Launching another Spanish line or que locura

In the fall of 2004, I called Oscar and asked him if he wanted to design some T-shirts. It'll be easy. Simple, I said.

We laugh about that conversation a lot, as in "Remember when you said "easy?'''

Here's what I do -- and sometimes it feels like it is all done at once:

Accounting, Customer Service, Sales, Marketing, Public Relations, Purchasing, Contractor relations, Shipping and Receiving, Inventory-taker, Filler-outer of business paperwork, Seamstress, Sales show hawker. Several of these have sub-categories.

And there are a few other things that I have no title for, like cutting and placing designs on blank tees to figure out placement . Staff semi-crafter? Oh yeah, and critic. "Can you make that bigger?''

Oscar designs the Pollitos and all the art that it takes to run this business, including: Logo, letterhead, wholesale forms, business cards, banners, flyers. He also manages our Website and acts as critic for me. "Spice up that newsletter!''

I have a 3-year-old and a husband. I scrub my own toilets and sometimes I write freelance. Oscar has a full-time job and a hopping social life. He scrubs his own toilets too.

We both get tendinitis from too much computer and we both work hard at things we never dreamt we would be doing.

We're also both a little crazy.

We just bought a new URL to launch more Spanish T-shirts and gifts into the world.

Stay tuned for details.

But first, I just dropped the holiday exclusives at the screen printer. They'll be ready soon and I'll publish pictures when they hatch. They are the cutest, funniest, sweetest little Spanish T-shirts and we think you will love them.

So tell me, you want to start your own business?

Seriously, tendinitis be damned.

We're having fun.

You can too.

Flies and open bocas

Remember how I recently expressed concern my kid was being too chatty at school?

Well, here is what her teacher taught her (and supposedly, the others too):
"En bocas cerradas, no entran moscas.''

Flies don't enter open mouths.

Feel free to use it on your own chatty pre-schooler.

I'd rather eat ice cream, but this will do

Lots of things brighten a day:

Soft serve ice cream with sprinkles
Kissing baby toes
A new wholesale account

Today, here's mine: When the mammographer says all looks good. And despite the fact you are wearing only tiny, sterile nipple markers in a cold room, you're great. Conquer the World Great, in fact.

Last year, in this same place, I was on an exam table -- face down with my left mammary clamped through a hole -- as a needle whirred and sucked away at my tissue. In the end, all was good then too.

Gratitude.

Gratitude.

Gratitude.

(If you're over 40, or at high risk for breast cancer, have you scheduled your mammogram?)

And by the way, if you're here to read about business -- not boobs -- check out the three new links I posted under Women, Business and Blogs and Internet Marketing. All fabulous, honest and helpful. (Darby Works is the amazing husband of the amazing Marta from My Big Fat Cuban Family.)

Blogging in a small, small but secret little world

Turns out, the mom of the twins in the Pio Pio Pio tees I recently wrote about posted a picture on an international mommy message board and a link to my blog. She lives in another state. (Hello message-boarders!)

A friend from my local mom's group, and whose delicious son was the face of "Fo!'' on our first packaging style, is a member of that message board and saw the posting, so she posted the news to me on our private message board. I don't yet know if my local friend has stopped in here. (Have you?)

Not too long ago, too...another mom's group friend saw a write-up of Los Pollitos on a blog and sent me a note of congrats. If she followed the link to the writer's personal blog, she might have found a link to my blog. Maybe she did. Not sure. I haven't asked.

But, what a small world, huh?

The point: I don't really tell people I have a blog. Well, I've told a dozen or so. But, mainly I don't talk about it and if I do, I slip it in there quietly. On the sly.

Strange of me. Yes. (Oh, the wasted hits!)

Initially, the zipped lip was to allow myself time to figure out what the hell I was going to write about.
Then, it became an interesting game of "Let's see if they find me'' after my aunt in Miami discovered the Boonie Blog via Babalu all on her own.
Then, so much time passed it became kind of ridiculous to say "Oh yeah, I've been blogging for months.''

Oh yeah, yeah, there's more...A former newspaper colleague rolled her eyes at me when I told her I was "a blogger." That sealed it. Silence.

Why did she roll her eyes? I think people who get paid to write, people with backgrounds in "real'' news, have a tough time imagining that people without training (and battle wounds) in the coverage of bloody shootings or describing how a mushroom tastes in 42 different ways, have much to say.

And well, the truth is there is a lot of caca and a lot of crazy in the blogosphere. So, when I said "blogger'' she lumped me in there. Maybe. I'm mind-reading. Just remembering reporters chasing some story because some blogger threw it out there and it had no basis in reality. Bloggers can really mess with a newsroom. And of course, maybe there is a little envy that some of these famous for being bloggers bloggers are making more money than any newspaper journalist ever will.

But, whatever. It has been nice to grow regular readers organically. To find new friends, expand the business, and keep a corner of my world a little separate from the rest. Not even my husband reads this stuff.

So, if you know me in the flesh and stumbled here with no idea what the hell I have been up to....well, surprise and sssshhhh! Or not. Maybe it's time to litter my friends' in-boxes with Boonie Blog links. No se. It is bound to happen though. I just created a Facebook page. Soon, I'll be poking Everyone! How brave of me, no?

Chop Chop

Husband to daughter: "Hey, mommy wants to cut her hair short. What do you think of that?''
Daughter: "No, because then she'll be a boy and I will have two daddies.''

Needless to say, I spit rice all over the dining room table.

The hair is muy largo. Almost bag lady-ish long. "Greñas" as my mother would call it. The desire is in me to chop it all off and start fresh. 40 and fresh. I've done it before, several times actually, but every time lately I am convinced to chop chop, I remember that I may start needing to hide my neck soon. And, I will look even less like my style idol Kate Spade. We'll see tomorrow what the young genius who cleans me up a few times a year has to say.

The decision would probably be less complicated if I was a Daddy, for sure.

Work, 0; Pants-off, 1

When the house was quiet last night, I grabbed the laptop and zoomed into research mode: looking for new suppliers, researching hot colors, reading business inspiration.

All good and worthy ways to spend a Saturday night. Ahem. When you're 40.

The problem was that my research was done in front of the TV and there was a Pants-Off Dance -Off marathon. It was like watching a train wreck. Repelled, but yet not. Ashamed, but here I am admitting it.

Maybe I need to get rid of the cable.

Keep an eye here for news about the Los Pollitos Dicen limited-edition Spanish Holiday onesies and t-shirts. (Hence, color research)

No elves, no ornaments.

Just chicken.

Pants-less chickens.

It is Twins Week at Los Pollitos Dicen

These photographs and a note arrived a few days ago. Their cool mama and I exchanged a few lovely e-mails about tees, work, and babies before she ordered. Here are three of the pictures of her sweet little chickies in their Pio Pio Pio tees.

See why I love my job?

"I tried so hard to get a great picture of the girls together in their shirts for you. As you can see, all I ended up with is hilarity. The first couple are what happens now when I say 'smile for the camera.' The last one is the best I could manage. But I swear they really love the shirts and they walk around saying "pio pio pio!" Thanks for making such awesome shirts. I love the little boxes, too - just the right size for crayons and stuff!''

Often, I have told people I feel like the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. My mother and I look so much, and sound so much, alike that it is a little freaky. Witchy, even. When Maria was in utero I knew she would pop out and look the same. She did, right down to the crazy head of hair and fold in her earlobe. (I would show you, but my scanner is having a bad day.)

A while ago, I read a quote attributed to Adrienne Rich in a book called The Mother Dance: How Children Change Your Life by Harriet Lerner: "Probably there is nothing in human nature more resonant with charges than the flow of energy between two biologically alike bodies, one of which has lain in amniotic bliss inside the other, one of which has labored to give birth to the other. The materials are there for the deepest mutality and the most painful estrangement.''

I read it several times over. It stuck with me and described the mother dance in my own clan. The three of us look-alikes push and pull at each other. If my grandmother were alive it would be the four of us, for sure. Push and pull. Enchant and enrage. Boss and bow. It is exhausting. And yet, without these two people -- the one who labored for me and the one I labored for -- life would not be as rich. Or interesting.

Today is my mother's 65th birthday.
Happy Birthday, Mami.
I love you.

Of stewed mice and gluttonous flies

I borrowed a book of Latino stories and fables hoping it would give me some inspiration and new material for Maria's 3-story bedtime crack habit. Thank goodness I scanned it before she saw it. Probably should have scanned it before I borrowed it, but hurry is hurry and fools are protected.

Here's some of what is between the covers:

There's one Cuban "Fairy Tale''about a little cucaracha called Ms. Martinez. She gets marriage proposals from all sorts of animals because she smells so good. After several turn-aways, she marries a mouse, Mr. Perez. When Ms. Martinez is at market, Mr. Perez the mouse goes to stir the pot and falls in.
And so it ends:
"Mister Perez
fell into the hot,
because he would not
go without a taste from the pot!
And now this little bug
cannot stop her cries and is sour,
because she will never get another hug
hour after hour.''

How my 3-year-old might hear it: "Damn, she's right. I'd better stay away from that stove.''

And then there is the "Sparrow and the Hare."
A rabbit gets snatched up by an eagle. A mean-spirited sparrow flies alongside and makes fun of the captured hare. Of course, he is so busy being un descarado that he doesn't see the hawk coming. The rabbit says : "He deserves it!''
And then in ital, the lesson: "Do not make fun of another's misfortune, you could one day find yourself in a similar situation.''

How my 3-year-old might hear it: "Be a bad girl and you disappear. More like this and I really am going to need therapy.''

A short about flies. Emphasis mine:
"Two thousand flies swarmed a honeycomb and there, as a result of their excess THEY DIED -- their legs IMPRISONED by their feast. Another, inside a pastry buried his craving. But so it is, if you study the matter closely: Human hearts perish when they fall prisoner to the vice that draws them in.''

How my 3-year-old might hear it: "So, no more chocolate kisses?''

Gorditos

Proud parents often send us photos of their beautiful children wearing Pollito t-shirts. Here is the latest one, sent by the Mami of these gorgeous 4-month-old twins.

Pictures like these, and the lovely notes, make the hard work worth every second.

Estan para comerselo!

First Parent/Teacher Conference

We met with la nena's teacher today.
She started off by saying: "What can I tell you about Maria that you don't already know?''
She smiled broadly.
I wiggled in the tiny chair.
We spent a half-hour listening to how lovely, focused and smart our daughter is -- in both of her languages.

When I was a kid, I dreaded Parent/Teacher conferences. I knew my mother would come home with a warning that I'd better stop talking and start listening, o si no! Eventually, I learned to listen. I was, after all, a professional listener and watcher in the years I worked in newsrooms. But, the chatty, de pena, has never gone away.

Maria had told us a week or so ago that she got in trouble for talking too much and was not allowed to go outside to play. I flashed back to my own classroom chattiness (and teacher notes). Urgh. Not again, I thought. Why does she have to be like me in that way?

Turns out she was told to quiet down, but she did go outside to play. She's never caused trouble and she's not disruptive, her teacher said. Hurray. Maybe I didn't pass that gene down.

But, as the teacher described our child, I saw parts of her father: Detailed, task-oriented, goal-oriented, physical. And, there was me: Verbal, social, not afraid to raise her hand. (And, I would add that at home: Pain in the arse aveces, just like Mami).

I left there proud, of course. Amazed by how much we, as her parents, have passed on to her in her nearly 4-years of life. But the meeting also stands, for me, as a great reminder that she is who she is regardless of us too. Far from us each day, she has learned new ideas, made new friends, asked questions, danced, painted, sung. She's even gotten her feelings hurt and bruised a knee.

She is growing into who she is meant to be. We've only contributed dashes of seasoning and spice. I just feel pretty lucky to be along for the ride.

Simply Delicioso

I don't run into too many Cubanitos from Miami here in the Boonies on a regular basis, but this weekend I did. Met two muchachos at a local celebration of cultures fest this weekend. One guy lived in Louisville, the other guy lived here. Exiles of a different sort, si?

Anyway, it is always nice to run into your tribe.

And while Ingrid Hoffman is Colombiana, not Cubana, listening and watching her on her new show, Simply Delicioso, on the Food Network yesterday, I got all warm and fuzzy for the Miami accent, bright colors and fabulous ceviche she cooked up. And, they filmed part of it on the beach. Break my heart.

La Ingrid will now be fighting for time in the DVR with Diego and Monday Night Football.

Tonight, I am cooking a vegetarian rice pilaf. (Fighting las libras!) So not very tropical. Pero oh well.

Target: You

Today is the last day for the Hispanic Heritage Promo at Target.com. But, we're there until they sell out.

Need a baby gift?

They're carrying our sweet Gordito and Gordita bibs and white Pio Pio Pio onesies, which are not available through our own on-line shop.

And muchas gracias to all the cyber friends who wrote about our onesies being featured on Target this week. We are indebted. Seriously.

I just Cane't

I made myself watch Cane again.

Que paquete.

I’m not even going to get into the fact the main character (Jimmy Smits) is a murderer, or that the balsero sounds like he has marbles in his mouth, or that ew, the main Cubanita marries her adopted brother. I just want to let the Cane writers know that this ain’t no Cuban family drama.

You want Cuban family drama? (Forgive me while I stereotype my people…) How’s this:

The under-age niña going off to the nightclub without a chaperona? Por favor. And then she does ecstasy and her uncle finds out, but doesn’t give her a shake right then, drag her over to her madre and send them both home? There would be yelling and arm-waving and threats of boarding school for days. For days!

Hector Elizondo’s patriarch character hands the reins over to his son and lets him make all the multimillion-dollar decisions. Really? While there is still breathe in him? Cuban fathers are made of opinions. Letting go isn’t really in the DNA. And if the character was based on a real Cuban, he also would have given that snotty younger son quite the verbal palisa.

And finally, I have yet to see Rita Moreno say an “Ay, Dios Mio’’or “Bendito” Listen, if it was my mother’s grandchild who was going off to fight in Iraq, she’d be santiguando the boy and lighting candles to all the saints. She also hasn’t nagged, martyred or slapped anyone upside the head. ¿Que pasa with that?

And seriously, where’s all the screaming? And the laughing. We are funny, you know.

So, Cane people, call me…I have alotta material for ju.

We don't have that many cousins...

So, Oscar -- the good-looking, creative genius who designs Los Pollitos -- has five sisters. Five.Cuban.Sisters. When his family heard the Pio Pio Pio onesies sold out in a day, The Sisters called and said they suspected one particularly supportive sister bought up the whole lot.

She didn't.

But, we have laughed like hell at the thought.

Our families love us and support our venture. Our friends are equally amazing and encouraging. But, even we don't have enough cousins to cause the 24-hour sell out.

The Gordito and Gordita bibs, by the way, have sold out too.

What a ride.

We're restocking The Red Hot Shop, so check back soon. And send links to the amigos, por favor.