Behind the Scenes at the Olympics and silkworms on a stick

Tonight is closing ceremonies and we will undoubtedly be sitting in front of The Needle -- the name we gave our TV. Maria has watched Opening Ceremonies four times. Not the whole thing every time, but the drumming and the dancing. She now dances and floats around like the muses from the opening show.

As you look toward the end, consider taking a peek at my friend, Brian's blog -- The Beijing Bulletin -- for a behind-the-scenes look at covering the Olympics.

Brian is the AP sports photo editor who hired me to go to Cuba in 1991 for the Pan American Games. I was a photo gopher, running film between venues and the Havana Hilton, where they were processed and sent via satellite back to New York. His wife was my kick-ass city editor when I worked in N.J.

Through Brian I met my husband, who also was on assignment in Havana that summer. So, Brian always will be kind of Fairy Godmother to us.

In related Beijing-ness, these photos were in my in-box this morning. A reporter I know went to the night market and figured I would enjoy waking to pictures of lamb testicles, centipedes and silkworms on a stick...Maria is going to love this...

Lamb testicles

centipedes

silkworms

That's not me. That's Daisy Fuentes. Another hot 41-year-old Cubanita.

Fitness magazine

Daisy Fuentes, beautiful and talented Cubanita, is 41 and on the cover of Fitness magazine this coming month.

I, dear reader, another beautiful and talented Cubanita, turn 41 in a few days. Oh yes, I do. Good genetics have offered me a wrinkle-free face, so far, and many years of therapy have made passage to the other side of The Hill a relatively bump-free ride.

Because Fitness magazine was kind enough to send me excerpts and because I will never, ever be featured in Fitness, I offer you Daisy's quotes... and mine.

Pre-Hoppi Bir-day treat to myself.

1. WHAT’S BETTER AT AGE 41?:

Daisy says: “The way I feel. Being comfortable with who I am and caring less about the opinions of others as to what I should look like. I don’t care about fitting into any specific kind of category that society puts people into. I care about what’s best for me. I can’t say that was the same when I was younger. I was very influenced by a lot of outside forces, there’s so much being told to women as how they should look, how they should act, what they should be like, what size is the right size. You can’t help but let that help you. But that doesn’t affect me anymore. That’s very freeing. And it feels great.”

Carrie says: "What she said.''

2. WHAT’S EASIER AT 41?:

Daisy says: [When I was younger] my motivation was coming more from a vanity place. Now, being in this business, it’s more about health for me. I want to be a healthy, active, older woman. I want to age gracefully. It makes a big difference. The activity in your lifestyle, when you’re in your 30s and 40s really have an impact as you get older and that’s going to determine if you look great when you’re fifty. It’s about staying healthy,…You do have to change. You do have to acknowledge it to yourself. It doesn’t get any easier but you can definitely get more easier…Being motivated to be healthier is easier.

Carrie says: "Being OK with owning a cheap purse and eating flan for breakfast. Wouldn't, not couldn't, do that at 25."

3. WHAT’S TOUGH AT 41:

Daisy says: “Traveling. It really takes it out of me. When I was 22, I could get off the Red Eye and go on set. Now it’s too hard. I need my rest, I need my beauty sleep.”

Carrie says: "Losing the Tweezerman I keep in my car for chin hair emergencies.''

4. WHAT OUTFIT MAKES YOU FEEL THE MOST CONFIDENT?:

Daisy says: "Jeans and tank top. It’s my favorite look…I think if you’ve got it together enough and you’re confident and secure with yourself, you should feel as sexy and glamorous in a tee-shirt."

Carrie says: "Any outfit that includes my Spanx and back-fat minimizer one-piece."

5. WHAT CAN YOU DO NOW THAT YOU COULDN’T DO WHEN YOU WERE YOUNGER?:

Daisy says: “I can snowboard. I learned when I was 40. I’m very proud of that. It was something I just sort of said, I can do this. I put it off for a long time, I was going to Aspen a lot. I just thought, I don’t need to go up the mountain. Why can’t I do this? I thought I’m too old. I should have started doing this when I was 13 or 20. And I just went for it. When I started, my instructor was in his 50s, he’d always been a ski instructor and he only learned how to snowboard at 40 and now he’s an instructor. So I said I can totally do this.”

Carrie says: "I'm a freaking Superwoman now. I survive on less than 6 hours of sleep, juggle two businesses, a freelance career, a kid, a husband, a cat, 12 guineas. Take that 25!"

6. WHAT’S THE BEST AGE-PROOF ADVICE YOU EVER GOT?:

Daisy says: “Staying out of the sun. The damage is done. It’s hard to stay out of the sun. My mom did, but I ignored her.”

Carrie says: "Marry someone 15 years older.''

Los Pollitos Dicen builds a page on Facebook

Los Pollitos Dicen (The Little Chicks Say) now has a page on Facebook.

We welcome "Fans'' and pictures of your beautiful little ones in their Spanish baby tees and onesies.

Also, keep an eye here and there for news about new products.

We are so 2.0, aren't we?

Cuban reporters unmuzzled. Perhaps.

NPR keeps me company while I cook dinner.
I had to put my knife down to take in the whole of this story.

Cuban journalists who work at the paper Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth) are doing actual investigative pieces. The word "journalist'' is used loosely when it comes to the island nation, which controls the media and, well, everything else.

As you listen to the NPR story you can hear the joy in the reporters' voices. The yee haw of being able to actually do their jobs. Fabulous, really fabulous.

From the NPR story:

"For years, Fidel Castro told Cubans that their problems were the result of the U.S. trade embargo, the loss of Soviet aid or globalization: There was always an excuse. But Herminio Camacho, deputy editor of Juventud Rebelde, says it's time for Cuba to acknowledge its own failings.
"These articles aim at raising people's awareness," Camacho says. "People need to know that things don't have to be like this here. We're bringing up problems that can't be blamed on our shortages, or on outside forces, or the embargo, or the world situation."

We in the Fourth Estate (I still claim ink in the veins) get bashed a lot. Some deserved, of course. But, without a free press, without the kind of people who revel in the truth, many of us would be much, much worse off.

Getting down from soapbox now.

Go listen to the story. It's wonderful and inspiring. Makes me hope.

--30--

Hot Latin body courtesy of frijoles and puerco asado

Laura Martinez of the wonderful Mi blog es tu blog tips us to this book, a promise of cha cha, pica pica caliente-ness. What she said about it is here.

I really must stop eating gringo Oreos.

Ask a Mexican on YouTube

I want to have lunch with Gustavo. Watch his funny and true commentary on assimilation.

A Cookbook and Cubans, Cubans, Cubans Everywhere

Car'ai, this post was intended to be longer and poetic and maybe even funny, but I'm headed to Geek Squad con PDF problemas. Oy.

So, without the fluff, let me tell you about Marta's new Cuban cookbook. You know Marta from My Big Fat Cuban Family. If you don't. Go there now. Hang out, read and be happy you are Cuban, or wish that you were. Buy her fabulous cookbook. Give it as a gift, maybe coupled with one of her aprons and a mojito muddler. (Andy Garcia will have one soon.) Marta is in Southern California.

Next, because it is true there is a Cuban everywhere, let me tell you about A Cuban in London. I have no idea who he is yet, but tripped onto his site yesterday and spent more time than I truly have. It's beautifully written and the music and poetry he posts is wonderful.

And, while I have been reading Elsa Mora's blog for a while, I have failed -- I mean, really failed -- at posting a link from here. I am sorry to have deprived you, if you haven't already found her. Go look at her beautiful and creative art, her etsy shop and the amazing Oscar dress she designed for herself. Elsa is a multi-talented Cubanita in California with a Hollywood Husband.

Now, I am off, praying to los santos that this computer is not about to fry.
Enjoy the links.

Feliz Dia de las Madres

I hope you're all brunched up.

I received a hand-drawn card from Maria: She and I in a field with flowers and blue sky and a blue heart.
Her teacher took the dictation: "I love my mommy because I do different things with her: Folding towels, eating ice cream and more.''

Heart-breakingly delightful.

Last week, I told you about Violeta Garcia-Mendoza. Her column debuted today at Literary Mama. Give yourself a Mother's Day gift. Go read it.

Yoani Sanchez: Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World

Yoani Sanchez is quickly becoming a personal hero of mine. When I heard this story on NPR this morning, I could not stop smiling, could not stop shaking my head at her audacity and courage and smarts and big you-know-whats.

If you don't know about Sanchez, she's a Cuban in Cuba who blogs about Cuba -- with honesty and regularity, defying government regulation, censorship and blockage.

In Cuba most don't even dare tell their brother what they really think about the government, but the 32-year-old Sanchez tells the world. Her posts can get more than 1,000 comments. I believe she is educating the globe and inspiring change on the island. (I hope those who defend The Retired Bearded Dictator and his brother read her blog thoroughly.)

The Spanish newspaper, El Pais, gave her a prize for journalism, which the Cuban government did not let her go get this week. (Thank you to my Spanish friend, Raul, for correcting my original post. I had said it was the government who gave the prize).

And now, Time has named her among the 100 Most Influential People in the World.

I love her. I cheer her. I wish her safety. And freedom.

An interview in Spanish:

Loving what we do and links you'll love

When Oscar, my Pollitos partner, and I worked together in the newsroom we cracked each other up with the silliest of things – cubanisms, stuff our padres said, things non-Latin Southern friends said to us about Latins. We were, for a time, the only Latins in the editorial department, and perhaps the entire building of 2,000 people. Of course, we bonded.

When he moved to Philadelphia, it was as if my little brother had left home. I give regular thanks to Ma Bell and Al Gore for allowing us to stay in touch via phone and long cable. We are on the phone and on-line together a lot and we still crack each other up. It can get absurdly silly and giddy when we talk about future designs and big plans.

We love this. We love what we do. We love that we produce a sweet gift, a colorful slice of culture, available to all Latins and the people who love them and la cultura. (That’s a lot of people, despite what the news says about long walls and raids.)

So, my days are made especially joyful when a customer writes and shows us their pollitos in Pollitos. (Makes us realize we’re not just giddy, crazy people.)

This came last week from my Miami friend Amanda. Her beautiful cubanito wears the Fo!/Stinky tee well.

This week another customer wrote to share what she posted on her blog about her three children in Los Pollitos Dicen t-shirts. What I found was not only a lovely tribute, but a gifted writer whose work I will be reading regularly.

Meet Violeta Garcia-Mendoza, who writes at Multi-Culti Mami and whose new column will launch Sunday May 11 at Literary Mama. Here is a beautiful and moving column she wrote last year about adopting her babies.

So, now you see why I'm a giddy, crazy person who loves what she does?

Our customers are the best, the coolest, lo mejor.

Thank you for going on this ride with us.

Now you and Jennifer Lopez can have something in common...

Click over here and register to win a kinda-sorta-like-Jennifer's gift basket filled with celebrity-specific deliciousness. Contest ends March 31.

You guys go for the basket, I am going to hold off until I can kind-sorta get Jennifer's pre-baby body.

Smelling change

I have, I admit, become addicted to Yoani Sanchez's blog -- the Cuban woman in Cuba who writes about whatever the hell she wants. This morning, there was a link to a new one, Potro Salvaje (Wild Pony) -- a new blog giving Cuban bloggers tips on getting away with posting in internet cafes, getting tourists to help them post undercover, and they're linking to sites Cubans are officially banned from reading.

They call it a "virtual raft.'' So clever.

It smells like change.

It's amazing to me because during my trips to Cuba I met so many young people who just shook their heads, had no idea what to do, or how to do it, or what to do it with. (My last trip was in 1998, so not too much Internet access). One young man, whose father held an esteemed government position, said he trusted no one and therefore could not even bring up the subject of making change. Even your brother would turn you in if it meant getting something as reward.

Looks like brothers and sisters have joined forces.

Cuba by a Cuban in Cuba and what's up with those Y names.

My mom has a pretty hilarious childhood friend who tells great stories. She hasn't been in the states too long and so, lived most of her life under dictatorship. When I was in Miami in January she came to visit and had me both bent over in laughter, and head hung in sadness, with tales from Cuba.

This woman, like my family, is from Banes, a pretty little tip on the eastern side of the island. She told me men women and children trolled the beach daily looking for items that were either thrown off, or had fallen off, of freighters and cruise ships. Everything was put to use.

One time hundreds of Chinese straw mats washed ashore and everyone in town suddenly had new carpeting. Four apples (not found in Cuba) were collected once and the oldest person of the group, this woman's father, said he'd take the first bite. If he lived, everyone else could have a slice. They all lived. And the littlest ones tasted apple for the first and only time.

Empty jugs also were a common find, but she could never figure out why people kept those.

My mom's friend worked at the hospital filling out birth certificates. She helped talk a few guajiros out of odd names. Many she didn't: Danger, Sindulfo, Usnavy (Get it, U.S. Navy?), Katiuska, after a Russian rocket launcher.

Her favorite however was this story: A woman who had about five kids insisted the new baby's name start with a Y, as was a popular custom in Cuba in the '70s and '80s. They were mostly made up names like Yudislady, Yulieski, Yunio. But, the new mom couldn't figure out which name to pick, or how to make another one up.

"Yo ni se,'' she told my mom's friend. ("I don't know.'')
And then she quickly said: "Oh, that's nice! Let's do that one. Yonise.''

And so, Yonise aka "I don't know'' was named.

The point of this?

A friend last week introduced me to a blog written by a young Cuban in Cuba about Cuba. It is raw and honest. At least, I hope she's being honest and speaking from her own gut. The conspiracy theorists wonder if she's just a tool of the Revolution. It stands to reason, I guess, for many others have been jailed or killed for less. A lot less.

The blog is called Generation Y and the writer, Yoani Sanchez, says: "Generatión Y is a Blog inspired by people like me, with names that start or contain a "Y". Born in the Cuba of the 70s and the 80s, marked by the "schools to the countryside", the Russian cartoons, the illegal exits and the frustration. So, an invitation goes especially to Yanisleidi, Yoandri, Yusimí, Yuniesky and others that drag their Ys, to read me and write back."

Some posts have more than 800 comments. She's gotten international press and many, many hits.

My favorite of the posts I have read is this one, in which she searches all day for a lemon to make tea to soothe her sore throat. She didn't find one.

I hope she is real.

But, even if she isn't, the sentiment and longing and anger she displays is real.

The blog as an English translation button, by the way, and it's pretty good.

Batanga!

So, I thought I would tell you all about the dream in which I helped deliver Jessica Alba's baby.
But, no.

So, instead here's Batanga, a new discovery for me.
Maybe you all have already found Batanga, but news sometimes travels slowly to the Boonies. It is free Latin music, 22 music stations and music videos.

Kind of like Pandora for people with rhythm.

Oh, and a hurrah for the birth of Latin Royalty today.

Habla y Rie

I don't usually post twice a day, but I found these gems from HBO Latino and have been laughing and devouring them this morning. Um, yeah, I should be working, but this is more fun:

we can party:


latin lover:



we are a rainbow:



glorious gorditas:



latina bottoms:



spoken word. beautiful palabras:

No un Perez cualquiera. Un Perez Hilton.

At the age of 4, I got lost on Miami Beach. The adults went off to swim with the older kids and left me behind with my grandfather. The minute he fell asleep in a chair under a tree, I took off in search of the party. What my family did not yet know was that I already was blind as a bat. So, I got lost. I am not sure how long, but long enough for the cops to start a search.

My Tia and grandmother found me. I was calm as I recall, but that changed when my grandmother swung me around and swatted my bottom. Then she hugged me.

I imagine on many days that Mario Lavandeira's familia wants to swat him. And hug him. All at the same time.

If you don't know who he is, he's a Cubanito from Mi-yami who makes about a million bucks a year writing the nasty about celebrities. He calls himself Perez Hilton.

Read about him today's New York Times.

I read him daily. I confess.

Way to go, macho. And be grateful my abuela can't get at you.

A break from mopping ... for sex

Today, I am sparing you a ridiculously long post about how much I love my new mop. Breathe a sigh of relief too because I also am sparing you cultural pontification and perhaps some lame jokes about The Cuban Mop. You know that wooden T one with the ancient rag, or estropajo, slung over it.

To mop: Baldear.

My grandmother would grab that scary stick with great authority. She wielded it like a soldier would a sword. The terrazzo gleamed.

Ah cubanitos, can you smell the pinaroma?

Anyway, as I said, sparing you more.

Instead, I offer this sweet treat: sex and the beach.

If you haven't already spotted it in the links section, make some time in a comfy chair, maybe with a fruity drink, and prepare to have a naughty good time.

Please be sure to listen to "Manola's" Spanglish lessons. (Not PG) I first listened early in the morning when my family was asleep and thought I would rouse them from slumber by laughing so hard.

My particular favorite: a lesson on the Cuban "tiki tiki."

So much tiki tiki.

So, go now.

Me, back to Mopping Monday.