Barbi Does Miami

mostly from my oxymoronic years between Miami and Milford

Category Archives: natural and un-natural disasters


by 7 Comments

I Don’t Want To Go Outside

IMG_1588.JPG

I don’t want to go outside. It’s too hot, ten minutes is the max before sweat starts pouring down my back and I feel faint. But it’s not that, the heat is superficial compared to the chaos around me. Our small suburban neighborhood, one of the few left on the beach that is still of mid-century proportions – small lots, small houses, parents pushing baby prams, pulling dogs, unsupervised toddlers riding bikes down the middle of the street, self-appointed seniors in safety vests waving at cars on short-cuts to slow down.

But they are all inside too. Post Irma. Post evacuation.

The only ones out are the county cleanup crews and Jewish families on their way to temple, walking to the other side of Surfside, across from Saks at Bal Harbour Shops. It’s New Year, Rosh Hashanah. They’re all dressed up in their best togs and move with determination, as if nothing can stop them. Nothing has changed. As if they are not picking a path through brown mounds of devastated nature that have been dragged out of each and every yard, into the street to be collected by whom? To be taken where? Is there enough to make us a new planet? I wonder. I fantasize.

Iram hood

Inside, at my computer, I wage war with my landlord and his Baby Huey property manager. They say that disasters bring out the best in people, adversity brings them together. Not so with our landlord, all the way in Hawaii, acting like we’re annoying guests who overstayed their welcome and now have the audacity to ask for things like boarding up the house — why should he protect our possessions? How about trying to protect your 2.5 million property? I ask, but since the house did not blow away, this seems like a rhetorical question to him. Hindsight, as always, being the argument of the obtuse.

yard

I drained the pool. I sucked the hose like I was stealing gasoline, and funneled the green, slimy water into the lake behind the house. This worked until the level of the pool was lower than that of the high-tide bay. Science I thought, wishing it were a scam and I could blame the Chinese. The remaining water sits about a foot deep, a putrid breeding ground for mosquitos. When I ask what the owner wants to do about this and the 60ft tall palm tree that is top heavy with coconuts and leaning dangerously over the fence, Baby Huey writes me e-mails the likes of Trump Tweets:

“… don’t create extra work and problems [for us].”

 Seriously?!

The girls, back at school, after the Irma-Cat5-coming-right-at-you and YOU WILL DIE news flashes, the closures, evacuations, cancelled flights, power outages, are asked by their teachers “did you have a nice vacation?” I guess some of them follow their students on social media and our escape to Milford looked too idyllic by the Miami-Dade criteria of hurricane evacuation anguish.

IMG_1599

Oh Miami. It’s not even October and you’ve already worn me out. I count the days to June, when I can leave and not come back. Never live through another hurricane. Never again be told that I’m a bummer when I bring up climate change during a dinner party while water floods the streets below us.

Never again feel like a stranger, a misfit in a place that is alien to me in its upside-down culture of Whatever. Where gravitas and context and consequence are the lexicon of Debbie Downer and her tribe of party poopers. Where everything I try to do feels like grasping at a hologram as people shake their heads and say: “What did you expect? This is Miami! Why don’t you just let it go. Life’s a beach, just have fun.”

yard2

But the sand on the beach burns the soles of my feet. The ocean water is strangely warm and filled with hurricane debris and plastic – bags, cups, straws, lighters, bottles – and surfers are coming down with nasty infections. Two more hurricanes passed by Miami Beach, a few hundred miles out in the Atlantic. Barbuda, Dominica, St.Maarten/Martin, Tortola, St.John, Vieques, Puerto Rica, Cuba, the Keys and Houston lie destroyed. People are homeless. Cultures gone…

I don’t want to go outside.

IMG_1598

 


by 7 Comments

Beyond Miami Beach…

As Advised by Great White Dog

I find myself annoyed. Am I annoyed with Miami? After eight years of living here?

Much has happened in that time. We lived here during Obama’s his entire presidency. When we arrived there were many unspoken agreements that had shaped the local culture over the twenty preceding years, from the wild-west eighties until the crash of 2009. “As long as we are having fun” was one of them. Being serious was boring. I was called a Debbie Downer at a dinner party, when I talked about water in the streets as a result of climate change (that BTW, had made every guest late for the party). Don’t get me wrong, I like having fun, but my idea of fun is  different from dressing in skimpy but expensive designer clothes, drinking outrageous cocktails, clamoring around celebs and music so intense that the only possible interaction is taking selfies with your “friends” (while hoping for one with that star).

Yes guilty, my initial blogs were all about those parties. As an outlet for my culture shock. And, after years of working in NYC and living in Milford, PA with small children, these parties were so alien, so different and took me so far outside myself, that it felt like something I needed, in the way that getting really drunk sometimes feels like a healthy dose of vitamin C. It wore off fast, the so-called glamorous lifestyle, one that I had always walked away from, in Amsterdam, Paris, London and New York. It just isn’t me. I like to drive myself hard and if I don’t accomplish stuff I set out to do, I get depressed. I do not dream of retiring, shopping and sitting by the pool for the rest of my life. I need to be heard and seen and not for gossip and what I wear. So when the party dust settled I got to work on being relevant in Miami, no matter what it took.

It took a lot… I gave it my best… I feel depleted… I can’t say I conquered and I’m kind of over trying (… plus I’m getting shit done in other parts of the world).

And yes, I realize it’s not all about me and I’m not alone. Three months into 2017 and this worn-out feeling is a national depression. Up and down the East and West Coast we aspired to be part of a wave of hope that Obama brought with him. One that I saw as a way to change and save Miami, with talks of rising sea-levels, an ocean full of plastic, recycling and up-cycling, the right for all kids to an inspired public education such as DASH, affordable housing instead of 20% occupancy in condos and private homes worth billions on Miami Beach, air-conditioned year-around.

But if it felt like I was swimming against the stream over the past eight years,  I am now swimming into a Tsunami. Will the already lavish parties get even bigger and crazier as the 1% feels empowered, emboldened in their greed and need to flaunt it, with Miami Beach as the perfect stage for competitive one-percenting? Living less than a mile from Sunny Isles, with its six Trump Towers, and the highest concentration of Russian investments in recent years, Russia’s unabashed imperialism is palpable. And after the cuts to environmental protection, the NEA, healthcare, public transportation, education, housing and human and women’s rights, what will happen to the other group, the full-time residents and working class whose statistics show that Miami’s income disparity is one of the largest in the country?

Yet it is all about me. Also. About what I can give and do and how I will spend the next twenty years of my life optimizing who I am, what I have learned and how I can reflect this back on generations to come. In another year the twins will leave for college. I will be free from the school calendar, driving and feeding and other hands-on mothering. I look at them, and how they act and feel, and I remember being seventeen and practically jumping out of my own skin with impatience, anger even at being told what to do by teachers, parents, the system. The nervous restlessness that I now recognize for what it is in my girls – their booster engines filled with ambition for their future and need for autonomy, propelling them forward. As I see this in my daughters I recognize it in myself, four decades older than they are, but the impulse is the same, I am getting ready for another shift.

So I am annoyed at Miami. Or I am just annoyed. I am practically jumping out of my skin with irritation at the status quo, and like a very old teenager I’m going to use this urge to amp it up some and get more shit done…

(But maybe not in Miami).

 

Links to projects elsewhere:

PORTFOLIO SITE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


by 3 Comments

WOMAN – OCTOBER – 2016

milford_readers_writers_gloria_1

I am different this month. And if I am different then millions of women are different this month. I am one of many and I am never alone. I am woman and I am different this month.

I am different because two weeks ago the Milford Readers and Writers festival happened. It happened in the town I love and I was one of the organizers. I am different because I listened to Gloria Steinem, up on the stage and in front of the logo I had designed. I am different because my long-in-the-works book, Stupid Model, was published and I sold fifty copies over three days. I am different because I was doing it with all with my friends. I am different because for those few days I felt centered and within myself.

I read a passage from my book to a room full of women and they laughed and applauded. They heard me and we connected. This changed me. Then it was over, my old and new friends went home, I tidied up the house and I too went home, leaving my home behind.

I am different now from who I was then. And I am different from who I was in September.

Together with millions of others I am restless. I am anxious. I am provoked. I am angry and I want the world to be different.

Is it true that change brings up everything unlike itself?

Together with an entire generation (or two) of women I have been forced to remember things that I had forgotten. Or had marginalized. Things that became threads woven into the fabric that made me into who I am today. Those small things that grab us and make us a little less proud. A little less confident. A little less…

I always fought when they happened. After being a scared, weepy child I stood up for myself when I walked away from my youth at age seventeen. To Paris where I fought the men who groped me on the Metro, followed me in the street clucking and whistling, took me to dinner stroking my thigh under the table while talking business with colleagues above the white linen, silver, china and crystal. I fought the photographers who demeaned me over and over and, on my last day, I physically attacked the ultimate misogynist, a famous couturier who had me thrown out of Paris.

Illustration from Stupid Model in Paris and Down Under

from Stupid Model in Paris and Down Under

Perhaps I fought because my mother fought. Fought her own demons. From the German soldiers who had controlled her town and her family when she was a teenager, the ghost of my father who drove his car into a tree and left her alone with me, a two-year-old babe, to my stepfather who was controlling and abusive and after fifteen years absconded with one of her younger friends.

I fought because those were the days that we “fought back”. A clinched fist was our symbol. Don’t fuck with us. But who were we kidding? When you could not be anywhere alone without at least one man grabbing you wherever he liked, metaphorically and physically.

I fought my way to success. I was ambitious they said, like a dirty word, dirtier than pussy and grab. Subconsciously, I learned to use sexism in a game of exchange that couldn’t be won. Like fake promises it never delivered that moment of pure achievement, because in the shadows there was always a baritone boasting – you’d be nothing if it wasn’t for me, and I can undo you.

October 2016. Women. What the fuck?

Did we really think it would come easy?

Just as it seems within reach we have to conquer our past and slay our ultimate dragon and not just metaphorically. He’s real and he looms, lies, interrupts, gropes, intimidates, demeans and threatens. Bitch is only one letter away from Witch, the she-devil, burn her at the stake, whipped into a frenzy the fearful-of-change masses promise to end her, cheering…

Change brings up everything unlike itself.

(I wonder if my daughters look at my rage the same way I look at my husband when he loses his shit in the car at the guy who just cut him off.)

It may not seem like it to the next generation, and it may not feel like it to us right now, but we have come a long way. And when Hillary is president our daughters will soon take it for granted and move on. That’s what change does: it sets the stage for more change, and they have plenty to do.

And we will have some laurels to rest on. Hopefully we can finally forget what we are feeling now, in October 2016, the fear that he can undo us. But remembering and standing together and visualizing holding hands with all women everywhere, yes, also the ones who wear T-shirts that say He Can Grab This >, we will undo him and finally allow ourselves to feel that sense of pure achievement.

LINK to STUPID MODEL:

img_7725

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


by Leave a comment

Waiting for Obama

DSC_1206

EARTH DAY IN THE EVERGLADES

“The miracle of light pours over the green and brown expanse of saw grass and of water, shining and slowly moving, the grass and water that is the meaning and the central fact of the Everglades. It is a river of grass.” – Marjorie Stoneman Douglas

President Obama spent Earth Day in the Florida Everglades, flying in the face of global warming denier Governor Rick Scott (R) and his mandate that bans the word “climate change” from the Tallahassee government dictionary.

After two hours of waiting in the heat, humidity, bugged by flies and the stench of porta-potties, the program announcer must’ve been as dopey as I was and his nonchalant introduction came after Obama had already stepped onto the freshly-cut grass. Mentally unprepared for the skinny man who casually crossed the lawn as if he was on his way to a neighbor’s picnic, I was almost disappointed, but as soon as he got behind the Presidential insignia Obama appeared to expand into his presidential stature and gave a strong speech that was full of sound bytes designed to create ripples (but not storms) in tea party cups. When the president said: “climate change can no longer be denied. It can’t be edited out. It can’t be omitted from the conversation,” it was clear who he was targeting, and he continued to speak specifically to Florida: “because in places like this, folks don’t have time, we don’t have time — you do not have time to deny the effects of climate change. Folks are already busy dealing with it. And nowhere is it going to have a bigger impact than here in south Florida. No place else.”

Day flight on Air Force One tomorrow with the President. We’re going to # ActOnClimate.” He was instantly torn apart by retweets that called his plans “more like a way to pollute in style.” But what could he do? Nye was Obama’s personal scientist and warm-up act, providing that selfie-with-star moment for the hardworking officials, to which Nye submitted himself with all the blasé enthusiasm of a modern-day celebrity.  read the rest of the article here

  nye_obama-960x542  419B7912-570x570

 


by 1 Comment

Biebered

Everything happens in Miami. Just as I’m not looking. Like last night Justin Bieber drag raced below my bedroom window (relatively speaking on the scale and probability of the entire universe, so don’t start outing me with comments that it was several blocks south).

He was nabbed by the Miami Beach police and resisted arrest. They say. But thats what they always say. If you’re not falling into their arms yodeling that you’re sorry, they write on your arrest form that you “resisted arrest.” Hey Bieber was lucky that they didn’t tase him with their favorite gotcha toy ( used on young males of any color, tourists included).

563130_10202933695806440_1498856642_n

This happened at 4.13 am (note the 13 and not 10 or 15, that’s one sober cop) and by the time America brushed its teeth and poured its milk into its cereal a mega media story had been launched.

Baby Bieber’s mugshot was on every TV channel, every tweet, FB post looking like someone had told him it was a shoot for Teen.com, or better still a casting call for a cute new lesbian on Orange is the New Black. Smile! And hysterical news casters (inc. the likes of Anderson Cooper) came in their panties analyzing what could possibly have led to the downfall of the young role model to millions. Psychiatrists, lawyers, political analysts and weeping fans were interviewed and their conclusion was, with much head shaking: Bieber suffered from “Impostor Syndrome” and it was merely a cry for help! And where were the Bieber parents? Really, and how could they let this happen?

socialreax25f-1-web

Meanwhile Bieber sat in his cell (surrounded by Miami clubbers arrested at LIV for trying to enter the VIP zone) and wondered where his friend God was. After all the credit he’d given to God for his success, tagging him in every tweet, had God really forsaken him in his hour of need? His much needed need to act his age and gender and be invisible while racing a rented Lamborghini on Miami Beach, while just a tiny teensy bit intoxicated?

God? God!

I bet God didn’t even notice. I mean as soon as God focusses his attention on Miami Beach, like sits on a cloud somewhere over South Florida, he sees nothing but yellow (or red) Lamborghinis driving @ 60mph. And when he bothers to zoom in (think Google Earth or Godle Earth),  he sees young testosterone pumped up with performance enhancers like alcohol, codeine and pot (he calls it marijuana, and planted it as an afterthought late on day six, and only for medicinal value) and too much time and money, everywhere.  Like Everywhere. Especially at 4.13 am.

So I imagine God shrugged, made a mental note to send the Devil a text later, asking him to go easy on the young Bieb, and turned his attention back to Chris Christie.

Slide1

Meanwhile, we, those who live in Miami Beach, smile and shrug the shrug of knowledge. Like man eats man’s face off? Like tasing a teen artist to death for tagging graffiti? Like a celebrity arrested for acting out? Of course! What do you expect? This is Miami!

And when I drove home last night, yes along Pinetree Drive enjoying its 15 minutes of fame (paparazzi are still hanging out – you know, for when time goes backwards and they’re the first on the scene), I looked over at the trophy wife in a black SUV right next on me. As per habit we stepped on it, raced for the orange light at 41st Street, speedometers hitting the 56mph mark, and made it, perfectly timed, just through red.

What?

What do you expect? This is Miami!

images images

Stupid Model in Paris is now available on Amazon :

 


by 1 Comment

Miami Beach Stands its Ground

Slide1

This week Florida is the new Texas. The state Americans love to hate. But what does that make Miami?

Two pieces of Miami Beach news came across my ticker this morning. First the announcement that architect Rem Koolhaas has won the competition for the redesign of the Miami Beach convention center and the other from the City Commissioner, apologizing for the fact that Miami is indeed becoming part of the Atlantic Ocean.

This from the mayor’s office:

I want to let you know that I am working side by side with City Departments to resolve the serious flooding issues that Miami Beach is experiencing … flooded areas, stalled vehicles, flooding at private residences, flooding in construction areas…  the Public Works Department has been troubleshooting pump station operations, clearing of inlets and outfalls, efficient operation of the stormwater systems including  two vacuum trucks working to address stormwater and sewer backups… a Taskforce will see how we can respond better to these flooding situations. ..Do we need more vacuum trucks? This is the type of question that we need to examine… I believe that working together as a community and a collaborative effort we can be better prepared.  

How heartening that the City pledges to Stand its Ground with a neighborhood-watch task force against rising water levels.

“Get out of our hood or I’ll suck and shoot you right back to where yo came from with the super spout of my shiny big vacuum truck.”

COOL!

Bring it on!

And bring on the new 600 million convention center a mere two blocks from the big blue intruder.

design

Did they pick Rem Koolhaas because he’s Dutch? After all the  Dutch have been defying water for centuries, building above ground cities below sea level on 30% of their country. Or did they pick him for his celebrity status, this starchitect of all architects?

It was Miami Beach developer Robert Wennett who introduced  OMA (The name of Koolhaas’ firm) to the Beach Convention Center project.

Wennet, a Miami native, is no stranger to complete make-overs. Local lore has it that he, pudgy and ordinary looking, disappeared from the Miami scene for “several years” only to reappear one Halloween night in the guise of an impeccable Marilyn Monroe and anonymously claimed the first prize at Tui Prakech’s famous bi-annual Halloween party.

Next he gave Lincoln Road a make-over by hiring architects Herzog deMeuron to create the 1111 plaza, stores and parking garage that give Lincoln Road renewed urban gravitas. Wennet himself perches in his uber nest atop the garage and swoops down into the plaza with all the flamboyant superiority of a Batman nemesis.

While Wennet may be in it for the prize, Koolhaas is never accused of anything other than pragmatic idealism. During a recent presentation at the Colony Theater he left his Miami audience wondering if he even wanted the job. He did not pitch, he did not try to endear himself, he did not flatter, he simply stated the fact that Miami Beach is an “interesting hybrid” as a beach resort and real city. When questioned he was critical of American culture, and showed little faith whether the IQ of the local population could match his proposed plan.

However…

o-RISING-SEA-LEVELS-MIAMI-CLIMATE-CHANGE-facebook

“Miami, as we know it today, is doomed,” says Harold Wanless, the chairman of the department of geological sciences at the University of Miami. “It’s not a question of if. It’s a question of when.”

Miami’s bid to separate itself from mother state Florida’s identity as the bigot, racist, dumb motherfucker state, boycotted by Stevie Wonder and liberal tourists, and reinvent itself as the cutting edge, Euro-style metropolis of art and design while slowly disappearing into the Atlantic Ocean certainly makes an “interesting hybrid.”

The best piece of advice for the identity challenged city of Miami and the much maligned state of Florida, where thinking (if at all) evolves from the gift of hindsight, is found in OMA’s mandate itself:

“We think before we do…”

AWDGK1


by 1 Comment

Steve Jobs, TED and thinking different…

Beach plastic necklace. Crosses made from crate embellished with seed pearls

Today the ether is atwitter with quotes from Steve Jobs to “think different”.

Everyone is encouraging everyone to think different.

(A paradox I think)

The TED movement is based on this Steve concept, in fact TED has branded thinking different with “Ideas Worth Sharing” and encourages people from all over to share their ideas, their ways of different thinking, around the globe.

Many people are asking about my TED talk, “How did you get in? How did you do it?”

To be honest it had not occurred to me until I was invited by TED to share my recent work at their next event in Miami.

The evolution of my relationship to what I find on the beach and what I do with it has been organic and compared to the speed of my previous life on 7th Avenue where a new collection was due every six weeks, it was slow.

Very slow.

Slow is good. Slow gave me more time to think . But, because the thoughts happened over an extended period of time, they no longer feel different. They have become part of who I am.

So when I talk about my passion for beach plastic it does not feel like I think different.

Different may well be in the eye of the beholder and it’s in constant flux.

For instance.

Sixty years ago plastic was a “different” material. It was introduced as the material that would give nature a break because we were depleting wood, bone, ivory etc. Now there is not a moment in our life when we do not interact with it. The entire planet is awash with plastic. Oceans carry plastic particles around like cells in a bloodstream. Plastic has been found in tens of thousands of living species, including us. Single use plastic is no longer giving nature a break, it is suffocating life.

In the past I put my creative work out there, but not the thought behind it. I have always been more interested in the outcome rather than the explanation of the creative process and believe that authenticity resonates on its rightful frequency.  But because my work now has an element of activism I succumbed.

Still

I’d hate to preach. I am not here to make any individual feel guilty. I can inspire but I cannot tell you what to do.

(Corporations, hell yes, I’ll make them  guilty all day long, as well as government and policy makers).

But as individuals we have free will. We are in charge of our own destiny. We can inform ourselves and choose to act. We can decide to  bring our own bags to the supermarket instead of using 20 plastic bags instead. We  can recycle, reuse, repurpose and refuse. We have the choice to take responsibility.

in between the lines

My personal transformation started  in Eleuthera 8 years ago.

On my first beach walk  I noticed,  in between the lines in the sand,  bright flecks of color. My initial thought was how pretty but then I realized these specks of plastic were  not supposed to be there.

By the end of that first walk I had encountered everything that mankind had ever made in plastic.

Crates, chairs, brushes, lids, containers, barrettes, flip flops and sneaker and endless lengths of nylon rope.

Even on this remote “pristine” beach I realized that we live in a man made world.

Being a designer I look at almost everything as shape, color, texture and inspiration and what I saw that day I’d never seen before.

The beach plastic had been tumbled in sand, salt and coral. and was bleached by the sun. It had been in nature for so long that it had taken on a natural patina. Some pieces looked like stone, like little colored gems.

I started picking them up.

My love hate relationship with plastic started in that moment .

Back  home I tried to find out more.

I learned that we each consume roughly 300 pounds of plastic a year of which a mere 7% is recycled and 8 million pieces of plastic find their way into the ocean every day.

What could I do?

I had an ever increasing “collection” of beach plastic in my studio and I started making earrings.

Eventually I had an awakening to the possibilities of this material that was never really owned but had been thrown to the mythical place called away.

To make jewelry was a transformation, not just for me, but also for the material.

Think of a water-bottle top. Does anyone ever feel that they own a plastic bottle top? It just keeps the liquid inside the bottle, right? Which you don’t feel you own either. Does the manufacturer of your water feel he owns that bottle?

Nobody owns single-use plastic.

I like finding weathered bottle tops. They make great earrings, and I love selling single use plastic, beach plastic, into ownership.

If plastic is made to last forever then maybe, like diamonds, it can be loved forever.

I got this comment yesterday:

“Keep cleaning up the beaches lady.. but what are you gonna do with all those balloons with the plastic string ties and can you make something with all the garbage those people in Miami leave on the beaches while you’re at it???”

He does NOT think different!

I am not cleaning up the beaches for him or anyone. I do it for me. Creating beauty with beach plastic makes me happy and by getting your attention I implicate you in the tragedy of our single-use throw-away culture.

I hope I make you think.

Not just different.

Different is fleeting.

But think.

All the time

About everything.

website:

http://www.plasticisforever.net/


by 1 Comment

Back and Doing the Other Miami…

I’m back.

From pastoral Pennsylvania to crazy Miami.

To the bachelor pad which is being de-bachelored by turning the “pool” room (as in shooting pool with your mates at 3 am, after getting home from the Wall without scoring)  into a third bedroom for the twins so they can do homework, hang out, bicker and sleep behind a wall (instead of the exposed upper mezzanine).

Tiesto mural in pool room will be preserved

Of course this was to be done in the ample two months that we were away and of course it was started on the Friday we returned. So now we neither have an office (pool room) nor a bedroom for the girls since everything from one room is piled in the other.

But thats OK.

They say they will be done by Wednesday.

They say.

They said they’d be done by now.

But I’m not bothered. There are bigger problems.

Like school uniforms.

Maybe one has to be genetically programmed to deal with procuring kid’s uniforms. Maybe I’m too hippy-dippy Dutch to even think about universal clothing for creative kids. See I always look to blame myself first (Have you noticed? Do you do that too? I wish I were a bit more Teaparty, and blame everyone else. Like only everyone else all the time.), still I was proud to have gathered, at Woodbury Common (Like/Love), four khaki bottoms that my trendy twins would deign to wear to school, and one pair of black pants that may get them sent home (while the color is right, the fit will be deemed too sexy, which in this city of underdressed exhibitionists is paradoxical but don’t get me started, I already wrote that blog.)

The preppy polo tops have to be bought locally since they are emblazoned with the Miami Arts Charter School logo.

lime, teal, white or black with MAC logo

Another bigger problem was getting an e-mail from TED, shortly after arrival, requesting a full run-through of my talk at 1 pm on Wednesday. This Wednesday? This Wednesday!

TED? But I was still on uniforms. Saturday was uniform day on my “what to do when we get back” list. Which also has finish homework with the girls, unpack, get food in fridge, get 2nd floor toilet and phone fixed , you know the drill.

TED!

So while I should be writing and practicing my TED talk, I’m chasing uniforms.

Yes, I’d ordered them online as the school suggested, but got a notice a few days ago that the polo’s would be ready for delivery in 5 weeks!

WTF? Right?

What are the suggesting? Homeschooling for five weeks? I mean the school is clear:

All students and parents have agreed to abide by the school uniform as described in the parent/student contract signed during registration.

Students not in uniform will be required to contact their parent and sent home.

I’m scared!
Ibiley suggests I visit any of their conveniently located Miami stores.
They lied. None of them are conveniently located. All of them are in scary shit neighborhoods that are at least  40 minutes away.

I settled on North Miami and was wise enough to call first, just to make sure they had said polos in stock, but of course got the robot who told me that August is too busy to answer the phone, and tells me to leave a message.

They’re also too busy to answer.

I find out just how busy.

But not till after getting lost in the maze of NE and NW 159th street Drive and Street and Court, at the very place where 95, the turnpike and 539 intersect in a spider-web of flyovers and underpasses and of course the exit ramp that Mapquest told me to use is Closed for Construction.

What?

You are sorry for the inconvenience?

Fuck you!

Why not just post some signs up telling how to get the fuck to Ibeley Uniforms in the industrial park (with one entrance) that I can see from the overpass which points towards the Everglades, at 70 miles an hour.

OK. So.

50 minutes later, and isn’t it amazing how proud those moments can make you (forget about a TED talk), I pull up in front of Ibiley.

Pride turns to nausea in a nano second.

Swarming around the  huge warehouse, are hundreds of people of many colors (none quite as white as the three of us), several  stainless steel quilted food trucks are randomly parked, and something that resembles a long line, made up from entire families (bring the kids, the toddlers, the babies, the grannies, aunts, uncles and don’t forget the neighbors) comes out from the front door into the 95 degree sunshine.

We “politely” battle our way inside only to find many feet of empty shelves and another line that resembles immigration at JFK before Christmas.

Determined (if nothing else) I find 8 tees (4 each), while yelling at the twins to help me. Unfortunately they’re catatonic with the otherness of it all, like in some culture-shock transition from the verdant woods to this urban jungle.

We join the immigration line.

After ten minutes we move close enough to spot a tiny sign over the counter.

We are out of the folowing logo patches. (you buy the tees and pay in line #1, they give you your school’s logo patches, you join line #2, the one outside, and they apply the patches).

Come back on the 28th and we will apply them for free,, it also read. (You’d have to bloody well pay ME to come back!).

There’s no actual list of said missing patches posted. I guess it changes by the minute.

So.

I grab an Ibiley sales girl who looks like she will get really drunk that night.

MAC is not on her list of out-of-stock patches.

I ponder if this is good news. I’m rather praying for an excuse to leave. But it sounds like we will be there for the next few hours. (Could I get into this Cuban/Caribbean/South American block-party atmosphere?).

The girl walks away.

The girl comes back.

“You are at the wrong location”, she says. “MAC uses special embroidery and is only available at our Little Havana store on SW 8th Street.”

We are on NW 167th street.

You have to be from Miami to know what that really means, but imagine flying to London instead of Sydney.

We are fucked.

We leave the line.

We are hungry and buy three sandwiches, and three Cuban drink cans ( sexy looking mixed mango. papaya, passion fruit that taste like water) from the guilted truck.

“Mom, these are the best sandwiches I’ve ever had,” the twins chime, “Yes, at least we got some really good sandwiches out of it.”

They encourage me. (Afraid that I might have a shit-fit meltdown?)

Instead I find 95 South (easy), and head towards Little Havana.

I call husband who is on the porch in PA and tells me its the first nice day in weeks.

@#$%^&* !!

He also tells me to give myself a break.

He often tells me this.

I listen. The only breaks I take are the ones he tells me to take.

He’s good to me in that way.

“You did your best,” he says. “Go home, have a swim, enjoy being back.”

He has a point.

I compromise with myself. I settle on Target, which I happen to be passing, buy the last three (a terrible number for twins) white polo’s and  HP iron-0n tee shirt transfer paper.

I feel clever.

I shall go home, get the MAC logo online and iron it on.

Which I do.

While arguing with the MAC principal in my mind that this is as good as the real thing from Little Havana and that the Ibiley store was completely out of stock (good chance of that anyway, right? Given the odds so far?)

While the trip to Little Havana still looms, since three tees between twins won’t last me the promised five weeks.

They wont even last two days.

And then there is TED.

TED needs attention.

As soon as the girls are in school TED will be my lover.

I promise TED my undivided attention….


by 2 Comments

The Lady Who Said “HI” (to a burglar) ….

oh, thats only Iain, son, coming back from an evening run...

I know this title kinda ruins  my story.

I may change it.

I often do. I start a blog with one title just to get in the mood and then use something completely different.

I try to be like Penelope Trunk with my titles.

But I cant. I just cant be that deliberately controversial only to lure readers into yet another story of a fight with my husband.

Anyway.

We are finally, years after buying a piece of land in Eleuthera, thinking of putting in the driveway, so I met with Mr. Sands (yes, he of making sandy driveways) to discuss topography, mature trees and boundary lines.

Serious stuff.

But Neville (Sands) is also chatty. He likes to sit in his windowless air-conditioned office and shoot the breeze.

So I told him one of my favorite Eleuthera (there are many) stories. One that involved me directly.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The year before we had rented an old house in the town of Governor’s Harbour over Christmas. Tamarind is a big, stone sea captain’s house with four big bedrooms upstairs, a large wooden central staircase, porches, etc. A little run-down, but perfect for all six of us.

In those days I was already collecting beach plastic like crazy, the yard was full of it, and I used the kitchen table for making my “jewelry”. My tool kit stood open. A small amount of silver and even less gold wire lay amongst the beach debris.

I don’t know if somehow the word got out that I was a “jeweler”.

And we were careful, Eleuthera is very safe, but still we were in town and so we checked doors and windows every night before going to bed.

That night I got up at 3 am to pee.

I never pee in the night.

I go to sleep at night and I wake up in the morning.

I do not pee.

I am also blind.

I am legally blind when my contacts sit in their little blue box in the bathroom and when I shut my eyes its about the same as having them open only darker (I am   -7.25 in both eyes for those in the know).

So I get up and walk onto the landing (which is the only way from our bedroom to the upstairs bathroom.)

There….

Running up the stairs, not more than 4 feet from me, is a kid (I can tell) in a black hoodie (pulled up).

So what do I do?

I say:

HI!

What does he do?

He says:

HI!

Then he realizes that this is not quite how these situations are supposed to go (I was a little slower and still thinking that if this guy was in my house at 3 in the morning I probably knew him and ought to be polite), he turned and ran.

Raced like Jackass down the stairs and out.

OK. So now am awake, like fully and I think.

SHIT! That was a burglar!

I still have to pee so I pee and I think.

I decide that the last thing I want is husband running through the bushes with a very blunt (rental homes never have sharp knives) kitchen knife after a kid 30 years younger than he (give or take, he was at a disadvantage.)

Next I check on the girls – they are all three fast asleep.

Fate had me at their door like a sentry just in time, and when I realized this I did get shaky.

So I woke husband. Or tried.

“I just saw a burglar on the stairs, honey.”

No response.

I considered going back to bed but this would not look good in the morning. Like my story’s credibility would be diminished.

So I woke him up hard and together we found the window in the front parlor that been pried open.

the merry window access

Then we called the police.

Governor’s Harbour has one policeman on duty, at night, and he arrived about ten minutes later, looking sleepy and, well, very relaxed.

He sat down at my kitchen table, I cleared some of my beach plastic to make room for his paper work, and we filed our case.

Was anything stolen?

I hadn’t checked.

So I looked around and found that my wallet had been emptied (about six dollars,I never have cash), and that one of my bling flip-flops was missing.

One!

The chief sent me upstairs to get my passport and when I came down he was playing with my plyers and wearing my super over-magnifying glasses that are made to make tiny detailed work easier . They also make eyes look like this:

how the policeman looked up at me

He asked if I would be able to identify the kid and I said no way. I am blind. I wouldnt even be able to tell you if he was black or white.

He thought this was funny.

SO.

Now back to Neville Sands, a year plus later.

I tell him the story. Just like above, only when I get to the bit where I say:

HI! To the burglar.

Neville sits up, slaps his hand on his desk (I jump), and shouts:

“So YOU are the lady that says HI to burglars.”

WTF? I think (one does not say this in Eleuthera.)

“How do you know?” I ask.

“You are famous, man!” He says. (the man-thing one does say to women in Eleuthera). “Like everyone knows.”

“Everyone?”

“Like that stupid kid tells all his friends that he’s doing this house in town, and this lady sees him on the stairs, and she’s so crazy – she says HI to him, and he’s even more stupid and he says HI back and this makes all his friends laugh and they think its the funniest thing thats happened all year!”

How do you know this? I ask.

“Well, meanwhile the policeman on duty that night is also telling all his friends. They also think its hilarious, so everyone is telling everyone and then the “bad” guys are telling the “good” guys the story, you know the kids name and all, and now they have him cause he’s telling everyone bout you sayin’ Hi and all.”

“So they got him?”

“Yeah man! He went to Juvie for six months, he’d done some other stuff too, so don’t feel bad, it wasn’t really you.”

Then Neville told me the story of another kid who stole a Princeton (bright orange with Princeton logo) sweat shirt during a burglary and decided to wear it right away, around town. What ensued needs no further explanation.

Its a small, very small island.

And we love it.


by 2 Comments

Plastic is Forever but I am not….

I am now of the age where, when faced with a photo of myself, I cringe and only see the wrinkles, double chin(s?), roots etc. You know what I mean, and I think maybe I’ll like this one in ten years time, as my mind is forever a decade behind my appearance.
So when dear Gina Rudan from Practical Genius posted this video of our interview last week I watched with my eyes shut until Kiki said, “mom you look really pretty.” It was the surprise in my daughter’s voice that made me look.

So, here  some anti beach plastic pollution advocacy that I do not mind sharing, and thank you Gina for making me watchable…

Click here: