My Mom

I was just sitting here, thinking about my mom. She's a really cool chick. She lives in South Florida with my dad in an "adult community." They retired for good about two years ago and spend their days swimming in the pool, going to the gym, driving around Miami Beach and visiting every doctor known to man (they are Cuban, therefore they are hypocondriacs). Now, the best thing about my mom is that she is ridiculously funny, but she has no idea just how funny she is. My dad is a whole other post - another day, I promise.

I married Mr. Gringo Extraordinaire. But he absolutely loves Cuban coffee. Now, for those of you that don't know, Cuban coffee is nothing like American coffee. Cuban coffee can be easily described as rocket fuel. And my hubby adores it. So my mom's connection with Mr. Gringo is coffee. I can hear my mother right now - "My-co, jew wanning coffee?" Her English is very broken and her accent is very thick, but her coffee making is genuine, especially for her son-in-law, "My-co". That's their connection; he loves the coffee and she loves making it for him.

When I was growing up, she was the typical Cuban mom. She was always all over me, embarrassing me, making sure I took my Vienna sausages to school for lunch in my Popeye lunchbox. Once, she even put ginger ale in my thermos. Imagine when I opened it - it was a complete disaster. But it was all love from her. She was awesome then (although I wasn't smart enough to know it) and she's awesome now (and I darn well know it, otherwise she'll beat me like she did when I was five years old!).