This might also be filed under "only in Florida." As my intrepid photographer and I were driving to Miami last week, we came upon this truck that gave us the inside track on God's voting record:
I think that should give Obama the edge because I'm sure the "one man, one vote" thing doesn't apply to God. He should be like a whole state or something!
Di
So much to blog about...so little time to blog.
I will give you this image to ponder and will regale you with South Beach stories in the coming days:
Di
13 Things that are the Quintessence of Boca
1.
I know I used this image earlier in the week, but I was afraid that the TT-ers would miss out if I didn't include this:
Yup...just in case driving a Hummer didn't say, "Look at me! I have
more money than sense! I believe in conspicuous consumption! I care not
about the cost of a tank of gas!" clearly enough...here's a BUBBLEGUM
PINK HUMMER!
2. My son and I arrived at the Apple Store in the mall at 10:30. It was MOBBED!!! On a Wednesday. At 10:30.
3. I was standing talking to the concierge, a lovely older Jewish man who 
looked kind of like this:
A rather distressed woman interrupted us and said haughtily: "I had an appointment." He gently asked, "What time was your appointment?" She sharply retorted, "10:40!" I looked at the clock. It was 10:41.
4. You are going to have to trust me on this, because it's hard to surreptitiously photograph someone with my iPhone. The size zero, be-yoga-panted, purse-that-costs-more-than-a-car-payment gal pictured here has a sweatshirt oh-so-casually wrapped around her 30 inch hips, carefully displaying the following sentiment:
"If the crown fits..."
That kind of says it all!
5. Again...you are going to have to trust me on this. The resurgence of leggings as a fashion "Do" should be limited to those under the age of 25. Really.
6. A sign at the beauty salon offered a drawing to win "$300 worth of Integrative Dermatology." Maybe it's just me. Maybe my medical standards are too high. But I don't think I want to choose a practitioner to work on one of my favorite bodily organs, my skin, because I won her in a drawing! I think I need a slightly better recommendation than an acrylic picture frame in a salon.
7. My friend Stacy whose family goes "slumming" at the Ritz-Carlton and who "wears" purses, had her identity stolen! Someone got hold of her debit card and began charging unauthorized items. How did she convince the bank that it was not her making the unauthorized purchases? Well, the list of purchases went something like this:
Juicy Couture
Abercrombie & Fitch
Whole Foods
Wal-Mart
Starbucks
Nordstrom's
One of these things is not like the other...
8. Not native to Boca, but it might as well be. This quote from Amanda Bynes (now 22) was in today's USA Today:
" I wanted a BMW for my 16th birthday. But my parents were like 'No.'...And they got me a used Honda Accord with my own money. They were like, 'This is what your brother and sister hand.' And I was so offended, so I took it out on them."
There are so many things wrong with this...beyond the fact that her parents didn't "say" things, they "were like" things.
9. I am not sure this is quintessentially Boca. Actually, it's not. I think Boca-ites believe in the religion of Neiman-Marcus, the spirituality of Gucci, the Zen of Louis Vuitton. But I couldn't resist putting this picture in here.
My proposed Boca bumper sticker?
"My other car is a used Honda Accord."
10. It rained yesterday. This is what it's like when it's raining in Boca:
This is what it's like five minutes after the rain stops:
12. It takes less than one hour to get to South Beach...we are leaving in a half hour!!!!
13. Seeing my wonderful friends, Vicky, Stacy and Andrea, made me feel like I never left...but in a good way. They are the people who make the rest of Boca's foibles tolerable.
Di
I usually claim to be a "glass half full" kind of person...so yesterday's miserable whining was not well-received. I can tell because there were NO COMMENTS. Come on!!! Give a girl a break!!! Give me kudos! Give me shit! But, above all, GIVE ME COMMENTS!!!!
Let me tell you about the last 24 hours...in pithy, positive bullet points:
* Here's something you don't see everywhere:
Yup...just in case driving a Hummer didn't say, "Look at me! I have more money than sense! I believe in conspicuous consumption! I care not about the cost of a tank of gas!" clearly enough...here's a BUBBLEGUM PINK HUMMER!
*Here is what it looks like when it's raining here...with apologies to my friends suspended in frozen animation around the world:
*We went to the Marlins/Mets game last night. Rory got to hang out with his friend Adam, baseball gloves in hand, waiting to catch a foul ball:
*We got to see my parents. Dad is a big Mets fan. I got the second best picture of my Dad smiling:
It's not that my Dad isn't a happy guy. It's just that it takes the right combination of circumstances to get a BIG smile out of him in a photo. My Mom, my sister and I blithely grin constantly. Oh, in case you were wondering what the other circumstance was (besides great seats at a Mets game). It was standing on a glacier in Alaska:
*Guess who made the Jumbotron?
*We had a brush with fame sitting behind this guy:
In typical Di style, I became "new best friends" with all of those seated near us. Mr. Zafiris is apparently a minor celebrity in the midst of his 15 minutes of fame. After the Marlins beat the Mets last fall in New York, this appeared in the New York Times (I'm linking to it NYT, so please don't sue me!...I'll take it off if you insist):
And here in South Florida for the opening games of the Mets' season, Mr. Zafiris was quoted in the Miami Herald.
Mr. Zafiris...if you are reading this (I gave him my card) PLEASE COMMENT. Has anyone noticed a trend of comment desperation here?
I'm still finding irritations on my little South Florida adventure...for example on the breakfast buffet, one has to search carefully to find each of the utensils needed for one's breakfast. Forks are located far from the spoons and knives are in another location altogether. Not a search mission one wants to be on before one's second cup of coffee and without one's glasses on.
Di
Paradise...here I am. The sky is clear blue. The temperature is a breezy 80 degrees. Stone crabs are still in season. Three days ago I was golfing with a winter hat pulled down over my ears, three layers of clothes and "Hot Hands"...which really begged the question, "Whose definition of 'hot' are we talking about?" So you would think that I would relax and be mellow.
But it's simply not part of my chemical make-up. So this week's blogs may just be an ongoing accounting of things that irritate me as we are traveling.
1. I know I experienced the misery of traveling with a cranky toddler. I know how hard it is to try to stick to a "normal" schedule and put your little one to sleep in a strange hotel room. But now that my children are grown, I simply say, "Why don't they just f-ing stay home????" Last night, as we settled down around 10:30, we were treated to the overtired screams of a toddler somewhere in the vicinity of our room. I fought the urge to knock on their door and offer them our frequent flyer miles to go home and put the poor kid to sleep in his regular crib. He/she is too young to enjoy any facet of the vacation. So Mom and Dad are just putting everyone in their midst in misery to satisfy their own desires for a "normal" vacation...which is something they should have understood would be delayed for at least 10 years after little Skipper was born.
2. This is a decent hotel. It clearly caters to business travelers. I know this because they have "complimentary cocktails" (hmmm...maybe I should suggest THAT to the screechy toddler!) from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. and I see people wandering around with flip-charts. Yet, wireless internet is NOT INCLUDED IN THE PRICE OF OUR ROOM!!! Is that absurd? Ten bucks for 24 hours of something that is freely floating around in the air. Please feel free to e-mail me with any tricks to subvert this abomination.
3. Again, this is a decent hotel. Don't you think they could afford to label BOTH sides of the milk/2%/half & half containers so that caffeine-deprived vacationers could distinguish between them without lifting and turning them, because they had clearly been labeled by a left-hander. And about those brown stirrer straw things. They do not stand out indicating their presence, leaving the caffeine-starved desperately seeking a spoon. And don't you think it would be better for the environment to just let us have that moment of dignity...stirring our coffee with a REAL spoon.
I could go on and on...and have a Thursday Thirteen two days early. But I will continue to savor the absurdities of traveling to a place I didn't like when I lived there. Tune in tomorrow for the photo of the bubblegum pink Hummer. I know it's April 1, but I'm not making this up!
Di
In the past couple of weeks, I have had two confrontations involving business situations in which I was treated in a very intimidating and condescending way. My normal reaction in these situations (well, perhaps with the exception of with my children) is to keep my voice so calm as to almost be a monotone and not to let the other person's escalating tone of voice affect me. In later discussions with my husband, both of these people acted very differently. And here's the clincher...they were both women!!!
I really felt like they thought they were dealing with a woman, so I was less likely to know what I was talking about and more likely to submit to intimidation. I think in the years of fighting for equality for women in the workplace and in other areas of life, the men may finally get it! And sometimes it's our own gender who subject us to discrimination due to our gender!!!
Anyway...in praise of the male of the species, I would like to share the following things that were said to me this week that were very unexpected:
From my husband: "I'm a moron" (He is not particularly comfortable with admitting that he might just possibly be wrong, so this was huge!)
From my friend Billy after a discussion of the maximum strokes a golfer can take when entering one's score for the purposes of handicap: "Diane, you're right! I stand corrected!"
I often quote someone (I have no idea who) who said, "It is better to be kind than to be right." But I REALLY like being right!
Can someone please explain how the children who insisted that not having a cell phone was going to ruin their lives and now have them, never seem to have them charged, have them on or have them with them when I actually need to get in touch with them?
Here in Boca, we are a mere 40 miles from the border of Miami Dade County...but for all we venture there, it might as well be Venezuela...and in some parts it is! But this week cars full of loved ones have been making the trek on a daily basis because of this girl, Casey (aka KC, Casela, BasketCase) who is in the hospital in Miami. She would be the first to tell you in detail about the details of her surgery...it's the first of two surgeries to remove her colon and reattach something to something else (I never advanced beyond middle school biology). I don't know if anyone besides the insurance company has actually counted, but I would venture a guess that she has spent at least 40 days in the hospital since January. She's on a first-name basis with body parts most of us don't even know we have. She knows what ALL of the abbreviations on Grey's Anatomy and House mean. Her mother can make a nurse jump out of her white rubber shoes with the addition of "STAT" to any sentence. Her grandmother has located every possible mall, Target and kosher deli in a five mile radius of two different hospitals. And her friends have been nothing short of AMAZING!!! At the tender age of 11, not only has Casey endured an illness (ulcerative colitis) that is literally a pain in the A** (Casey would approve of this description!) but she has single-handedly educated her fellow 5th graders about the details of her illness, diagnostic testing and surgery. And they bop into her room full of respect but lacking any fear. Casey is still Casey...she's just attached to an IV pole.
I've told you about her siblings, Zach and Lindsay. And it goes without saying that Casey is a pretty heroic pre-teen. But it's her mom, Stacy, whose dedication, determination and stamina are legendary! She's been sleeping at the hospital, learning the lingo, interfacing with doctors, nurses, child life specialists (whose sole purpose seemed to Stacy to be to bring Casey DVD's) and of course treating them daily with donuts, bagels, etc. I was lucky enough to be at the hospital the other night with my daughter who is Casey's friend when Stacy was able to make a couple hour escape from her full-time medical profession. And being that we were in Miami, she felt Cuban food and a Mojito calling her name. When in Rome...
I called my Cuban friend for a recommendation and with that, my somewhat confusing new navigation system and my cursory memory of the streets of Miami, we found ourselves at Havana Miami. The first good sign was that no one in the entire place was speaking English! This is kind of like going into an Italian restaurant and seeing Tony and Carm sitting there.
We did our best to decipher the menu and not sound too stupid when we were ordering. Mojito, of course, is the same in every language. I talked Stacy out of ordering a pitcher, promising that she could get as many refills as she wanted and she was satisfied (although somehow I think she had visions of just her, a pitcher and a straw).
The food was excellent and the prices extremely reasonable. When was the last time you had dinner for two with drinks for less than $40? I don't think we could get out of Chili's for less than that!
After dinner we walked into the bar to have another drink before going back to the hospital. The lilting Cuban accents surrounded us and our utterly Anglo selves attracted a few stares. We noticed a patio so once we got our drinks we headed that way, seeing a table of elderly Cuban men (and inexplicably, one young, well-built black man) playing Domino's. With the enthusiasm and humor borne of a Mojito and a half, Stacy squealed, "Oh look! They're playing Mah Jongg!!!" Yes, we fit right in.
We sat out on the patio enjoying the tropical night air, the clicking of the dominoes, the indecipherable (to us) conversations and the wafting cigar smoke. After a few minutes, an older gentleman sitting nearby turned to us and said, "I hope this is OK to ask, but what are a couple of gringas like you doing in a place like this?" Stacy, nearing the bottom of Mojito #2, didn't skip a beat and said, "We were looking for Boca and got lost!" The people at our table chatted with us a bit and for a couple hours Stacy got to be the red-haired gringa amongst the Cubans instead the "stat"-spouting hospital mom she's been lately.
If you are ever in Miami, don't be intimidated if you don't speak the prevalent language...you will be greeted with open arms and accepted into the world of Cuban-Americans that is such a huge part of Miami's ambience. And, since I can't resist being a little political, I can't help but think that with Castro's eventual demise, perhaps we will have the chance to meet and engage with even more Cubans and maybe even be able to visit their beautiful country and reach out a hand of friendship and support.
Casey is recovering well and looking forward to going home in the next day or two. I'm researching how the hell to make a Mojito so I can make them for Stacy. It looked to me like a bagged salad topped with vodka...but she tells me it's rum and maybe the green stuff isn't just Romaine lettuce!
Di
After our whirlwind of travel the last couple of weeks, this week has been a welcome respite from packing, unpacking and printing boarding passes. My friend Stacy's daughter Casey who is friends with both of my children is in the hospital...this time for surgery that is going to end the suffering she has experienced having ulcerative colitis and being unresponsive to medication.
I try to be somewhat useful and since I couldn't actually DO the surgery myself or have it done to me so she wouldn't have to go through it, I settled for driving carpool from day camp for Casey's twin 8-year old brother and sister. Now this is something that either REALLY was helpful to the family or something that answered the question, "What can we have her do that will make her feel needed and that she can't F*** up too bad?"
The twins and I have spent a lot of time together over the past several months, and to me it's a treat...taking me back to the days before my children had perfected the eyeroll, when they could show delight at something as simple as making a cake and when their big innocent eyes could melt my heart (they still can, but it's more rare...as they approach adolescence, their eyes become a bit more guarded with little roman shades covering those windows to their souls.) It's almost a peek into one's future as a grandparent...not having to do the daily grind of getting them to clean their rooms, brush their teeth, etc. but getting these amazing hugs. And when they are feeling particularly manipulative...like when I take them to do something their Mom wouldn't (like painting pottery) and there's a chance that there's ice cream in their futures...they look up at me with those big eyes and say, "Can we call you Mom? You are like our second mother!"
Well, actually I'm like the second mother who is actually trying to be more like their first mother who is a much more nurturing soul than I. So, we learn from each other. But tell me, if this little Lindsay in Wonderland asked you for another piece of cak
e, wouldn't you find it just a little hard to say no?
And as for the Zach in the Hat, I'd probably let him keep the fish and the bowl and go play with the kids and Things 1 and 2 while I cleaned up the mess...because look at that punim (how was that Stacy? good use of Yiddish?)
Several months back I read and reviewed a book called I Hate Other People's Kids. And I came to the conclusion that yes, I do hate other people's kids. But now I have been exposed as the sham I am (as opposed to Sam I Am if we are carrying on the Dr. Seuss reference). I am, in fact, a sucker for other people's kids...especially these two who have been tough little troupers despite the upheaval in their family due to their sister's illness. They've gone with the flow. They've rolled with the changes. They've cried for missing their Mommy ALMOST as much as she has cried for missing them. As they grow up, they will be stronger for having experienced Casey's illness and there will be lots of great karma waiting for them around every turn.
They are the unsung heroes...and I just wanted to sing about them for a minute. I love you Lindsay & Zach!
Temp-Mom Di
This is Max:
This picture doesn't show a tenth of the personality this kid has. He cracks me up every time I see him. His mom is my friend Andrea:
A couple weeks ago, we took Max to a beach party with us. Andrea and her husband had just left for a romantic week away from the kids. I was sitting on the beach wearing my flowered bathing suit with a flowered sarong and a floppy hat. Max came up to me, looked at me carefully and said, "You are just like my Mom." So, thinking about Andrea whose age doesn't even start with the same digit as mine, I was feeling pretty good about myself! I said (coyly), "Really? What I'm wearing?"
Max replied, "No, that bruise on your leg." Brought back to earth by a 10 year old!
Di
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