Tag: Beatriz Diaz-Granados
-
Musings & Thoughts for August 1, 2020: or, Life in the Midst of Hurricane Alley and COVID-19
Hi, there, Constant Reader, and welcome to another edition of Musings & Thoughts. It’s Saturday, August 1, 2020 , and man, is it hot outside! Right now, in my current corner of Florida, the temperature is 91˚F (33˚C) under sunny skies. With a nine MPH easterly breeze and humidity at 65%, the heat index is…
-
Weekend Musings for Sunday, July 19, 2020, or: Memoriae nunquam pereunt
Well, it’s already early afternoon on Sunday, July 19, 2020. It’s a hot, steamy day here in my corner of Florida; the temperature outside is 90˚F (32˚C) under partly sunny skies. With humidity at a sticky 65% and an easterly breeze blowing at 8 mph (13 kph), the heat index is 104˚F (40˚C). Later this…
-
Why July is NOT My Favorite Month: Part Two
I hate July. First of all, if you are a Florida resident – or a resident of any of the Deep South states that were once part of the Confederate States of America, for that matter – you know that July is when the summer heat starts rising to almost intolerable levels. It’s not, of…
-
Why July is NOT My Favorite Month: Part One
July is my least favorite month. Last Tuesday – July 7th – marked the fourth anniversary of a hearing I attended in a Miami-Dade County civil court’s probate division judge’s chambers to settle a dispute between my half-sister Victoria and me over our late mother’s estate. Vicky had filed a “Lost or Destroyed Will” petition…
-
Movie-Watcher Memories: The Late Show and ‘The Longest Day’
I was 12 years old when I saw Darryl F. Zanuck’s The Longest Day for the first time. It was sometime during the summer of 1975 – I don’t recall the exact date, but it was around the tail end of my summer vacation from elementary school. Back then, my widowed mother, Beatriz Diaz-Granados, and…
-
Movie Watcher Memories: ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ at 40
On May 21, 1980, Twentieth Century Fox released director Irvin Kershner’s Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, the eagerly anticipated follow-up to writer-director George Lucas’ Star Wars, which was retroactively retitled as Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope for its Summer 1981 re-release. Like Star Wars, it opened mid-week close to Memorial…
-
Movie Watcher Memories, or: Mom Nixes Shark Pic
I was 12-and-one-quarter years old when Steven Spielberg’s Jaws made its theatrical debut on June 20, 1975 and lived with my widowed mother, Beatriz Diaz-Granados, in a house in the unincorporated community of Westchester in suburban Miami-Dade County. At the time, it was just us two living at the house on Southwest 102nd Ave; my…
-
Memoria Mater & Other Bits of My Mind II
With Mother’s Day – my fifth since my mom’s death in 2015 – getting farther and farther away in the rearview mirror of life, I still find myself with no shortage of things to write about her. A remarkable woman, Mom was, and she led an interesting, even adventurous life. Born and raised in the…
-
Memoria Mater: Mother’s Day 2020 (and Other Pieces of My Mind)
Yesterday was Mother’s Day, the fifth occurrence of the celebration honoring mothers, motherhood, and the bonds between mothers and their children since my mom, Beatriz Diaz-Granados, died, Needless to say, it was a difficult day for me; I was close to my mother, who passed away on July 19, 2015 at the age of 86…
A Certain Point of View, Too 