Sunday, December 20, 2009

MUJER Project

Last year, while I was off in the Alps living the dream, climbing mountains, cooking 5 gallons of spaghetti sauce at a time and generally enjoying myself, my Girl Scouts helped another Girl Scout Troop with a Christmas project. These other Girl Scouts had been hosting an annual Christmas Party for the clients of an organization that helps families with education and support to prevent domestic violence and other horrible stuff (www.mujerfla.org) since they were 1st grade Brownies. They graduated from high school last year, which left the Christmas Party with no organizer this year. So, it seemed natural for my troop to take it on this year. The moms who helped with the party last year said "oh, it's a lot of work..." But I said "We can make it happen" And we did. (Because in case anyone is keeping track, my scouts [and their parents] Rock).

Here's how it went:

First, gifts came by the mini van load to the Scout house from all the people who had been collecting them for the past month. We were lucky enough to be able to use the collecting network that had been established by the previous Girl Scout troop over the years.

Then we started wrapping.....

And sorting...and piling...
And six hours later, we were done.
I had a list, and checked it twice.
The next weekend we headed down south to set up a park for our party.

We got out the presents.
And decorated the pavilion.
And waited for the kids to show up.


Remember the Hip Hop Hulers? That's right. I still got it.
Santa Arrived!
He had toys for every kid.
With new toys in tow, everyone got a bite to eat--thanks to the hard work of another troop that was helping us out.
A ceremonial beating of an effigy followed lunch. Then, families picked up another bag of presents to take home for Christmas day and homemade bread (yet another troop handled that) and a special gift for all the moms (my Seniors pulled that off)


At the end of the day: everyone was happy, the directors of MUJER had only positive feedback for us, and I was so glad to be done. I'm looking forward to next year...I've got some new ideas to make it even better (since now I've actually been to one of the parties).


Sunday, December 13, 2009

my tree

Check out my tree. I made it.


Saturday, December 12, 2009

South Beach

South Beach is the number one tourist attraction in Miami, so naturally we took Ruthie there too. We went on Thanksgiving morning. [[I'm too tired right now to write anything more than...that...Today was the MUJER Christmas party. Stay tuned for more info on that and why I'm tired! But beach pictures really don't need much in the way of narration, so just follow along folks, I hope this makes you just a little bit jealous]]

It was kind of a cloudy day, but that didn't stop us...





Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Mini. Ghetto. Sea World



Ruth read somewhere that the Sea.quarium was the second most popular thing to do in Miami, after South Beach. We decided to do both (Beach Pictures coming soon!).

The sea.quarium is right next door to RSMAS and it is cheezy and crappy and costs a thousand dollars *or like $35 a head* to get in. Luckily, they have some sort of deal with RSMAS and we get in free--because I guess they know that we're the type who would NEVER pay to see what they have.

We had a nice time. Even though we missed the shark feeding (they did it early, while we were talking to the manatees), and the sea lion feeding (we were too late).





Oh boy. Killer whale and dolphin show.

That killer whale is in too small of a tank. It is really sad.

Thanksgiving


Ruth's visit included Thanksgiving. Since it's an American holiday, she wanted to make sure she got all the traditions correct. I said to her "Now Ruth, it's traditional for the guest at dinner to bring the host an elaborate and expensive gift, but it's considered rude for the host to give the guest any gifts. It's also considered very rude for the host to do any cooking on the day of Thanksgiving".

No, it actually happened like this: I sent her a link to a kids website that described Thanksgiving traditions and she must have really taken the task of understanding our culture to heart because when we had started getting ready for dinner she was first to get out the construction paper and start making hand-turkeys and pilgrim hats. Unfortunately we didn't have any TV to watch and we skipped the naps, and we didn't have an actual turkey: only a Tofu-rkey. I guess you could say her experience was only marginally-traditional, unless the only traditions that count are the ones that have people who like each other eating a dinner together. In that case, we were right on the money.



She didn't want to wear it, but we made her.
Just like old times.
This took Ruth 2 hours to make. It was exhausting for her, but totally worth the effort. His name is Kenton and he lives on my kitchen table.
Granite had a feast too.
Ruth was extremely troubled by this cranberry sauce...
Carving the Tofu-rkey.
Yummmm! No bones!

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Who's having fun on the Fun ship?

This is a photo-essay of epic proportions. Everyone should go on a cruise. It is super fun. You get to run around and do whatever you want all day and then eat in a fancy restaurant at night. They even put your napkin on your lap for you, and you can order whatever food you want, and as much of it as you want. But drinks are not free. On a more serious note: If you're going on a cruise to see other countries and learn about other cultures, a cruise is not the way to do it. The boats are only in a place for 8 hours or so, and there's not enough time to get from the pier, orientate yourself to a new place, and discover new things. It's too hectic, and the places that cruise ships land are too touristy to be any good anyway. I was a bit disappointed with our trip to Cozumel, but we tried.

We tried our best to do everything right. We bought cruise wear with elastic waistlines, we practiced our shuffleboard, we even practiced eating extra amounts so that we'd be prepared for the 24 hour buffet. However, while the cruise met our expectations, there were still surprises.

First off: The window in our room. Imagine our disappointment when Ruth pulled back the curtain to reveal this view. So we shrugged it off and headed to the dining room.

Only to be assaulted by what can only be described as a set-cast off from Running Man or some other post apocalyptic 1980's action movie.
We decided to go along, to get along. At least there was plenty of coffee and desserts and other foody-type foods. This is the all you can eat room. There's always food in there. We ate our breakfast and lunch in this room. With sunglasses on.


Our first port of call was Key West. We got in around 7:30 in the morning, and decided to skp the pub crawl and instead mingled with the locals. Like Hemmingway here.
This photographer and I got real friendly. He never called me back.
No comment.

Ruth found some locals of her own to befriend.
After making friends, we walked all the way down to the Southern Most point. Everyone else did too. So we waited in line for a long time to have our picture taken in front of it.
But we grew weary and moved on without having a proper photo taken.


We didn't have much time left after that excursion, so we spent the rest of the time just wandering through town taking in the sights and laughing at all the cheesy souvenirs.



After we got back on the boat we had lunch and attended an art auction. We only went to that because they were giving out free champagne. Nothing is free on a cruise ship, unless they're trying to sell you something more expensive. We had to leave though, because Fritzella the cow was embarrassing us by drinking heavily and trying to bid on the most expensive items. " No Fritzi! You can't bid on that $60,000 Mickey Mouse Litho! No no no!"

We wiled away the rest of our hours lazing in the sun on the top deck of the boat.
We had cocktails, soaked up some sun and caught up on our reading.
Eventually, even the brilliant blue Carribean sea speeding past us while the wind gently ruffles our hair and the sun envelopes us in a warm embrace gets old. So we went inside to further explore the ship.
We took one look at this and went back outside. This is pretty representative of the nausea inducing decor on the ship.



The next day we stopped in Cozumel, Mexico. The town looks exactly like any other Mexican touristy town. Dilapidated buildings and people trying to sell you the same crap from every corner. The only thing we really wanted to do was find the Mayan ruins.
We found a taxi that would take us to San Gervasio and back for $45. This seemed steep to us, but we didn't have many other choices. Turned out though, that the ruins were pretty far away. Since they were so far away and in a remote area of the island, the taxi driver had to wait for us. He told us he would only wait for one hour. One hour was not enough time to fully appreciate the whole site, but we tried.
We rushed from site to site within the park but quickly realized that without a guide we weren't getting much out of the piles of rocks. There were no interpretive markers anywhere. At least I can cross Mayan Ruins off my list.

Fritzella once again embarrassed us by crossing into forbidden territory to climbing on the ancient stones. Because of her rash and incredibly inconsiderate actions we weren't able to see the actual pyramid at the site (or rather, we ran out of time and decided that we'd seen enough rocks). Guess I need to read up on my history before my next Mayan expedition.

When we left the ruins at San Gervasio we saw a horrible car crash at the intersection with the main highway. Two rental jeeps, with Alamo logos on the side, had collided and one was pretty much completely crushed. There was a white tarp on the ground that all the people were standing around. It was pretty sad to see. When you get off the cruise ships they warn you not to rent any jet skis or scooters or anything. I guess this is why. Maybe people forget that they're in a different country and they have to behave cautiously, or just that traffic rules tend to be different...I don't know what to read into it.

We spent the rest of the day doing what you normally do in Mexico. Drinking cheap beer.
And, hanging out with the locals. We really wanted to go into McDonald's and use the bathroom but it didn't work out.

Our last full day on the ship was a "Fun Day at Sea" We competed in tons of games and swam in the pool and ate even more food that we did on the previous days.
I competed in the Ship Olympics. Here's a shot of the towel-race-around-the-pool portion. I also competed in the bean bag toss and swim-with-a-towel-across-the-pool events. I won the Ship Olympics.
Laura was not impressed by my trophy.
We also played mini golf, but the wind and the rocking of the boat added extra elements of challenge to the game. Ruth won, because all brits are good at golf.


This is George, the cruise director. I'm pretty sure his main job was to walk around, talk to guests and look cute. He did all three very well.