MY LIFE ... LIKE A PLATANO!

   

              My life ... like a Platano!                           by A.G.R.        

 Platano a Puñetazo, Tostones, Fried Green Platains, different names for different folks.

      To make them I have to cut them into quarter-inch sections, peel them, fry them once and them my husband smashes them flat. After, transported again to the frying pan, I fry them till crisp. Once cooked I salt them. 

      YUMMMM!    

 

    Today I studied the process. Some people see a platano frying and that's what it is,

just a platano. But not me. Not today.

     My life like a platano.

      When I've been green, lacking wisdom many times, I've had to be peeled of my ignorance, smashed into shape and fried to a crisp by the harshness of the consequences produced by my mistakes.

       Sometimes after, I've felt the sprinkling of some salt upon me, by an Invisible Hand that, in mercy, allows me to be used in some way to warn a fellow traveler on this earth before he, too,  

goes through the platano process.

                       

 

    Tell me, next time you make this dish will you see more than a platano?

    Thanks for visiting my blog.

    Tomorrow I'm making

     spaghetti squash.

    
    I wonder what I'll see then!

                                                                                

 

 

 

THE MESSAGE IN THE LEAVES

         

   The Message In The Leaves          (in memory of grandpa)

    By  Amarilys G. Rassler                  Dec. 1920- Oct. 2007

                                                          

 

The leaves, the leaves they speak to me,

Of changes that are bound to be.

The happy orange colors shout,

Enjoying winter’s waiting pout.

 

The autumn foliage reigns today,

In robes of golden-red array,

As crowns of amethyst drown their jade,

The cheerful leaves don’t plan to fade.

 

The leaves, the leaves they hum a tune,

A sacred message in their croon,

Of glorying in each moment’s feast,

Of   “carpe diem” in their midst.

 

The leaves, the leaves, they speak to me,

Of present fall I now have reached.

I must not sleep in sweet denial,

For winter awaits, the impatient child.

 

The message of the leaves is strong,

Come help me then, to sing their song.

Embrace this instant, Oh, joy prolong,

But at our winter, leave work for Him, all done!    

                                 

                                                                            

 

“He has made everything beautiful in His time, He also set eternity in the

  Hearts of men;”                           Ecclesiastes 3:11

 

“…no man knows when his hour will come…”

                                                      Ecclesiastes 9:12

 

“I have brought You  glory on earth by completing the work, You gave me to do.”                                                John 17:4

CUBAN-AMERICAN WAR DANCE ON THE HYPHEN

       Another Side Of AMARILYS GACIO RASSLER / Out with the fangs!

         "Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights

                   of all who are destitute."  Proverbs 31:8  (NIV)
    

                                       CUBAN-AMERICAN WAR DANCE ON THE HYPHEN

           Fumes rise through every inch of my Cuban-American body and I war dance on my hyphen after sitting on a major sandspur today and not being able to pull it out. The sandspur being  the new  La Gaceta article where the editor, Patrick Manteiga, continues to deceive people with his encouragements for better relationships with Cuba and his lies about Cuba being so much better today.

           "Our first trip with the Alliance ... opened our eyes to the many falsehoods that had been propagated in our opinion of Cuba due to the one-sided propaganda in this country." These are Patrick Mantega's words from his As We Heard It, column in this week's La Gaceta, his trilingual newspaper here in Tampa.  

           Manteiga is part of this Alliance for Responsible Cuba Policy Foundation who is planning to meet in a private cocktail party this weekend  to reunite those who have gone to Cuba. Former Tampa Mayor, Dick Greco, was one of these persons who went to Cuba in 2002.  Albert A. Fox, Jr., is another leader in this open door policy for Cuba, the voice that speaks of Castro not being such a bad guy. I've heard Mr. Fox speak  in front of an audience of mostly American citizens at a meeting in a cafe here in Tampa, of the many trips he's made to Cuba and the embraces he received from Fidel Castro.

            Both Manteiga and Fox, have the same opinion from the speeches I've heard them give. They share of their visits with Castro and feasting at his banquets. According to them, Castro is not the devil people say he is and Cubans in exile are still emotionally handicapped. They need to get over it.  Cuba has changed. American tourism should be opened. Consider  the financial gain for the U.S., Tampa  especially, and Cuba, they say.

WHAT ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT?   I speak with those coming from Cuba continuously  and conditions there are still horrible.  A man who visited with me recently, who went back to Cuba after a short stay to see his family here, had to take his father to chemo therapy in Cuba on a bicycle because he couldn't afford a car and he's a psychologist ... a  psychologist who gets paid $20 a month.

   Gruesome stories came out of him and his wife, one after another. The shortage of food, the rundown buildings, the medical help for the Cubans in Cuba that lacks cleanliness and medications, the  recent fears of diseases ...  and you even have to bring your own water and linen for your bed in the hospital.

 WHAT ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT? 

    They speak of safety but ANYONE can get arrested. In Cuba there's no guarantee of justice. Look how they placed that poor Jewish fellow in prison for bringing in cellular phones and computer to his family. If they need to make an example out of you, you're gone. AND, what U.S. government can save you? The fellow is serving 20 years in prison and has lost 100 lbs.

 WHAT ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT? 

  You can't say what you believe. There're still ears on walls and you might be the next one to be made an example of even as an innocent tourist. You might be the one they choose to try  to make some exchange with for their own gain.  AMERICANS BEWARE!

WHAT ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT? 

 PATRICK MANTEIGA AND ALBERT FOX, JR.,:  Are Castro and his government really good?  Have things really changed?  THE DEAD CRY OUT FROM UNDER THE WATERS OF CUBA TO KEY WEST ... LIBERTAD, LIBERTAD!

     

               

C.S. LEWIS ... WHAT INTRIGUES ME

                                           ATHEIST ONCE?  WHY?

                          My Intrigue With C.S. Lewis 

                                         

                                         

        

   Militant atheist turned believer, author with stellar imagination, creator of books that delight young and adult, deep insights into the spirit realm hidden in his subtext; all of this draws me like a magnet again and again to his writings and the life experiences and people that molded him.  

                                                       

                                                               C.S. Lewis as a boy

   Did you know?

   1. C.S. Lewis lost his mother to cancer three months prior to his tenth birthday. (I came to the United States as a ten year old.)

   2. His father never recovered from her death. He and his brother, Warren, for many years felt estranged from their father.

   3. He was convinced, as a child, because of his mother's death, that the God he encountered in church and in the Bible she gave him was, if not cruel, a vague abstraction.

   4. A few years later, with the influence of a spiritually unorthodox boarding school house matron, C.S. Lewis forsook Christianity and became an avowed atheist.  

3. Digory, the boy in C.S. Lewis's, The Magician's Nephew, had a mother who was seriously ill. (Did the author write himself into that story?)

 

    So after such information, what captivates me most about Lewis? The amount of pain experienced as a child from the separation from his mother and then his father. As many of you know, I was an Operacion Pedro Pan child. I know of that parent/child separation.

    What else fascinates me about this author? The people that came later into his life. They made such a difference.

    Who were they? The people that made the difference?  

     And how did that difference contribute to his classic writings?

         (To be continued.)

 

                      
                   Jack Lewis - Clive Staples Lewis (CS) Lewis
 
             

 My research and study of this author's life has been ongoing for years.

     Credit, in preparation for this material, goes to: 

       Narnia Beckons, by Ted Baehr and James Baehr.  

       Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

       The Narnian, The Life And Imagination Of C.S. Lewis,

        by Alan Jacobs

                 Picture Credits -  C.S. Lewis as a boy,

                                                Image on line, 

                                                 C.S. Lewis Centenary Group

                                                 C. S. Lewis as an adult,

                                                   Wikipedia