Cafe Solórzano...made with love.

I'd like to introduce you to some amazing coffee.  I would really like to be able to tell you where to buy it, but this coffee is so exclusive, so hand-crafted, so artisanal, that I'm afraid it wouldn't be in your budget.  But, you can dream, right?

We made five cups of coffee from the beans off of one tree that my father's uncle Octavio had given him before he passed away.  It was good to the last drop!

Eclipse in Nicaragua

The new blog header pic is from the parental back yard.  Nice, no?

First day in Nicaragua is surreal.  Wake up and have banana and papaya for breakfast.  Shower.  Go to the dentist to get teeth cleaned for twenty bucks.  Come back for lunch.  Read through a stack of student work.  Take a few pics of the flora in the back yard.  Stalk a hummingbird.  Make a mental note:  will try to get a pic of a hummingbird, but this will be an ultimate challenge.

Watch parental units in their natural habitat and wonder how is it that Dad has stopped aging?  Somewhere along the line, he just stopped.

Observe parental units in their natural dynamic.  Mom talk, talk, talking.  Plan, plan, planning.  Dad saying, Nay.  No.  Uh-uh.  Somehow it works.  Think about relationships and the whole opposites attract thing.

Read more student work.

Take a break.  Go with Mom to a carne asada joint on the highway.  La Diabla.  Risk life and limb to get said carne asada.  (No real parking.  So you pull up along the shoulder and look for a safe moment to jump out of the car.)  It´s worth it.  Share gallopinto and carne asada and platanos maduros fritos and cabbage salad and pico de gallo with Mom and Dad.

Finish reading student work.  Enter grades.

Look at part of the eclipse.  Watch the corner of the moon dissappear.

Think about the coming new year and all the stuff that´s happened this year.  Wonder, have I learned enough?  Wonder what´s next?  Wonder what it must have felt like many moons ago to look up and see the moon begin to dissappear; eaten by some invisible monster; erased by an invisible hand?  Have faith that the moon will return. 

Go to bed.  Tomorrow, the beach!

Johnny Joo-man was a Huevo

One of my father’s favorite stories about his son,William, involved a television show about a cowboy named Johnny Joo-man. The story involved my dad singing the television theme song as his son did and then as himself. I’ve heard the beginning of this song so many times that it holds a special place in my heart even though I did not grow up watching the TV show. Once, I went to some underground comic film fest and in the midst of some older television snippets they played a few seconds of the song and my ears perked up and my whole body strained to capture it all in my head. I felt this sense of recognition that made me nostalgic for something I never experienced first hand from the source. But the clip was short and the effect was fleeting.

Now with the wonder of the Internet, I have seen the opening credits of the show and some episodes on YouTube. But I didn’t find it right away because I didn’t know how to spell Johnny Joo-man. It certainly couldn’t be spelled how it sounded. There never was a Hollywood cowboy called Jew-man spelled J-E-W-M-A-N, was there? Or J-O-O-M-A-N? After a couple of searches I found it and as with many little things involving my father’s stories, it made sense. The show was called Johnny Yuma, Y-U-M-A and the theme song was sung by Johnny Cash.

The way my dad tells it, William, his second born son, liked to watch that show. He’d be decked out like a little cowboy with his hat on and his holster around his hips with the toy guns. (It was the tale end of the 50’s. But I was born in 69 and even though I was obviously a girl there is a picture of me at around age 3 bare-chested with a cowboy hat on and a holster and gun set sitting on a rocking horse. Yea dad.)Anyway, according to dad, William was very skinny; so skinny that his holster would slide down his hips and onto the floor. Remembering this would make my father laugh and shake his head at skinny little William.

So dad punches a hole in the holster so it can fit snug so William could be a proper cowboy.

One day William began loudly singing the theme song. “Johnny Joo-man was a huevo!”

My dad started cracking up. He interrupted the singing. “Johnny Joo-man was not a huevo. Johnny Joo-man was a rrebol.” William, ornery cowboy that he was, got annoyed. “Joo feo, daddy.” was his very clever retort.

But when the song came on for the show, William was obviously listening more carefully, because this time he heard Johnny Cash sing clearly, “Johnny Yuma was a rebel,” and he turned around stunned and said, “Joo right, daddy.” So I know the moment when my brother learned the difference between the English word rebel and the Spanish word for egg.