Ay Dios Mio...

The Real Housewives of Miami ended it's short six episode run last night, never to return. Thank God. However, one amazing jewel that sparkled through the sand and beach trash was Elsa Patton, the mother to Marisol, one of the key housewives in the series. She's clairvoyant, cutting, hilarious, boozy, brutally honest and could be mistaken for a face transplant recipient. I love her.

In some odd way, Elsa reminds me of my mother Anita, also Cuban, laid back, and on occasion, humorous in her own way. As someone who spoke English as a second language, she shied away from friendships, but seemed to come alive when she found someone who spoke Spanish - especially Cuban - so she could share common ground.

Although not much of a drinker like Elsa, I envision my mother sipping a rare Whiskey Sour, trading salty barbs with Patton, laughing shamefully at something naughty the matriarch of Cuban drinkery drunkenly slurs out. Looking deep into her soul, Elsa would dig out my mother's first marriage and battles within her second with my dad. If only she could have warned her about her heart problems...

The Real Housewives of Miami wasn't a good series. The ladies were rather boring, the drama painfully and obviously manufactured to fit the mold of the "Housewives" formula. But Elsa was a diamond.


UPDATE: Bravo has dragged this back from the dead! Or maybe it was never really dead, but in a coma?  The Real Housewives of Miami will return.