Bilingual brain fart

I like to own movies that I know I'll watch over and over.  We have quite the extensive video/dvd library.  Seriously, how else could we play the Kevin Bacon Game??   ;-)
And as you already know, I'm really easily entertained.

So, I'm cruising through Target the other day and I found this dvd on sale:

Disney does that thing where they release movies at a prescribed moment in time and (I'm so not kidding here!), if you want it, you'd better buy it right then and there, because before you know it, it goes right back into "The Vault," and then it's impossible to find it again until they decide to release an anniversary edition of some sort, but that's not important right now.  =D

Anyway, I remember some Disney films from when I saw them as a small child in Cuba.  Yes, in Cuba. As New Releases.  Yes, in a Movie Theater.  Cuba was not the third world country it is today.  But then, that's a rant for another day...

I remember Blanca Nieve (Snow White), Pinocho (Pinocchio), La Cenicienta (Cinderella) and of course, La Bella Durmiente (Sleeping Beauty).  The last being my absolute favorite and so in a moment of weakness and nostalgia, I bought the Sleeping Beauty dvd.  (It says 50th Anniversary Platinum Edition on it - remember I told you about The Vault thing?)

I get home with my prize and both my girls (Amy Kikita and Lucy) ask hopefully and almost simultaneously, "Is it for me?"

No, I explain, I got it for myself.  Then waxing nostalgic I go on to try and explain that one Christmas when I was maybe three years old I received a set of ... ummm.... what's the word?... ummm... CUQUITAS.  The word in English completely eludes me at that moment. (or does it "allude me?" English can be so crazy-making sometimes!)

(Hold on, everybody! Here we go.....)

"Kookeeetahs??" 

Still searching my mental rolodex in vain for the English word, which (I swear!) is right on the tip of my tongue, I fumble around in vain.  My brain is stuck on CUQUITAS and will not budge from there.  Frustrating!

"It featured all the characters from Sleeping Beauty: the Princess Aurora, the 3 Fairies, the Prince, Maleficent.  They came in a big, flat book and then you cut them out and you could dress them. You know ... CUQUITAS!" 

I make big gestures with my hands to form a large book and then scissors for the "...and you cut them out..." part.  It's still not coming to me and the big gestures are no help at all in the quest to make myself understood. 

Besides, the word, CUQUITAS is taking up all the room I have in my already-too-full brain for the description of the elusive item.  The hand motions are no help at all.  They're still staring quizzically at me.

Again I try to explain.....

"Ay! You know....They're like little dolls, but made out of paper..."

The last part sort of happens in slow motion. 

Just as the words "...made out of paper..." escape my lips, my slow-poke bilingual brain finally connects the dots, and I get that late-dawning look of "oh, yeah!" on my face, but of course, it's entirely too late.

Yes, yes, yes. Paper Dolls. Cuquitas.
Sleeping Beauty Paper Dolls.  La Bella Durmiente.
I got them for Christmas in 1958.  Nostalgia, anger and relief co-mingling here.  Shut up. I know. Duh!

They have dissolved into laughter and I know that this story will now go into The Darby Family Favorite Story Archives. 

Or, I suppose we could just call it The Vault.  ;-)