the actual photos. Love my island and very proud of my people!

Have a glorious day!

This flower from the "Talipot" palm (Corypha umbraculifera), (one of the largest palms in the world) blooms after 70 years and it just did at the Botanic Garden in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico. What makes the event special is the size, the beauty of the flower and that after the flower blooms, the palm dies.

Thought I would share this marvel with you!

PEACE OUT!

... i miss my people... extrano mi gente...

I think my body is reacting to the stolen hour and to the fact that I was twirling on Saturday night on heels and that is not something that I usually do. Today I saw my dance partner and he was saying that other people there at the wedding were asking him how long we had been dancing together and he said it was the first time and they were shocked. I love to dance and since I stopped teaching Zumba http://www.zumba.com/ I have not danced so much. Zumba for those that do not know, is aerobics with latin music or hip hop or whatever you want it to be. But you do dance. I would teach latin dance to my students in a very simple fashion and they learned. My Dad, el gringo, moved to Puerto Rico with my mother and he learned Spanish and to dance, Paso Doble (spanish bull fight dance), merengue (from Dominican Republic), plena (from Puerto Rico), danza (from Puerto Rico), waltz (from France I think), and good american rock and roll. He was a big man and weighed over 200 pounds. This man would glide on the dance floor as a gazelle. He would make his dance partners look very elegant and sophisticated. He took pride in his form. I wonder who taught him? My mother? Well she is not longer here to tell me. But most probably.

Dancing is an expression of my soul, my spirit. If you ask me how I feel the happiest dancing, I must say that it is when I am in a very open dance floor or space and to close my eyes and just dance. Maybe I acquired that when I was growing up and going to all these formal dances in Puerto Rico and my boyfriend and I were very smooth on the dance floor. We danced together for 5 years and really were in tune. We knew each and every step to follow literally by instinct. That is a great flowing sensation and kind of liberating.

These formal dances in Puerto Rico where usually held at the Rotary's Clubhouse, Lyons Clubhouse or at this beautiful Hotel Montemar which is high up on a cliff facing the Caribbean Ocean. Unbelievable view. If you ever go to Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, go the Hotel Montemar and just watch the sunset, it is on the west coast of the island. We would wear long gowns, long white satin gloves, and white rabbit furs. Believe me, we did all this. Don't ask why... I don't know the answer, except that it was the tradition. There would be a live orchestra. Pablo Elvira y su Combo, El Gran Combo, and on and on. The dance would last until about 2 am when the orchestra would play, "Se acabo, se acabo, se acabo lo que se daba se acabo." Meaning: "Its over, its over, what we were giving away is over." Then everybody screams, "la napa!" That means an encore. So they always end up playing another song.

My beautiful island. I miss it so. I miss my people! Extrano mi gente! Tonight I miss my mother. Not always, but today I wore a throw that I gave her for mother's day last year and it smells like her. I will always say that I believe it was not her time. I feel it was human error and that people do not walk into a hospital ok and not walk out if they did not come in with a life threatening condition. That is my opinion. I definitely do not believe that humans come with an expiration date. Am I sensing some unresolved anger towards her initial treating hospital? I guess I have to meditate on this.

My grandmother Ita... I inherited her independent spirit, the palm of her hands, her love for cooking, her dynamic personality, her determination, her dare... she had to leave her husband and in the early 1940s she got on a ship to New York City where she got her own clothing business. That is something people back then did not do. Women did not leave their men, let alone go to a difflerent continent! My palms are very wrinkled and all my life I wondered who had my wrinkled hands until I saw Ita's. Then I realized why she and I were so intense... it was written all over the palm of our hands. If you believe or not, I have heard some palm readers that do not charge money tell me things that brought chills down my back. I used to walk to the Plaza del Mercado de Loiza, Loiza Fresh Marketplace. She would get her plaintain leaves to make pasteles, plantains, yautia (which is like a root, like the potato) and whatever she needed to make them. I would help her clean the plantain leaves and put the ingredients on the pasteles. I loved doing this with her. Maybe that is why I love to cook today, el Gringo also loved to cook, so I have it from a few different gene pools.

Going to say PEACE OUT!

...if a man hits u once he will hit you again said Oprah

good morning... it is 553 am. been up since 4 or so... slept really bad last night. don't know why. i am having my coffee moment and wanted to share

Oprah: "if a man hits you once he will hit you again!" It depends on whether or not she put up a fight. Have seen a woman put up a fight and sending man that attempted to hit her a second time to the hospital and he never ever again in their lives put another hand on her. But this is kind of the puertorican way. I guess we don't go down easy. We are feisty and we fight. Physically if necessary. I personally was trained to fight because my sister was 4-1/2 yrs older than me and we were in constant conflict. She was 2 x my size and I was a runner. But I felt abused many times when she would take my food off my plate (and then you wonder were I got this do not touch my plate issue). One day I told her, as a friend of mine sits in the living room, that I was getting milk, guava paste, and white local cheese, (a treat for any puertorican) and I particularly asked her if she wanted some that she would not take any from my plate. That I would make her a plate but she had to have hands off my plate. Understood? Understood she said and that she did not want any.

Ok so I go get my guava milk and cheese ready and leave it in the living room with my friend to go to the bathroom and upon my return my sister is in my plate. I proceeded to silently without protesting grabbed the glass of milk (she had just washed her long hair that were in curlers and she had just spent 1 hour under the hair dryer) and I poured with great delight the milk over her curlers! And ran, ran for my life. The house was in a development that was still being built and since I was a runner and skinny and she was a bit hefty I knew she would never catch up with me. So I did a circle and went back home to my room and locked myself and left issue to be handled by my mother. She never did that again.

That was an aggressive way of doing things. It was years of stealing my bacon, my sodas, my food, years of being her slave (until I rebelled, but she taught me how to be a doer rather than one that stands on the sidelines). But we would always have physical fights over the who is washing the dishes etc. Funny grew up and I thought my mother preferred her and she thought my mother preferred me.

Have to go... Have a glorious day!

PEACE OUT!

Salon Salsa and Joe....

I was ready for the party! Yes I was feeling the bliss before I got to the party. Had treated myself to a day of specialness! I succeeded and went to the wedding... feeling good and had a wonderful time. Danced with Joe all night and oh my God, I can dance basic steps of salsa but this dude had me spinning... yes he was like the partners of Dancing with the Stars. A good partner and they make you look real good. He was doing something that they call Salon Salsa in which the woman passes from one dance partner to another and she ends up with original partner prior to end of the song. So they take you by the waste/hip and twist you so you spin (you really have to surrender to your partner to be able to twirl) to the next partner, but we were just doing it amongst us. So when I thought I was going to land on the lap of the disc jockey this dancing partner would grab my hip and bring me back into the rithym without missing a beat! I felt like Ginger Rogers! You all know that dancing is all in the hips! That was the first thing I taught my Zumba students, "do not move anything else in your body, except your legs and hips" but the hip movement has to be controlled by the legs, not the hips controlling the legs. hips cannot be all over the place, it has to be very controlled. I would sometimes hold on to their hips and tell them to do the motion. They would be mezmorized as to how they could dance without moving hips on their own and that the hips would actually flow with the legs...

Flow baby flow is the motto of the day! Sun is starting to shift West and I can feel it in my bedroom sliding door! Today the time has been a bit off and i am desperately trying not to look at it. Woke up very late and it seems the day is almost over and 3 pm, have not had breakfast. But still in bliss... not even hungry...

Dance with me today! Flow with me today! Live with me today! Blessed with Bliss today! Thank you world, universe, my people, my not so good people because you teach me, my loved ones, my tribe, I LOVE YOU!

PEACE OUT!

Campbell woke up with me this morning....

loving life this morning... i will share it throughout this blog. This is a photo of the trees in La Parguera Puerto Rico. Moments of bliss in this trip to Puerto Rico. Peaceful! Sharing with tribe and extended tribe, boating, eating, laughing, and assuming each responsibility of the tribe to its full potential bringing about bliss for all... life is good... yes indeed...

i am listening to marc anthony almost cut his veins in one of his songs... bliss is just one word for the feeling that runs through the body... sing it marc! pain of desire basically, she is ignoring him as a stranger in her life and i he dying to have her one more time...

listen to his guy, campbell, he writes this: "Love itself is a pain, you might say -- the pain of being truly alive."

I think is the lack of feeling the love alive that is painful. So there dude, campbell, we are not always going to agree. But definetely agree to disagree with campbell or anyone out there who wishes to share.

See what I have going here in my blog is total unconditional love to my "supposed" followers if there are/is any out there. I just realized that it is more for me than for you anyway. But if you are interested "me" is on fire and wants to share this fire with you. And if you can feel a slight fraction of it, you will be blessed with bliss. Good title for a book or song: Blessed with Bliss. I think I'll write it. Maybe today is the perfect day to embarc in writing or attempting to write a song. Will let you know if I make it.

Will be in touch later. Here is a picture. If I retire in Puerto Rico it is probably going to be in La Parguera or close to there. Have another extended tribe in the hills of Maricao close to El Monte del Estado and it is nice. But la Parguera are my bros and sisters and we have camped and lived in pretty close proximity of each other to know each other and accept each other so well that we flow... so today learn from my experience with my tribe and flow... till later today i remain!

PS: There is a carnival in Miracle Mile today. The whole weekend but today also. Maybe I will skip over to my cousin's apt... he lives right on the Mile and go walk around and look at the artwork.

PEACE OUT!

5 am and life.. and on and on & its 2 25 pm

the city is sleeping ... the night is coming to an end ... the new beginning! what will we make of this day? Will it be what i make it to be. last night got a call at 1 am while in a deep sleep. it was my son who just moved to another state broke and wants money wired. children mess up and they run to their parents to bail them out. Its always a balancing act in itself between tough love to motivate the child to accomplish their goals flying solo or help them out in order to succeed. It has to be in the middle somewhere but when you don't help guilt creeps in and has to be eradicated prior to it being slightly recorded in the brain. We have to follow our instincts and try to balance. But ladies and gentlemen we cannot under any circumstances give our children everything they ask for! Please do not do this. You will create a monster. Not that he would come and hurt you or me but he will expect it all from the world and it will hurt him/her and those that try to get close to him or her. They learn not to appreciate anything that is given to them because it is never enough. And there is my point. So I had to set a boundary today that I did not want to set, or be swallowed by the big giant, and this ship cannot go down at this point in my life and I love that human being probably more than I love myself... today I chose tough love at 1 am and see how as much as i tried not to feel guilt i am sharing this with the world to get it out of my system at 5 am. And now in peace I am. Thanks for letting me into your eworld.

If I have offended anyone by my "personal honesty," not my motive or intent, therefore, I will say I can only report what it is I experience, my world, my reality, which is really partially real, which at times I stop it from penetrating my soul so as not to harm it in any way or form so that I may continue my journey lovingly, peaceful, and full of the light of the gods and godesses of this universe and so are you out there... just stay in the light and be happy and if you slip out of the light, slip back in ASAP!

PEACE OUT!

...the wholeness of my human existence

You know I do this blog almost every day and I hope that someone, reads it. It is my life and to me it is very interesting... within the soul... I am not flashy, but love to dress up, and if that means being flashy for the moment, so be it. My soul is on fire at this point. Feel many emotions all wrapped up in one -- the wholeness of my human exitence...

I am going to share a very personal moment with you. I just felt a vision, a thought of not seeing my son for a very long time and it being 10-20 years from now and meeting up with him. It brought tears to my eyes. Maybe this is what they call a premonition. It will be recorded here. How sad that whole thought has made me! I just pray that it is not true, not true at all! That I see him way before that, closer to now than then! And yet I am very happy. It is a passing moment of being a mother and that is too complex to even begin to describe it. But ooof, I can feel, that's for sure! And the intensity of that feeling is what makes me a special human being able to share same with you making you part of the special circle! Corny enough for you! U are either here or not here and if you is u are part of the circle of trust! (slightly "DeNiroish").

A Puertorican twitter told me there is a puertorican on American Idol tonight! Jorge Nunez, fua, fua, fua! Boricua Fua! Well I was trying to check it out but don't have the patience. You know puertoricans says that they would do anything with the puertorican flag over their heads, even sex with an ugly woman. Is a saying.... Puertoricans welcome other cultures and people... that is how I came to be. Mami, puertorican married my Daddy, anglo from Brooklyn, NY, ex, NY cop, ex navy dude, ex fireman, ex dad... and then he died. But we are open to other cultures, other cultures are running through my vaines. At times they are in conflict with each other, and I try my best to agree to disagree.

Go burn some oil and relax with sparkling water, wine, soda, whatever is your beverage of choice, but make sure it is one you love.

PEACE OUT!
Bought some some oils.... listen to some of these names White Gardenia, Sex on the Beach, Red Rose, Eucalyptus Blossom, Sea Breeze, and Egyptian Musk... takes me back to early 70s, Musk everybody was using musk oil... that was the in thing! I'll let you know if I get lucky with the Sex on the Beach oil, and where exactly is one supposed to put it on. "Mom, does it come with directions?"

50 in Miami tonight and tomorrow morning. But this evening it feels colder than yesterday. Long line in Miami for a job fare under the cold. Today it was very cold for Miami after temperature dropped 20 degrees. I wore tights under my pants. Never do I do that! Not in Miami. This year it has been colder than other years and absolutely beautiful weather. Not always good weather... we had our share of Wilma and Katrina. Katrina hit us hard in South Florida but it was so devastating in New Orleans, that noone paid any attention to us or did we dare speak up!

If you don't know it by now, I am the scent queen, no with a capital "Q" Queen! I love my home to smell appealing and beautiful to me. I find it very expensive to maintain the small plug ins, which I do love by the way, and candles. I have just started to experiment with oils and they last forever and the candles go off on their own and the scent is different, its like in the molecules of the air. I only have an oil burner in my newly redone spa bathroom and the oil scent makes it peaceful. I turn it on when I go in the morning... go make coffee and drink it and by the time I take a shower, the whole house smells and I am relaxed...

Thank you for letting me be in your life this evening... from mine to yours... de la mia a la tuya...y por la sombrita or walk in the shade! Cogelo suave pero cogelo! Take it easy but take it!

Miami sunset from my bedroom window, today

Baked my banana/cranberry/pecan bread, shipping 2 and kept 1 which got stuck to the bottom, but was real good! If you get one you are in the "inner circle!" Meet the Fockers de Niro. Anyway today relaxed and baked and did some house work. Tomorrow I go to work after the office job to the clothing store. Since my frozen shoulder issue I had not gone. So this week Monday and Wednesday nights. Thankful that I have this specially right now.

Have been twitting and washing clothes and reading blogs, etc. But happy. Today did have a mami moment where I feel the moment they called me to notify me that she had died and I saw her all in one. Felt it and relaxed into it. Tomorrow physical therapy at 7 am so i have get up arond 6 or earlier. the the office, then the store.

Here flowing with my universe... relaxing... also turned off the TVs and turned up the music because it keeps me focused on being positive in this economy and have managed. Not one of us is going to escape from its wrath but we can control how we aproach it and to get the "yes we can" mentality even if you do not follow the current president. Because we can!

Have a great week and stay safe. Peace Out!

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