I Will Always Lub You; or, Crack is Whack

Things that make me happy.

1) Express shipment came today. Amongst the goods was a gigantic container of . . .

Legos that span two generations. Thinking about my husband as a little boy in Belgium and Germany, playing with some of these exact same pieces, makes me happy. They've lived in four countries now.

2) I love Communist Propaganda. You read that right. Every morning, one of the Cuban stations plays a very dramatic story about This Day in Cuban history. A lady reads the first part of the story, then sad music plays (violins! wailing violins!), followed by a squeaky-voiced child who reads the rest, and completed by a chorus of children re-telling the whole ordeal in musical form.  My Spanish isn't perfect, but I get the general idea. My favorite was the day they told the story of the "criminales" in Cuba. The criminals were the Spanish, of course, and the lady, the child, and the song told about how the Cubans got their independence from the horrible, no-good, filthy Spanish. (At least I think that's what they were saying. It IS propaganda, after all).

No mention of those other criminales, the ones of who took control of Guantanamo Bay a few years later and made it the oldest overseas US Navy Base. Hmmm.

The same station, a couple of weeks ago, was playing various Latin artists from all over the Spanish speaking world, and then, the announcer said this:
"Y ahora, Meeeese Whitney Houston, con 'I Will Always Lub You."
It's the first and only time I've heard American music on the Cuban radio station.

I lub it.

3) Speaking of Whitney "Crack is Whack!" Houston, she would approve of yet another thing I LOVE about Gitmo. When entering the NEX, you are greeted by this sign:

I really wish that once it got warm (over 60 degrees) in Texas, there was a way to enforce this rule there. Yes, for the entire state. It's so nice to be behind someone with a big behind, bending over to get (or, in the case of our Commissary, snatch) that last container of sour cream, that last stick of butter, or that last pack of bacon, and not have your eyes assaulted by Too Much Crack. We've all been there. Do you look away? Do you throw up a little in your mouth? Or are you so used to it, you don't notice anymore? So the moratorium on Too Much Crack is nice at Gitmo. It still doesn't mean that people don't cram themselves into too-tight yoga pants to do errands. You can't force people to have taste (or common sense). But at least it's a start. 

And before you think, "no freedom of expression!" on Gitmo, you should check out the high school kids with their crazy dyed hair, tattoos, and piercings. It's much less oppressive than most Texas schools. And amazingly, they do better on their standardized tests. Guess it's not too distracting after all. 

Go figure. 

4) Trying to live this motto . .

isn't always easy, but I'm trying. Especially after getting the first 750 lbs of household goods today ("Express Shipment," I'm thinking that's supposed to be an ironic title since it's taken almost 2 months to get here on the barge, instead of the 30 days via air as my orders state). In addition to our old stuff, got some new stuff today in the mail, including a case of Method Cucumber Cleaner today. Yep, a case of eight, that's EIGHT, beautiful bottles of household cleaner. It's been a long six-week wait from purchase to delivery, but I like what I like, and maybe Communist propaganda on the radio has infiltrated my brain, because I love cleaning my new house---but only with very specific cleaning products (most of which we don't have here). So I have a case of Method cleaner, a large bottle of Mrs. Myers Lavender Laundry Detergent (thanks to Amazon), and if Santa would send me a case of those eraser sponges, I'd be a happy cleaner.

And Tyler Durden isn't real, anywho, so who cares what he thinks.

5). G got his acoustic bass guitar early for Christmas. He's loving it. And I'm loving that I walked by his room today, and he was playing . . .

part of the soundtrack of my college years. And then I realized that he is only 3 1/2 years away from college and although that's a lifetime for a teenager, it's just a blink and a nod for me.