Yankee War Candles and Cuban television; or, From South Korea to GTMO

I've done a great job of only buying what we need at the NEX in preparation for summer vacation next week.

But how can you resist a cute 8 y/o boy who tells you that your GTMO special, well, stinks, and you need a Yankee Candle car air freshener for it?

A friend in Germany has observed that those Yankee car air fresheners seem to be EVERYWHERE on overseas American bases and used by a large number of Americans. It's true---you can't avoid them---there is always an end cap of them on display. Son 2 picked up the following air freshener and said, "Look mom, it's a Yankee War Candle! It smells like war!! Let's get the War Candle!"

Nothing says "Patriotic!" like a candle air freshener
that smells like "Midsummer's Night." 

So that's how I ended up with a really smelly War Candle hanging from the mirror of Pearl.

Even though I'm not in Pearl but a few miles a day (it's a very, very small base), I do manage to listen to Cuban radio every chance I get. Sometimes they surprise me with American music, like Whitney Houston ("I will always lub you"). About a week ago, I took Son 2 to Glass Beach and on the 15 minute stretch from the house, we listened to part of an album by Coldplay.

I'm sort of "eh" about Coldplay, but I did like that the Cuban station was playing an album in its entirety. If you are old enough to remember 1970s radio, you remember when stations would play side one of a record album, pause to turn the record over---the DJ perhaps saying a few words during the break---then continue with the entire second half. It's how I first heard Led Zeppelin as a kid (thank you ZZQ in Jackson, Mississippi).

A few days later, my Cuban station was playing Bon Jovi's "Slippery When Wet." It was a nice slice from high school so I took the long way home (still only 15 minutes or so), and sang "Living on a Prayer" at the top of my lungs, much to the annoyance of my 8 year old in the back seat.

A few days later, I tuned in to my now-favorite Cuban station, and what album are they playing?

Something by Michael Bolton.

Michael freakin' Bolton.

Ugh. So much for Cuban radio.

H has an ancient television set in his bedroom that my husband picked up in South Korea when he was stationed there way back in 1995. It works great and is small enough to fit on a dresser, so he watches movies on it. Unlike our new television sets, his also has an antennae, so it picks up Cuban television. He comes home every day excited about what's on "my Cuban t.v.," as he calls it. Most days after school it's Garfield (en español, !Claro que sí!), but oftentimes it's the news or beísbol, the Cuban national sport.  The husband has taken it to work so he can watch the World Cup on it since they don't have cable t.v. there.

Yanks (Americans, not the Candles) watching a Cuban television station broadcast of Argentina and Switzerland playing fútbol on a South Korean produced television. . . sometimes you just have to love how things work out in this crazy world.