Cristina's Dress

OH, darn! Either I'm not techno-savvy enough--or my cell phone is a Pleistocene-era (!) dinosaur: I can't present you with a picture of Cristina's dress (as I was getting ready to hand it over to the little consignment shop near my old home). Regardless, here's another Ninina and Panni (blog) piece I feel I must share with you:

Thursday, April 27, 2006
Cristina's Dress



Pompano Beach, 1993-1996. A week after moving into the Post Crossing apartment complex, I was at my door, with some dresses I had just picked up at Loehmann's slung over my shoulder, when I first spotted my next door neighbor. I have much to say about this lovely lady, who passed away on March 11, 2006. Let me begin my tale by telling you about

Cristina's Dress

Some time during November 8, 1999, I’d found myself abstractedly packing for a farewell journey of my own. My mother had had a stroke; I was about to get on a plane from DC down to Miami for what at some very deep level I knew would be for a very long time.
What to pack? What to pack? I kept asking myself. Into CP Shades at the time, I threw every linen pant, jacket, and shirt, and every short-sleeved knit, I had into my suitcase. November in Florida, after all, was a very different beast from one in the nation’s capital.
Almost everything was black. Not out of mourning, but, just because, to my then forty-five year old mind, I’d finally learned how to dress. So of course I also had a suitable black dress that could double as…no, I didn’t want to think about that at the time. A DKNY short-sleeved knit, with Donna Karan’s signature built-in body suit, I plopped it into the suitcase.
The next day I began my new life.
Cristina was among the few with whom I spoke on a regular basis over the next few weeks, during the watching and waiting on the sidelines, oh so difficult, that almost everyone has to go through at least once in a lifetime.
I agreed to visit her. After I’d left Pompano in 1996, she’d even surprised me with phone calls while I was in Ithaca, and I’d visited her in her new apartment at Post Crossing after her son had remarried. However, I’d had to cancel at least one visit, due to—no other way to put it—difficult visits with my mother.
She’d understood, though I’m sure she wished it were otherwise. Ana and Cristina had met in 1993. Cristina had really liked my mother, calling her, “a real lady.”
It wasn’t until my June 1999 visit with Mami that I finally had a peaceful visit with her. (This, however, belongs to another piece, at another time…)
Pine Crest was still holding its holiday alumni reunion parties at the Mai-Kai at the time. In the midst of my grief, shock, and pain—they were taking turns, at the time—I, somehow, said yes to this function, which was being held about three and a half weeks after my mother’s November 28 passing.
So right before Christmas, 1999, I put on my black dress, stockings, my ubiquitous Mary Janes, and—oh, yes—a necklace. I’d managed to pack an Impostors multi-tiered small-beaded black number in my suitcase, too.
I headed up to Pompano in my spanking-new red Jetta, dressed all in black, partly out of mourning, and partly out of…what?
Visiting Cristina first, she was pleased to see me all dressed up. She found the dress flattering; the necklace, the perfect complement to the outfit.
“You should always wear this black dress when you go out. You’ll never go wrong in it,” she said, her voice rising with knowing glee.
Truth is, I’d wanted to see her, but I hadn’t been sure about the Mai-Kai. She talked me into it, though: I went, and I had a fair enough time.
Since then, my black staple has more often than not been this black dress. Cristina’s Dress.
For the complement to mourning is life.
And this is what my friend and former neighbor, Cristina Urzua Bernsley, tried to teach me throughout our thirteen years of friendship.

Rest In Peace, Dear Friend
Thursday, April 13, 2006

Hats (2009)

Friday, September 22, 2006
Hats




My grandmother, Ilonka (Ileana) Mezey Raab; and my grandfather, Zoltan Raab.

What did the High Holidays mean in Arad, Hungary (after WWI, Romania) for members of the Raab family? It meant hats: my grandmother always bought a new hat, Panni used to tell me. And perhaps my grandfather did, too? (Or at least he wore one to services: not a yarmulke; not one of those furry ones that the Hasidim do. But, definitely, a hat.) I don't know if Panni and Agi (my Aunt Agnes) did...but I think I remember Panni telling me that they got new clothes--perhaps, a new coat?

I didn't grow up observing the High Holidays; it was fifteen years ago that I attended my first services. And I've tried to, since then, though it has not always been easy (and with synagogues being so packed in South Florida, there's no guarantee I'll get to go this year). But at least I'm aware of them; of what roughly goes on at services; the special meals (and lack therof); the sounding of the Shofar at the beginning of Rosh Hashanah...and, again, at the end of Yom Kippur; the Yizkor part of the service Yom Kippur afternoon, which was especially difficult to get through in 2000; and, in general, how this time of the year marks both beginnings and endings.

Traditions. Whether in South Florida or in Arad: food; clothes; hats.

Happy New Year!

In Washington, D.C. now--Yom Kippur Day, Monday, September 28, 2009. And, thanks to my old Cathedral neighbor/friend, I was able to attend the Kol Nidrei service last night: truly the most beautiful of the services! Later today I shall return for Yizkor. Thanks again, Suzanne!

L'shanah tovah

Y ahora viene...Panni's and Pepi's Paris!

You gotta know where I come from, guys--Panni is second row from top, six from the left:

PANNI’S AND PEPI’S PARIS

BY GEORGINA MARRERO

For me, Paris is synonymous with the two most important persons in my life: my parents. Anna “Panni” Raab met Federico Efrain “Pepi” Marrero in a medical school class at the University of Paris’ Faculty of Medicine sometime in the mid-1930’s. At the time, people “group” dated, or so my mother told me, so I’m not quite sure when they began to formally date. By 1940, though, they knew each other well enough that my father either sent for or went to pick my mother up in the South of France, they traveled via Orleans to Lyon, and married in the mayor’s office there on December 31, 1940.
My parents’ stories about their years in Paris shaped me. Their stories about forty francs being the equivalent of one American dollar; about a paper cone’s full of French fries costing four to five francs (and that was dinner). About students gathering in the Luxembourg Gardens: I have pictures of them doing just so. About Henri Bergson giving lectures that were so packed that the best my mother could hope for was to strain to hear through the open door. About how he presented himself as a Jew before the Nazis when they occupied Paris.
Those were very difficult times. My mother defended her thesis eight days before the Occupation. And then she fled to Vichy France. As for my father: well, with a middle name like Efrain, his professor, Clovis Vincent, wanted to keep a close eye on him. It just so happened Vincent was a great French patriot, decorated during the First World War. So he ingeniously gathered all his residents together to serve at the Pitie Hospital under the auspices of his “Neurosurgical Wartime Service.”

One of the residents, a man named Rabinowitz, escaped at least several times from detention camps, and eventually made his way to Canada.
For the record, when Princess Diana was rushed to the Pitie and Salpetriere Hospitals after her fatal car crash, my mother’s comment was: “That’s the best place to treat head injuries.” No two ways about it: my mother would have known.
My mother’s strength may have ebbed and flowed, but her stories never wavered. After her death, I had the good fortune to speak with one of her best friends, a fashion designer named Kati Cohn, who filled in many gaps. According to Kati, the Hungarians went to France to study, she said, because they were “freer” there. They were not held back… just because they were Jewish.
Young, carefree, (perhaps?) in love – and she never studied, according to Kati. Panni joined Kati and her crowd at the cafes every afternoon. When did she study, we both mused out loud. She graduated, though, producing a thesis on Nietzsche and Psychiatry. And, oh, yes: she once cooked a veal steak on the back of an iron!
As for Pepi, he studied very hard, yet found time to play ball with his fellow Cuban classmates. He also cooked chicken and rice: hard for me to believe, later on. He had to wash his own clothes, and, at one point, had to do with very little money, for someone had stolen his stipend. I guess that’s when those French fries came in handy.
My father’s passion was neuropathology, so he hit pay dirt when a very eminent Spaniard fled to Paris during the Spanish Civil War. This man, Don Pio del Rio Hortega, guided my father’s thesis. My father dedicated it to him.
Did they have fun? They all had fun, according to Kati.

In the midst of all the storm clouds brewing, yes, they did.
They were young, carefree, and – perhaps – falling in love.
If the following is not an example of young love, then I don’t know what is: According to my mother, she once stumbled into Vincent’s operating room, tripping over wires, and whatnot. The Great Man – a big, hulking French peasant – turned, glowered, and asked Panni: “Mademoiselle, what are you doing here?”
“I’m searching for Monsieur Marrero,” my mother responded. She proudly continued, “He’s supposed to be operating.”
Monsieur Vincent tersely replied, “Go to the sub-basement. You’ll find Monsieur Marrero there.” Sure enough, my father was operating… on bedsores.
As a teenager, I went to Paris, where I spent time with my mother’s cousin and his wife, who’d been made to wear the Star of David during the Occupation. Their daughter’s married to a devout Roman Catholic.
A little later on that summer, my mother came to join me. I’d wanted to go running off to Scotland to do who knows what after finishing my language course in Tours. In a panic, my father had sent her over.
Still highly energetic, my mother marched me up and down the streets of Paris, pointing out this, that, everything. She took me to the oldest restaurant (Le Procope), and the cheapest (Le Bouillon Chartier), where a waiter taught me how to eat an artichoke.
A rebellious child of the times, all I did was fuss, fret, protest, and complain… all the way to the Folies Bergere. Even then, however, I sensed the enormous bond my mother had with her lifelong best friend and her Cuban husband, a bon vivant who’d married the peppy little Frenchwoman, never again giving a second thought to the medical career that had brought him to Paris in the first place, as it had my father.
After she passed away, I braved a cold, damp Paris holiday season to visit with our relatives. I also spent many wonderful hours with her best friend’s now widowed husband. He’d known Efrain for even more years than he’d known Anita. I returned once more, four months before 9/11, when I got to see him for the last time.
I’m bound to return to Paris, and to enjoy The City of Lights more and more in my own right. However, for me, this beautiful, carefree, romantic city will always be… Panni’s and Pepi’s Paris.
Copyright, 2005 by Georgina Marrero 992 words All Rights Reserved

La Loquita del Zig-Zag Aterriza

(Encima, como una artista espanola--muy especial--interpreto a la vision de La Loquita del Zig-Zag. Mil gracias otra vez, Ana, donde sea que te encuentres!)

Y no puedo no incluir a esto, la inspiracion para todo el cuento de La Loquita del Zig-Zag:

LA LOQUITA DEL ZIG-ZAG ATERRIZA

POR NININA MAMEYEZ

Hola! Me llamo Ninina Mameyez. Tengo cuatro anos. Vivo en una casa MUY grande! Creo que tiene algo que ver con – AR, ARTE DECO. Que es eso? Tiene dos pisos. Tiene una terraza – por que se llama así? Tiene que ver con la tierra? Paseo mi bicicleta por toda la casa. A mi tata no le gusta: ella me pellizca. No sé por que. Peo – uh, oh! – pero, a mi mami y a mi papi no le importan.
Mi mami vino de la luna. Mi papi, de otro planeta más lejano, afuera de nuestro sistema solar. Solar? El sol? Por lo menos, sé donde esta la luna. Y donde esta el sol. AY, que calor hay acá! Pero yo tengo aire-aicondicionado en mi cuarto. Mami y papi también lo tienen, en el cuarto de ellos. Y, también, en la biblioteca de mi papi. Mi papi tiene muchos libros.
Hay una estatua muy rara en la biblioteca de mi papi. Se trata de una sabina raptando a un fauno. QUE? O, alo mejor, el fauno esta raptando a la sabina. Nunca me acuerdo. Lo que es importante es que es FRANCESA. Todo lo que es francés tiene MUCHA importancia en nuestro país. Los seres extra-terrestriales – los ET’s, verdad? – se consideran como los segundos franceses. Le dan nombres franceses a todo.
Pero, no mi papi... porque el estudio en La Francia. Y, mi mami, también. Ahí se conocieron. Y, después, papi trajo a mami a nuestro país. La trajo al campo, donde la casa era un bohío. Los guitarristas tocaron música. Después, mami pregunto, “Donde esta la casa?” Papi dijo, “Allá.” (El bohío.) Mami tenia ganas de hacer (tu-sabes-que). ¿”Dónde esta el baño?” Papi dijo, “Allá.” (El platanal.)
AY, que lugar, este país de los extra-terrestriales, dijo mami. No creo que estamos ni en la luna, ni en La Francia. Que va a ser de mí? NOOOO!
Me tengo que acostar. Soy una niñita. Buenas no – ches...

Es propiedad de Georgina Marrero, 2003 340 palabras

The Osterizer

Just have to start with this (although I no longer own the Osterizer--no room, Mami!) P.S. Did recently meet someone whose great-uncle went to medical school in Paris with you and Papi, though...

THE OSTERIZER

BY GEORGINA MARRERO

My mother, Ana (Panni) Raab Marrero, had a mission in life: to enlighten the natives of her adopted homeland. When she arrived in Cuba in 1941, my father took her to el campo. The Marrero finca was named “Matilde,” after my great-grandmother. The house consisted of a bohio. Strolling guitarristas were on hand to welcome her to her new home, in her new world. My father had spent ten years abroad, but he was still el hijo de un campesino… and proud of it.
As I can best recollect the story, Panni – now Ana – listened to the music that was serenading her. She then asked my father where the house was. Pointing to the bohio, he said, “There.” Ana then asked him where the bathroom was. Pepi (my mother’s nickname for my father) pointed to el platanal, and said, “There.” This was my mother’s introduction to Cuba.
The years began to pass. Panni the Hungarian was gradually being transformed into Anita la Cubana. Marrero clan members, friends of the family, and Pepi’s medical colleagues and their families adopted her as one of their own. She sterilized and helped to keep my father’s surgical instruments in good order. My parents frequented boxing matches with an extremely handsome Afro-Cuban friend of theirs. They had ringside seats. My mother delighted in matter-of-factly telling me how the boxers’ blood spurted onto their faces. It didn’t faze her, as she herself was a doctor.
Life continued. Anita complained of a stomachache. She asked a family friend, who also happened to be a doctor – an obstetrician/gynecologist, as a matter of fact – what she thought might be wrong. At almost forty-two, she was sure she was going into menopause. The other doctor examined her. “Ana, you’re five months pregnant.” And so I came to be.
Now Anita really had to turn into una ama de casa cubana! On any given day, at least three women were in charge of me. I turned into a very fussy eater. The solution to this problem: the Osterizer.
Fruits. Vegetables. She had learned a great deal from her mother, a consummate homemaker. According to my mother, my grandmother – even in the early part of the twentieth century, before nutrition had become the rage – knew to serve both a green and a yellow vegetable at the evening meal. So, what do you think went into that Osterizer? Vegetables. I must have at least tolerated them, because I still eat them.
Something went wrong when it came to the fruits, however. Perhaps I was fed one too many jars of Gerber strained prunes? My mother, however, had not for one moment lost track of her mission.
Company. The help. No one was spared my mother’s fruit salad. There were many wonderful kinds of fruits available in Cuba, many of which joined us on our journey to El Exilio: platano, frutabomba, mango, mamey. I’m sure they all found themselves in Anita’s fruit salad, at one time or the other. And some of them ended up in delectable batidos.
La Saguasera, 1960: many of us were now in Miami. Enough of us that my mother felt she had to continue with her crusade. Get-togethers, birthday parties, my father’s lunch, whatever: out came the fruit salad. By this point, I had become one of the initiated. And an unwilling one I was, too.
Years later, Mami tried to teach me her “trick” to make the fruit salad palatable. She “doused” it in orange juice. Perhaps something a little stronger would have appealed to me more? I’ve got to hand it to her: she was tenacious.
During the nineties, I finally began to pay attention to what she put in the salad. By this point, I could handle most of it… except for the strawberries. Mushy, gushy, yuck! Perhaps I was envisioning the concoctions created for me in that dreaded Osterizer, instead?
To this day, I remain Panni Raab Marrero’s most “unenlightened” convert. It’s not her fault that I don’t like strawberries, for I really don’t. I assiduously remove them from those Fruit’nYogurt Parfaits they sell at McDonald’s. I carve them out of the yogurt, and contemptuously dump them onto the domed plastic container covers. I don’t care who’s looking. However, my mother’s prized Osterizer has a special place in my kitchen. I’ve made some great frutabomba batidos with it, as well as a daiquiri or two.
Needless to say, they’re not strawberry daiquiris.

El Exilio – exile (the name Cubans have given to living in the United States).
La Saguasera – the fond nickname Cubans have given to the Southwest section of Miami, on and around Calle Ocho.

Copyright, 2003 by Georgina Marrero 770 words All Rights Reserved

Here we go again/Aqui estamos de vuelta!

Let's hope I don't forget my username and password this time--this probably won't be a carbon copy of the original La Loquita del Zig-Zag blog (and I promise to geuninely blog on a regular basis, too). Welcome to the world of/Bienvenidos al mundo de...La Loquita del Zig-Zag!