Showing posts with label ginger carrot muffins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ginger carrot muffins. Show all posts

Monday, January 25, 2010

I'm on Culebra time

This is considered the start of the week in many places, even here. But for me, the days sort of have a roller coastery rhythm that lets Monday be Thursday or Friday (hardly ever Sunday). Most of the time time itself isn't much of a factor in my world, unless I've told (or been told by) someone that I will be somewhere at some time. Luckily, I'm rarely the only one going where ever that is, so by mid-morning, any forgetfulness on my part is usually taken care of by street talk. I'm not going anywhere with this, by the way. I've got the time. And I've got the muffins...today is ginger-carrot with, unusually for me, cream cheese frosting. If it's not raining today...I'll be at the cart for you muffin requesters!

Here are a few catch up photos (and the idea of catching up, which is what spawned the above mini diatribe).

Lobsters at Susie's - I have a little video where you can hear them
click clicking and waving their tentacles about, but right in the middle, a car alarm goes off - making it a bit too Felliniesque for my taste


Chiquitine up a tree, way up a tree, sawing off limbs


This little girl visits me most days. Her grin makes my heart defy gravity,  and she accompanies it with just as strong a stubborn streak. She rides in her little battery operated car down the sidewalk with her abuella beside her. After undoing her seat belt she solemnly climbs up on the cart ledge and looks (stares unblinkingly) at me until I give her a muffin. Or a bracelet. Or merely a grin, it just depends. Then she will or will not smile this fabulous smile, climb back down, get back in her car and go home. I wish I could let her be the ambassador to the world. To resist her smile would prove the viewer not human and replaceable.  Maybe one day she will let me photograph her smiling. You can tell she was NOT letting that happen here. She got a muffin anyway.


The owners of this dog (and another that was too normal to photograph) were heading toward Milka's. I called out to someone to look and asked if he knew what happened to the rest of this dog. On the way back the owners nicely accused me of making fun of their dog, which I happily confessed to. Yes, it really IS part Dalmatian and part Basset Hound. They had a combo name for it but I forget what it is. I'm still laughing...
it was like seeing a photoshopped picture in real life.


Last night I was out of Susie's a bit early and heading home heard the sounds of live music coming from El Batey. I'd forgotten that the Sons of Culebra were going to be playing there so it was a great time to stop and listen. Dominoes clicked on the patio and the Sons clicked inside. Sax, guitar, steel drums, güiro, steel pans, what I'm pretty sure
was a cuatro and more...they had it going on


With a cold front moving through, it isn't the prettiest of early morning moments and with the radar down, I can't tell much about what is coming or not coming our way. The sky is grey and bright and it has already rained a bit, is that all? What I do know is that my tea is more than ready and the baking is done, so it might be time to climb back under the covers and finish another chapter or two...CWIM is too temptingly already there like a poster cat for cozy.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Treat of the day and some other cart stuff

The Treat of the Day is going well! A few people come up daily, asking what the treat of the day is and then buy it - how crazy is that? I thought I would get this charming cake plate but holy nostalgia! I went online and they are now collectibles - I feel rather ancient at those moments; excuse me but when did a Tupperware cake carrier become a collectible??? - and the glass ones, which I was lusting after, are ridiculously expensive. SOOOOOOOO. Can we say Sterlite to the rescue? It was cheap, it's handy, it works and apparently no one really gives a flying flip what the treat is stored in. However, they might be glad to know I've bought small tongs for lifting their treat out, rather than Digitally by MJ.

My very favorite customers this week (sorry, the other faithful but hey...what can I say, so I won't) are two little girls visiting here with their parents. Actually, I think the girls made all of the arrangements. Every time they see me they call out, HEY ISLAND WOMAN!!! If I'm in the store, they say, OH!!! It's ISLAND WOMAN!!! and then the little one, Lucy, grins as fiercely as a lion. It makes me feel quite magical and giddy.

Her sister Lola lost a tooth this week and to all of our mutual delight, the tooth fairy found her on Culebra. She's now working hard on the other front tooth (Lola, not the tooth fairy); "I like it when I can twist it around!!!" Yikes. I had forgotten that part of Mama'ing. Anyway, they love muffins. They are not wild about guava bars, which I knew before they told me. So tomorrow, in their honor, the treat of the day will be their fovorite muffin, ginger carrot. Yeah, go figure!

Favorite comment of a steady local customer: "I'll take two of the guava bars...I don't really LIKE guava, so I take that out because I really like the rest of it." Damn!

I'm tossing in the cement blob in front of the cart. I thought it was sort of the cow pie of cement blobs, the Friday let's get out of town and what do we do with this last bit of cement blob. But no...apparently, it was a giftie. A couple of the guys have driven by and rolled down their very dark windows to grin and wave while pointing to the blob. It does take away the lake that formed in front of the cart that I had to sweep out every time it rained, so while it ain't purty, it works. So....thanks, guys!