Tunesday Tuesday: And the Jukebox Plays: Booty isn't just a Pirate Word

Week 11: Booty Booty Booty

Can't stick around for this week's party??

Next week's theme will be...

 A song that reminds you of someone

And now...

Photo credit: Megan Hawthorne of The Patchwork Paisley. Isn't she amazing???

What is a booty shaking song? 

I ask Google: 

The first two results I see are:

KC and the Sunshine Band - Shake Your Booty

AND 

Twerking - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hmmmm... These are pretty different results.

This time I just search for booty shake definition. Maybe the definition could give me some insight into where the booty shake originated. 

This is what I get:

I could see this isn't going to get me far because there doesn't seem to be one set judgement, one hammered down set of rules that could define what a "booty shaking song" is. I think Maybe there is no one set definition of a booty shaking song because everyone's booty, like fingerprints or taste buds, are different. Perhaps my booty is moved by music that makes your booty sit still (pun intended). Could it be possible that a booty shaking song cannot be shackled by the tyranny of a definition? Maybe a booty shaking song cannot be held down and confined or generalized or limited to one type of booty. Is it possible that you just know your booty song when you hear it? Like soulmates?

I have an epiphany. 

We are a world of booties that are inspired to shake by the beat of our own drummer. 

Doubtlessly you hear the words "Booty Shaking Song" and you, like Husband, have probably been singing "Rump Shaker" in your subconscious. I would vote this the "Go To" booty shaking song by a slim margin since Baby Got Back is an obvious "Go To" as well. 

But if by my epiphany definition a booty song is anything that makes MY booty move than these are not my booty shaking songs, no matter how much other booty they make move. 

There's just something so gooooooooood about your booty shaking song that you will not cannot hold your booty back. To try and do so would be an injustice. So to not injustify my booty I'm gonna give you my award winning booty shaking song(s) and then dance my ass off!

This year (or last year) Macklemore & Ryan came out with a song called "Can't Hold Us." It is physically impossible for me to hear this song and not lose my ever loving mind. I don't bounce or jam to this tune; I fucking straight up jump when I hear it. It makes me move so much that sometimes dancing isn't enough and I just have to jog in place in order to move my whole body enough. In the car it makes me want to dance so hard I am close to driving off a cliff when I hear it, or at the least, crashing into oncoming traffic. Simply put: it's dangerous when I hear this song. I fear a heart attack. "Like a great white shark on Shark Week, what?!" 

BUT what's a booty shaking song prompt without Miss Bootylicious herself. The original just Beyonce song that always makes me want to shake and get crazy:

What defines your Booty Shaking Song?

 

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A Riddle, a Gem, a Best Friend

Here's a riddle...

What do all cities have that most tourists know nothing about? 

Hidden gems. 

Born and raised here until she was 5, my best friend, Laura, was the first person I called when we got this job.

"You'll never guess where we're going."
"Dominican Republic." 

Oh, so she guessed it. She is my best friend after all. 

A few weeks ago, we were talking about her upcoming trip to Dominican Republic. She is coming for a wedding and decided to extend her trip a bit to celebrate her Godson, Santiago's, 1st birthday. My son, Santiago. One in the same.

After ironing out a few details (I'm watching her son who is the same age as my daughter when she is at the wedding) we started talking about what we would do after she was done with all the wedding hoopla. 

"We can go to the Colonial Zone or Café del Sol. Or we could keep it local and hang out at your hotel pool or our apartment pool."
"Those all sound like good plans."
"Ohhhh. I definitely want to take you to the Bluffs."
"What's the bluffs?" She asks.

I responded the best way I knew how:

"Umm.. well, the Bluffs are... actually it's called Praxe's Bluffs and... hmmm..... Uh.. ok, so our friend Praxe discovered the Bluffs his first year here. It's on the Malecon, a cliff overlooking the ocean where the occasional fisherman will go to fish. You have to drive on a sidewalk and then up a small dirt hill to get there but it's so awesome. We go there some Friday afternoons and tailgate: bring lawn games, wine, and a gang of friends. Sun sets. Just awesome." 

I could tell she was thinking about it. "Your family wouldn't know where it is. It's not like... on a map or anything." (Although I have since drawn one.)

It hit me then that this is a hidden gem. Something that - for now - only we know about, a select lucky few of us. I don't know if this is the reason that the bluffs are one of my favorite places on this island or if it's because every time we go it means we're hanging with good friends and loosening up the week's belt, if it's the island sun sets at 6:00 surrounded by crashing waves and rocky cliffs. Maybe it's the lawn games or the drinking wine or the the way I laugh every. single. time we drive up the sidewalk to get to a place that only a select number of us in a whole city know about. I'm not sure...

and to be honest, I don't care.

The drive up the sidewalk

Husband and I at the Bluffs

A break from lawn games for a photo op w/Baby Santiago sleeping

The gang's all here... well almost, but a good number of the gang

Credit:

Thanks to In an Opal Hearted Country for organizing the February Expat Blog Challenge  opportunity. Day 24: A hidden gem.

Through New Eyes

On 9/11, my mother experienced her own hell, her purest fear. It was the day she witnessed towers crumbling and smoke devouring the street where her daughter lived.

Days after, a candlelight vigil would be held in the evening, throughout the country, as a way of coming together, reminding ourselves that we are not alone in times of darkness. Outside with their candle, my parents and our Hindu neighbor down the street where the only ones standing in the night sky paying homage.

My parents being immigrants from Cuba have always loved this country for what their own could not offer them, my mother especially. And that love has trickled down, percolated into my very veins. While there are many things that I think my current address in Dominican Republic does better than the U.S., I cannot turn my back on a place that has given my family everything it is, including my opportunity to live abroad. As much as we the American people (I included) could complain about the injustices of our country, the corruption of politics and politicians we are far better off than many others around the globe. Far better off.

Looking back, my reason for traveling was simple: to see the world. What a simple answer.

What did I want to see?
The Pyramids of Giza? The Great Wall of China? The beaches of Costa Rica? The cafés of Europe? 
Yes. Yes to all of it.

But it was more than sightseeing that I wanted out of travel, wasn't it?
I wanted to know places. To deeply know them. To know its people, its culture, its language. I wanted to know its hidden gems and its whole way of living. Every city, every country has its own distinct breath and I wanted to breathe them in and exhale it out.

But even that didn't seem to fully answer why I wanted to go away. For that I could just have chosen to travel more and travel longer. No, I think intrinsically I knew that I wanted to re-imagine my own way of living. I wanted to see what the world had in store for me that was different than everything I knew.

And now I have, rather now I'm starting. I'm still in the beginning of our abroad adventures but it has already taught me one of the most important lessons: that my home is an amazing place. It has faults and problems, corruption and injustices but couldn't we say as much about most places? About most people? At the core we are all flawed but I don't love humanity any less. It just means we must work harder and not stop believeing that we are capable of great things.

I would say it is my favorite component of having lived abroad so far; the newness in which I can look at my home and honor the many ways it is beautiful. Because it is. Even beautiful gardens have weeds. And sometimes flowers grow through cracks.

Credit:

Thanks to In an Opal Hearted Country for organizing the February Expat Blog Challenge opportunity.

Day 23: Respond: "Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving." - Terry Pratchett

Two Much Two See in the Dominican Republic

Let me share a story with you.

Once upon a time -  two years ago - a newly married lady decided to move away with Husband and have a baby two months later in this new place. As year #2 rolled in, just when they were settling into their new baby and their new life in this new place, they got pregnant again with number two. The number of years they lived in their new country matched the number of times they'd been pregnant... two.

Now in their third year the dust is finally settling. Where there was once a wall of dust so thick they had no idea there was light on the other side, there is now clarity, the knowledge and appreciation that you have come out of the dark alive. Exhausted. But alive.

To ask this girl what she still hasn't seen in her new country would be like asking a kid what they want for Christmas...a lot.

* * *

In the years we've been here Husband and I have done many things: we've spent many days relaxing in Juan Dolio, a few long weekends in the young vibey beach town of Cabarete, a week vacation in serene Las Terrenas, a yoga retreat weekend in Las Galleras, and lived like millionaires in La Romana. We've visited the mountains of Jarabacoa twice, eaten at some lovely restaurants, discovered hidden gems, explored the Colonial Zone, played a lot of volleyball and frequented some colmados (ok we've done a lot of colmados).

Whew! Just saying it makes me feel good about all of the things we've done but having been first time parents and then second time parents within our first two years abroad has certainly hindered many of things that we would like to do on this island.

Most people think of Punta Cana when they think Dominican Republic and the all inclusive hotels that the east part of the island offers tourists. We haven't visited Punta Cana yet and while I wouldn't mind sipping free daiquiris all day one day, I should add it wouldn't make our top 3 list of the things to see and do before we leave this place. Apparently, it wouldn't even make our top 8. There's so much more to see here...

Top 8 Things to Still See Here:

NEED I SAY MORE?????

1. Climb Pico Duarte - the highest mountain range in the whole Caribbean. The senior class takes a weekend climb trip here every year - it's the only reason I would even attempt it. If rich 18 year olds who have drivers could do it...

2. Bahia de las Aguilas - Southwestern coast of near the southernmost part of the border of Haiti and considered by many one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.

By Swatigsood via Wikimedia Commons

3. 27 Waterfalls (27 Charcos) - Mother Nature's handy work at its best. On the Northern Coast, 27 awesome pools etched out of limestone. Check out their website here. This one is one I'd love to take pictures of Husband doing. Not for me but seems totally cool.

4. Whale watching in the Samana Peninsula - from Decmeber to March the whales hang around to mate and have their calves.

5. Barahona - the biggest city in the Southwest, it's part mountain range, part desert, part coastline and some of the pretties beaches I've seen (in pictures of course)

6. Los Tres Ojos - an open air limestone cave located in the Mirador del Este park in Santo Domingo.

7. Visit the Mirabal Museo, the house of the Mirabal Sisters. - Known as "las mariposas," the sisters became inspirational leaders to the resistance against Dominican Republic's dictator Trujillo. After an effort to silence the Mirabal sisters did not work by imprisoning their husbands, soldiers ambushed their car one evening, clubbing them to death and then covering up their murders to look like a car accident. The public did not believe this story of an "accident." Many believe this to be the turning point of Trujillo's demise. You could also read their story in the book titled "In the Time of the Butterflies."

8. Cuban music in the Colonial Zone - I know! You don't have to say it, I KNOW. How has this Cuban girl not been to Cuban music in the Colonial Zone? The answer is pretty simple. Music starts at 6:30 and the kids are asleep by 7:00. In short, kids' sleep trumps our evenings out every time.

Credit:

Thanks to In an Opal Hearted Country for organizing the February Expat Blog Challenge opportunity.

Day 22: Something I still haven't seen in my expat country

The Black Bean Mambo

You can't take it all with you in this lifestyle. I guess even if you could, that's not really the point. The point isn't to move somewhere different with all your same stuff and try to live the same life you would be living back home.

But for most of us we need something to comfort us when we're homesick, some thing you can bring with you to remind you of home...

For me its Cuban black beans and rice, my mother's recipe. A staple in our home growing up, I was never a huge fan until later in life and it wasn't until I moved out that I made my own. Then Boyfriend Now Husband was crazy about them and would compliment, "These are even better than your mom's. What did you put in them?" My response was simple, "You're not getting this recipe until we're married." This was an ongoing joke between us - my dowry. It included this recipe and a set of pots and pans that my mom jokingly bribed us with upon our betrothal. It was a very nice set of pots but I think the bean recipe is what heavily weighed his decision.


In full confession, I am not the cook in our household. Husband is. He's better at it and less stressed out about it. I tend to run circles in the kitchen racking my brain about what I should be doing next. But not on black bean night. On black bean night I am an Olympic gold medalist at Cuban black bean making. I don't run circles or rack brains because my hands know what to do and when to do it and they do it with grace and ease.

home cooking... nothing like it

The smell of the green peppers boiling in the beans. The perfume of onions and garlic being sauteed into a sofrito (<-- great read on "Sofrito and the Holy Trinity of Cuban cuisine"). The cumin, the bay leaf, the oregano - the union of all of the ingredients spreads through the house like thick molasses. It smells heavenly. It's a smell que puede levantar un muerto - that can raise the dead.

And that's just the aroma. The taste doesn't fall behind: creamy and thick and inky in color there is something too delicious about black beans done right. It is savory yumminess with a twinkle of sweet that mambo dances on your taste buds, swishing and shimmying - they're that good.

Now that we're abroad, it's important to us to still give our kids pieces of home so we decided to make a new Cuban dish once a week. Masitas de puerco, vaca frita, bistec empanizado. Delicious. All of it. But all of them are accompanied by one thing. The beans.

Everything about those beans is home.

Credit:

Thanks to In an Opal Hearted Country for organizing the February Expat Blog Challenge opportunity.

Day 21: "Tastes like home"

A Little Prest-O Change-O

Husband sits down on the couch and throws his feet up on the ottoman. He whooshes out a breath, relieved to be done with most of the settling in to our new apartment. Almost instantly he asks, "So... how long before you want to rearrange the furniture again?"

For someone who doesn't like change, I like change an awful lot.


My room as a kid was a small space with lots of furniture. Being that this was pre HGTV and there was no headquarters for small space ideas to turn to, you would think there wasn't much you could do with such little room. Au contraire. I was a magician. I could pull a reading quarter out of a hat and still have room for a sleeping nook and a writer's station. It wasn't always the most sensible of layouts but it wouldn't last forever. It wouldn't even last two months.

In college, my roommates would come home late night and lit and sling their sloshed bodies onto the couch only to  fall face first onto the hardwood floor. "Who moved the couch?" After a while they started penciling in Jen's Moving Furniture Days t the schedule so that they knew when a change was coming.

Like my Abuelita Dora, who relocated houses more often than an army family (one time she moved to the house next door just to "change it up"), I needed changes, small changes - move the bed there and a chair here and voilà!

Prest-O change-O.

Life abroad is kind of the same thing... just on a larger scale. If you grow tired of your Caribbean motif apartment in Santo Domingo, why not change it up for an Asian themed highrise in Shanghai. Tired of that? Trade in for a place with a European feel in Croatia. Sick of sipping on some café au laits, move to a house with an African concept in Mozambique.

Like David Bowie says, "ch ch changes."

Some people have said that they are envious of the lifestyle we've chosen here. That they would never be able to do what I'm doing. That it takes a certain kind of person. I tend to think anyone could do this - you just have to actually do it. Leap and the net will appear type thing.

Many things about my personality have equipped me for this lifestyle: being a social person helps, making friends easily is a good one, being a writer is huge (for me) since it allows me to spend time alone and process the things I am experiencing. But welcoming change -  maybe not always liking it, but welcoming it anyway - that's the biggest element that has equipped me for life abroad.

 - a little Prest-O Change-O - 

Picture courtesy of Pixabay: a great site for free images

Credit:

Thanks to In an Opal Hearted Country for organizing the February Expat Blog Challenge opportunity.

Day 20: The trait I possess that equipped me for life abroad OR the trait I possess that held me back the most.

Greetings from New Jersey: A Tale about Accents and the Famous Fast Food Hot Dog Chain Idiot Chick

It's funny that we don't hear our own accents but know immediately when someone else is not from where we're from. When people meet me they seem to have a clear idea of the region I come from. Do I have an accent?

I didn't think so...

So to make sure I watched this video - How to Have a Jersey Accent. The commentator eased me through the first 3 Jersey accent requirements and I thought to myself See. No one in New Jersey actually talks like this. (If you source me the "Jersey Shore" cast I will fist pump you hard in the throat because of the 9 cast members only 2 were actually FROM New Jersey. I know that because I'm actually from New Jersey.)

But then commentator got to #4. Damn it, 4. He said to pronounce double Ts as double Ds. So instead of "letter" it would be pronounced "ledder." Instead of a crisp "beTTer" it would be pronounced a rougher "beDDer" if you're from NJ. As I did with the first 3 requirements I pronounced the words out loud. Rats! I do say ledder. Who actually perfectly pronounces those as clear Ts, anyway.

Oh well 1 out of 4 isn't bad.

Commentator moved to requirement 5. Double rats! I do this too. I pronounce some Os as AWs. I say Dawg and Chawcolate. Not with as much depth as Sammy Sweetheart but I definitely use a little AW in my O. Hmmm.... maybe that's why my Public Speaking professor knew I was from New Jersey.


But of the 7 requirements Commentator speaks of this is the most important:

In truth I don't mind that people know I'm from Jersey because of the way I talk:
Exhibit A:
(My friend Steve [a fellow NYer I should add] sent me this photo he edited for my birthday. He wasn't wishing the state of Jersey a Happy Birthday.)

I don't mind because usually they're just having fun with it. 

What I do mind is ignorance and bullies and people who use it as a way to single you out or try to make you feel that you are somehow inferior to "their" English.

When my Cuban mother with her Cuban accent says coconut, her O sounds like a 2 foot tall U... short (like in the word cut). It's my favorite word she says. In fact when she pronounces a lot of words in English they sound different because, well, she's Cuban so Spanish is her first language. She didn't even learn English until she was 17. 

Once a long time ago when we were ordering food at a famous fast food hot dog chain, she ordered, "Un hoat dohg."
The girl looked at her and in her adolescent absurdity said, "Whaaaat?"
My mother repeated her order.
The girl stared blankly at her and then repeated her idiotic sounding, "Huh?"

* * *

Angry Rant:

First off, chick, you work at a hot dog chain. What in the f*ck do you think she's ordering? 

Second, please don't assume the "I speak better English" role when the best you've got in your arsenal is Whaaaat or Huh. 

* * * 

I wanted to intercede immediately but I was so caught off guard by this girl's complete stupidness that I couldn't speak right away. I was processing, trying to understand how she couldn't or wouldn't understand my mother. I had (and have) heard my mother say some things that might not sound like what she wants to say, like Wee-Fee for Wi-Fi, but this was not one of those moments. (And in the context I'm smart enough to deduct what she means.) 

My mother looked at me and as innocently as she could while exuding an equal amount of sauciness asked me, "Am I saying it wrong?"
I looked at the chick behind the counter and snarled, "No, mom. It's very clear that you're ordering un hoat dohg."
"Ooooh. A h-o-t d-o-g." Chick pronounced clearly. 

You're a flaming idiot, famous fast food hot dog chain chick. A flaming, hAWt idiot. Un hoat idiot. Whichever way you can understand it. 

Credit:

Thanks to In an Opal Hearted Country for organizing the February Expat Blog Challenge opportunity.

Day 19: My accent... whatever this means to you.

Tuesday Tunesday: And the Jukebox Plays... This song, AGAIN?

Week 11: Love Song

Can't stick around for this week's party?? 

Next week's theme will be...

 Your Favorite Booty Shaker Song

And now...

Thank you, Megan at The Patchwork Paisley for your beautiful artwork EVERY week!

I was a teenager who was a hopeless romantic. Bad combination. I dreamt of grand gestures of movie kinds of love. The end scene of "An Officer and a Gentleman"... swoon. Aladdin's magic carpet ride... sigh. I never really liked the movie "Say Anything" (I know. I know. Don't kill me!) but the scene where John Cusack blasts Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" through the boombox he is holding over his head... why don't I just blow up into a million heart shaped pieces.

So it should come as no surprise that as a brooding, poetry writing teenager I could be found in my room listening to love songs over and over and over and over. (Back then I had cassette tapes so to listen to a song over and over and over and over I had to physically get up and hit rewind. Wait for it to rewind. Then hit play. I'm sure my mom was thankful for this since it gave her at least a one minute break from listening to the same song too. Over and over and over and over.)

One in particular.

When I think back to these years, there is only one song. This song. No other song comes close. How I didn't break the cassette tape from repeated listening is a secret only between God, the Universe, and Physics. I waited for days to catch this song on the radio and called into radio stations to dedicate this song to Teenage Boy so that I could hit Record and tape it. And then it came everywhere with me. If you didn't know me in middle school, you should thank your lucky stars. If you did - you already know my Love Song:

Oh my God. I can't even handle how much I still love this song. 

What's your Love Song???

 

join us next week...

Every Monday night at 9pm the link up will go live at The Patchwork Paisley, Drinking the Whole Bottle, Momma Candy, and MrsTeeLoveLifeLaughter. 

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