Monday, June 15, 2015

La Familia Esta Bien (The Family is Good)

There's no good reason to cook today.  We've eaten out both days of this weekend - last night at Bonefish and today at my in-law's home.  Cory is away for the weekend.  There is still some of the chili cockapitzy and most of the lasagna rolls.  I've been picking at the leftover mussels, and my mother in law sent us home with homemade chopped liver.  Finally, there's pastrami, and the sliced tongue.  Which brings up the need for sandwich bread.  Which creates the desire to bake bread.  Well, for me, maybe.  We don't need the bread immediately. We need crab fried rice.

If you like to eat in Bonefish, you have to try their crab fried rice, a new side dish.  There's an upcharge but it is so worth it. Rob had it with his ahi tuna yesterday and gave me a taste.  I will be attempting to recreate the dish in the next day or so.  I might eat a forkful.

Rob and I watch too many cooking and food-related television shows. I've come to that conclusion after sitting through several hours of Travel Channel's Paradise series, which has sparked a craving for chicken wings and loaded nachos.  I couldn't eat either one comfortably, but I can dream. Oh, chicken-fried steak and white gravy. Fried pickles. Damn. I really wish I could eat. When it came to dinner tonight, I knew I wouldn't be able to eat the lasagna roll because the spaghetti sauce is tomato based and tomato would surely burn a hole in my esophogus.  So I made half of a grilled cheese sandwich, ate half of that, and gave it back to the kitchen sink. Pauli Exclusion Principle. The only thing I've been able to eat, finish, and keep down was a macadamia-white chocolate chip cookie.  Good cookie. Tasty calories. Bad nutrition.

Today was a mixed day.  Mad back pain, and I had to use my cane for the first time in a while.  Spent a very nice afternoon with family, including an adorable little baby.

Rob's brother Ken; Dad; brother Charles; and Rob.


Rob's cousin Sheryl holding her (fifth!) grandchild; Sheryl's daughter, Stephanie; Sheryl's sister (and Rob's cousin) Cathi; and Mom. 

You gotta love stuff like this.  Well, I do.  Family is so fragile yet ever-changing, and nobody knows that better than me.  These pictures reminded me that when Robert and I first dated, Ken and Sheryl were seniors in high school, and Cathi even younger.


A long time ago, I stopped referring to Sheryl and Cathi as "Rob's cousins" and started calling them "my cousins."  Confused the hell out of my Uncle Marty, who was my mother's brother.  Hey.  Family is what you make it, by birth, marriage, adoption or even none of the above, like our nephew Eric.

Pay no attention to the redhead on the far right.

My cousin Sheryl, holding her newborn daughter Stephanie, along with her son Peter.

Family is so cool. So it made for a nice afternoon.  Later on, I couldn't eat and the Cleveland Cavaliers lost Game 5 of the NBA Finals, but I had a nice afternoon.  That's what I'm taking from the day.

Stephanie and Cory

The post title is from what I can only describe as an "eye worm".  One Spanish language dialog that I memorized in 1964, and can't get out of my head.  My friend and paralegal Brenda, who has been assisting me in my study of the Spanish language for a number of years, will still crack up laughing if I respond to her questions with a sentence from this damn dialog.  Somewhere out there are blog readers who know me from Lawrence Junior High School and also studied Spanish with Señora Lydia de Stier, a Jewish lady from Argentina.  They probably have the same eye worm, or at least enough of a recollection to crack up along with Brenda.

Que tal, como estas?
Estoy bien, gracias y tu?
Bien, gracias.  La familia, esta bien?
Si, señor, bastante bien.
Como estan Pablo y Luisa?
Pablp esta bien, pero Luisa tiene catarro.
Que lastima, lo siento.  Ojala que se mejore pronto!
Muchas gracias. Bueno, tengo que irme.
Entonces hasta luego.
Adios, recuerdos a todos.

Muchas gracias, Señora de Stier.  Some days I can't remember my telephone number, but I never forget this dialog.  El burro sabe mas que yo.

1 comment:

  1. I was thinking about that dialogue myself today and googled some of the lines to see if I could find the name of the book they came from. And I found your blog post! Thank you so much! I also learned those lines in 1963-64 in seventh grade in Pennsylvania.

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