El Gringoqueño

Jaimito was such a doll today. What a sweet sweet darling little child he is. I love spending time with him.

This morning I was preparing breakfast when I cut my thumb while sharpening a knife. I was rushing because the skillet was hot, and I wanted to get that chorizo in there quick. Cold chorizo is a pain to cut when the knife isn’t razor sharp.

There’s a famous Spanish proverb:

When your blade is dull and your chorizo is cold, defeat will follow you wherever you may go.

Or maybe I shouldn’t read Sun Tzu’s, Art of War while drinking. Anyway, feel free to use it as a personal philosophy.

Blood went everywhere. I grabbed a paper towel and proceeded to apply pressure and hold it over my head. Jaimito looked concerned. Daddy, what’s happening? Are you okay, he seemed to say?

Drat drat. I was also trying to get Jaimito’s breakfast. He wasn’t complaining, so I went searching for a band-aid and some super glue. Super glue makes a nice field expedient suture. I found the super glue, and was trying to wrest the top off, yield, damn you, yield! Blood started going everywhere again as I tried to work the vice-grips on the diminutive glued shut stupid, stupid!! arrgh. Geez, stupid tube. I tossed it in the trash.

Sigh, I grabbed Jaimito’s plate and served it to him, poured him some juice. “Daddy, has a boo boo,” I explained. He looked concerned and a little scared, so I smiled and went to look for another tube of super glue.

I found it. The bleeding had stopped, and I patched my sliced, julian thumb. Now, I needed a band-aid. Where are those damn things?! A-ha. I found them. Scoobie-doo will have to do. Now Jaimito was getting into it. “Scoopi doo” he informed me, pointing.

Later in the day, I asked him if he wanted to kiss my boo boo to make it feel better. He looked a little apprehensive, so I explained that kisses make boo boo’s feel better. “Remember when I kissed your little toes this morning when you stubbed them, little man?” He stopped and thought for a little bit. I could see the courage and bashfulness at odds right on his face. He was pondering his next move. Then he suddenly grabbed my thumb and kissed it. I gave him a big huge hug and thanked him for his cure and that my thumb felt much better, thank you. He grinned from ear to ear and buried his face in my chest, patting my shoulder.

Jaimito, leaned his elbow on the window of his truck. It was going to be a long day. He was glad he’d gotten up at the crack of dawn, gathered up his crew and shoved off in the twinkle of new light. He’d roared out over the road in his shiny yellow dump truck, loaded with blocks. He had more blocks than he could haul in one vehicle, so he loaded the excess in a smallish VW beetle, cramming them in through the windows and hatch until there was room for only the driver. He had to get the materials to the project site, and Jaimito was a resourceful fellow. “Can’t be done” was a phrase not in his vocabulary.

The road in the early morning was twisted and bumpy. He down-shifted and roared over a rump shaped mound. He smiled and let out a yip. The morning did that to you, filled you up with so much optimism that even small victories were cause for celebration. The way was filled with craggy opportunities for victory, and Jaimito passed the time pretending that each bump was a great and wondrous obstacle, fitted especially for him to conquer.

Upon arrival at the work site, Jaimito and his crew set about unloading the blocks, and staging them strategically. It became apparent immediately that there was a problem with the grading. There was a large bump where the plans required a level surface. This was not going to do.

“We’re going to need to move this earth!” Jaimito exclaimed. “Let’s get these things out of here.” Large pillow like rocks were quickly dispatched to lower ground. “Hmm, we still have a problem with this giant vein of protruding bedrock here,” he said aloud. Time to get the rock pulverizers.

This was fun work. Crushing rock had to be the best job on the planet. He imagined he was a large ancient elemental force and with a whoop and a holler, the rock crumbled before his hydraulics and explosives. Where others saw obstacles, Jaimito saw opportunities, and where there was drudgery, Jaimito made fun. Perhaps it was no coincidence that his crew was the most productive, the most motivated.

“Okay, men,” he exclaimed. “We’re all through, go ahead and leave the vehicles and material where they are. We’ll get an early start tomorrow.” And with that they headed home leaving the shiny yellow dump truck, and the yellow VW Beetle and the blocks behind in the cleared area where he had dispatched the giant rock.

or, "Hanging out in a European Café."

Laura and I had an early morning meeting at a Cyber Cafe here in Puerto Rico, in Rio Piedras. We arrived early because traffic was light due to the day of remembrance for President Ronald Reagan. What are we going to do for half an hour in Rio Piedras, we asked ourselves?

"You know it kinda feels like we’re in a small European town square," Laura remarked.

"Yeah," I said, "If you cover your eyes, your ears, your nose, and your sense of aesthetic." I chuckled at my own joke. Laura didn’t laugh. I repeated it in a lame attempt to get a smile at least. She giggled slightly.

Then, in her ever indomitable spirit of can-do, she stated, "Let’s see if there’s a coffee shop." We took a couple of steps up the block, passed a stray dog, a homeless man, a coin operated laundry mat, and abandoned our search.

"Hmmm, Europe, you say?" I chuckled again.

"Let’s check behind this street. I ambled off at Laura’s heels like the dutiful dog that I am. It was eight in the morning and already it was hot. I began to sweat as we walked across a large parking lot to an adjacent street. "Hey, this looks promising," Laura said, nodding toward a corner café.

"Yeah and as we walk in, I hope we don’t startle the grizzled old woman as she finishes her cigarette in her nightgown." It looked like that kind of place.

Once we stepped inside, the atmosphere changed. Gone were my visions of an old woman in her pajamas with a shotgun and a cigarette clenched between her teeth. No, they were replaced by the cold grim reality of a couple of college kids in a sparsely established tiny corner student hangout dump.

"Well, we’re here, I guess. What should we have?" I mused. I checked out the selection. "Let’s get quesitos and coffee. That okay with you?"

"Sure." I ordered two expresos (that’s espresso in Spanish for you snobs out there), and two cream cheese pastry rolls. We scoped out a clean table near a window with decent chairs and sat down. We were then next to the street in front of a large glass window. As the second homeless man passed, Laura remarked.

"Don’t you just have the feel of a European café nestled here against the window gazing at the street?" She started to laugh.

"You know I like hanging out with you, Laura. We should do these mini dates more often. I’m having fun in my European café."

Laura started laughing harder and a tear formed in her eye. "And you know if we put chairs out on the sidewalk we could drink in the rich aroma of urine." She started to lose it in a giggle fit, mascara streaming down here face.

With a flick of my wrist and a wistful French flourish I sighed, "Aahh," and sat back in an artful recline. Laura could not contain herself as she turned into a hapless puddle of giggles and tears. She could barely sip her coffee and eat her pastry. We commented on the buildings, how wonderfully artful they were, with their square corners covered in mold and pealing paint, and their imaginative shapes, concrete boxes stacked one on top of each other for as far as the eye could see.

"This is the life," I said. "An eternity of European cafes couldn’t replace this one moment I’ve spent with you, my dear."