Raquel Martina Martinez

Four years ago I decided to change careers.   I had this amazing opportunity not afforded to others and I felt compelled to take advantage of it.   I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to write books, see them traditionally published, and become rich and famous. Laugh all you want.  I knew the rich and famous part was a lark but this is where the “amazing opportunity not afforded to others” comes into play. I get a comfortable, monthly, retirement check. It allows me to fiddle with this writing life. HoneyBunch says it’s a curse.  It makes me too comfortable.  I don’t have to rely on a paying job to cover bills, go grocery shopping, or keep myself in pretty, purple pens (my writing instrument of choice). He says I am not hungry enough. Between you and me, HB is only half right.  It pains me to admit it, but there is more to that truth – I am afraid to succeed. I have several published friends and I’ve seen the glamorous writing life they lead.  It takes discipline to be a p

To prepare for this blog, I made a grocery list of all the things that I could remember had angered me lately.   I ended up with over thirty items.   It made me suspiciously in need of Anger Management, so I decided to reduce the list to ten. Here they are in no particular order: 1.      People with no sense of cell phone etiquette.  Do you really need to be told to mute, put away, or not tape or take pictures without permission when it precludes interaction with another person?  When did a relationship with a phone take precedence over a relationship with another human being? 2.     People who befriend you only because they want something from you, opportunists who leech what they can and then move on, fat and sassy, after they have sucked you dry. 3.     Facial hair as I age.  Where did that come from?  I refer to the moustache that rivals the one my father sported for years, or the lone whisker that shows up at random on my chin, especially when I am trying to impress a new

I was the middle child in an Hispanic family, the one wedged between the oldest son and the baby daughter. A lot was excused from an oldest son, and who could resist the cuteness of a baby sister? Me?  I was the proverbial chopped liver – lonely and abused. I was also the oldest daughter in an Hispanic family.  I was expected to learn how to do household chores and learn how to cook. I was the little mama, the one who helps with the younger siblings.  Oh yay! My parents had high expectations for all of us.  Both of them were highly intelligent, and they suspected the same from us, so they demanded nothing less than A’s in school.  They sometimes overlooked my brother’s B’s (cabeza dura), but I was hounded and condemned to hours of study if I dared to bring home anything less than a straight A. My parents, especially my mother, didn’t care where or when she scolded me. Often it was out in public – in front of my friends or classmates, loud enough for everyone to hear an

I cannot remember when I didn’t believe in angels.   I grew up Catholic; need I say more?.   Angels were everywhere.   Angels fill our literature, our art, our architecture, our music; but we weren’t the first to claim their existence. Long before Judaic, Christian, or Islamic beliefs mentioned angels, their existence is recorded in the monotheistic religions that preceded them. The belief in angels has been with us through the ages of time, but have I ever seen one, with my own eyes? I have encountered several unusual experiences, but my “angels” know I frighten easily, so they try to be a lot more subtle and subdued than those depicted in art or literature. As a child, I suffered from night fears but a framed picture hung on my bedroom wall of a beautiful, benevolent, golden angel with a magnificent wing span protecting two small children. It kept my fears at bay. As a teenager, I carried a “holy card” with the likeness of the Archangel Michael on one side and a prayer on the