A writer and a tropical muse. A funky Lubavitcher who enjoys watching the weather, hurricanes, listening to music while enjoying life with a sense of humor and trying to make sense of it all!
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Nothing Tropical Today... Piano Bar Finds a Home
Nothing tropical to say here and will write more tomorrow on the weather and life.
Just reporting what everyone already knows... the Piano has found a home, the Bar in the Bay is closed and as always a Miami story has legs that go beyond the First Act.
The "artist" who decided to play a prank of sorts in an Artistic way turns out to be the son of the Production Designer from Burn Notice, a Miami based TV series that my son loves to watch. His son, the teenager in question did the "Art Project" with the help of his father back around New Years Day but it only became an issue when Newspapers around the world began playing the story of the Piano Bar online where it became a Viral sort of hit in the Artsy Farsty world of make believe Miami.
In a world where they haul Pink Snails around Miami as some sort of Art Display and part of a World Wide "Art Event" the idea of a Piano being left on a sandbar conjuring up images that tear at the soul worldwide did not seem like such a bad thing to do I suppose.
Is it better to block the beautiful views on the Venetian Causeway with Barbie Doll Pink Snails or leave a piano resting on a sandbar giving people a moment to pause and smile at the suggestion of a Piano Bar and warn boaters of the shallowness of Biscayne Bay?
Not sure.
As to the question posed here by Sherri....yes it was a cute prank from my perspective, an artist sort of prank or more a project I suppose.
Teenagers love to do pranks, interesting though how a grown man... a father would go along and play the prank with them, I mean teens are teens but I suppose in this case the apple doesn't fall far from the tree does it? I mean.. most fathers would say "are you out of your mind??" and chuckle when the teen is gone at the possibilities. Yet, here we have a father who jumps in for whatever reason I don't know and helps a teen do a prank. In this case it didn't really cause a lot of panic now did it? I mean there was no Category Five Storm headed for Miami Shores by way of Miami Beach was there? And, what's a little more driftwood in the Bay? Still, laws I suppose were broken and the authorities were nice to let it go and the piano seems to have found a home down in the Deep Southwest part of Miami where it will most likely rot away, devoured by termites or blow into someone else's yard in the next Hurricane.
Not all pranks are so simple or cute. Some pranks are funny to the person doing the prank, giving them some amusement in what must be an otherwise sort of ordinary life and yet creating problems for the person who the prank has been done to... again they probably don't see the humor. Maybe they just don't have a good sense of humor though comic minds are not all alike are they? One person likes puns and one person likes slapstick, one person likes scatological humor and another person watches Shakespearean Comedy.
As long as we don't hurt other people... a prank or two can be funny. Sometimes pranks get out of hand... this one did not and hopefully people far away in Montreal decide to book a flight down to Miami and see for themselves up close and personal how blue Biscayne Bay can be, how beautiful the seagulls look soaring about and how plop down some money on the banks of Atlantic Ocean and up and down Collins Avenue and then all is well that ends well.
Miami... Piano On a Sandbar and Pink Islands and Pelicans
This is one of those things that I absolutely love about Miami. A grand piano shows up on a sandbar over night and becomes a perch for pelicans and it is just assumed in the Miami area that it is some form of performance art.
"It's probably something like the Pink Project..... " was my first thought when my brother called me up to tell me.
Truth is...it was the first thing that occurred to him too...which is why I LOVE Miami.
Of course, there were other thoughts it seems....
Model shoot, music video being filmed in the middle of the bay. Someone smuggled a dead body or drugs in on it and dumped in it the bay off of a yacht. Note, people in Miami have such wonderfully creative minds ;)
So...point is we don't know where it came from or where it was supposed to go or if it just drifted in on the tide... stranger things have happened.
My family comes from Key West, where scavenging was raised to a high art for in the 1800s when the number way of attaining fine goods was to hope a ship "just happened" to wreck itself upon the reefs and everyone would either swim out to check out the sale items that Nature provided or walk the beach in the morning to see if there was any good silk or furniture that came in on the tide...
Time will tell with this one.
Of course, as a weather enthusiast my first thought was "How strong would a wave have to be to take the piano off the bar and out to sea?" I mean, the Coast Guard does not seem to care but if it was hurricane season and a Category Four was bearing down on Miami would we worry what happens to the piano on that sandbar or just wait and see what else floats in on the tide?
After the 1926 Great Miami Hurricane a Piano from one of the grand, beach front hotels nearby found it's way, along with some very nice lobby furniture, into the Collins Canal.
See? It's not the first time Miami has had floating pianos in the water :)
Probably won't be the last.
Love the way this city views the unusual or the exotic or just plain strange... with a smile, a joke and a sense of romantic wonder.
I know last night's strong weather didn't budge it and from what I heard this morning the pelicans were out sunbathing on top of the piano in question oblivious to the media hype and the mystery. They don't care why it's there... they are just happy to have a place to rest themselves on while sunbathing a bit.
I imagine by the time the hurricane season rolls around this mystery will be solved or they will make a movie about, that's the way things go in Miami ;)
Blue Days.... Blue Skies shining on me... nothing but blue skies... do i see
My brother was out and about this morning snapping pics of Blue Miami and yet as much as we talk about the Moon Over Miami we rarely talk about it being blue. Miami is sunny, golden, beautiful.... but do we call it blue? No..... we do... not.
We call Hawaii blue... Blue Hawaii and yet there is snow on the mountain tops way above the coconut flavored lollipops.
Now, most people don't know it snows in Hawaii but it does. And, in one of the mini Ice Ages a just one degree kept snow on the mountain year round...or so they say. Not only to the volcanoes glow in Hawaii, they are often covered in snow. Who knew?
As a matter of fact, this week in Hawaii there is a Trifecta of weather events going on. Thunderstorms, snow and big surf from a Winter Storm. There's an event for REAL storm chasers and I know a few who live on the Big Island, now I know why....
Guessing they are going to be have a little bit of that SAD thing going on in Hawaii tomorrow. Doubt anyone will be that sad but hope no one moved there to get away from SAD as they are going to have one heck of a winter storm or so I've heard.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyIJ2vMIuDg
Earlier in the day I was at dance. My instructor was talking about being in Pasadena for the Rose Bowl Parade and how amazed she was at the snow on the mountains and how unexpected it was to see as the floats floated by on Colorado Blvd, picture perfect like the snow was brought in for a movie shoot.
Today was a beautiful day in my neck of the world ;)
Hmmmmnnnnn.... Where in the world was Bobbi Storm today? Hawaii? Miami? MB that stands for Myrtle Beach, btw... or ______________________________? Sigh, only my stalker knows for sure ;) But, let me say the fried plantains and cafecito was muy perfecto!!!
Truth is I was texting and talking to my brother while sitting at the gas station today and looked up for a minute and thought WHOA..."where did that come from" ??? Looked like a scene from Twister without the storm that dropped it there.
Seems like today was a nice day most places, blue skies, sun shining so bright... la de dah dah... I know it's an illusion, tomorrow may bring gray skies or a storm but today was a blue, beautiful day.
Funny how life can imitate art and imitate life... look at this great picture and then look how similar it is to the pic in the song below ;)
Life is a practice in finding your perspective. You can find sunny skies anywhere on any given day and snow where you least expect to find it. Got to make the most of sunny days and enjoy the gray ones as well. We all have to find our Blue Heavens, our somewhere over the rainbows... find the things that make our world beautiful and hold onto them tight and never let them go. No matter what color the sky is... you will have a song in your heart and a smile on your face.
Seems everything today needs to have a label and it's own unique title... being down in the dumps because winter will not go away is not called "SAD" which stands for Seasonal Affective Disorder rather than just being "sad" that winter will not vacate the room. Personally, I'd have called it Seasonal Anxiety Disorder but I did not get a vote in naming that...nor did I get a vote in naming Erectile Dysfunction.
Either way it seems some people are sad on gray, dark days when the clouds seem to hover over head and everything is gray or brown outside with traces of snow on the ground and the sun is hidden behind a cloud bank that took up personal residence back in November.
This winter has been to put it mildly a real bitch that won't go away.
Friends and family up north want the snow to end. Friends and family down south want the cold fronts to stay away. In the middle it is just gray in the Carolinas, briefly on Sunday there was a drop of Carolina Blue skies before the clouds moved back in.
Personally....I like the winter. I like being able to see the sky in forested cities where trees usually blot out my view of sunrise. I like the gray, misty morning that calls to me like a muse and begs me to sit and write sad, poignant poems while the coffee fills the room with the aroma of the tropics faraway.
In Miami I love to wear my boots or winter clothes and feel the brisk wind and watch the technicolor sunsets that make the skyline look as if it was a painted movie set or 1950s postcard all mauve and coral and magenta with the sun dipping slowly down just barely touching the edge of the world punctuated by palm trees silhouetted against a cotton candy sky.
So...TWC who pointed out that there were freezing frosts in the farm lands of Florida warned people not to think about going to Florida to get away from the cold.
Seriously???? Honestly????
Obviously, TWC crew of writers are the ones who only go to Panama Beach, Destin or Sarasota and never venture south to the truly warm, tropical world of Miami.
Memo to TWC:
If you want to get rid of SAD on a permanent basis... MOVE TO MIAMI!
No one is truly "sad" in Miami. The sun always shines, the stars are always out twinkling at night in the tropical sky and there is always a beach to walk or a place to sit outside and watch the parrots fly from tree to tree or watch seagulls glide across an endless blue sky. Even when it's a little chilly and we bundle up in our ole winter clothes there are no endless gray days, no frozen ground beneath our feet and no one is wearing leggings underneath their jeans. In fact, often it's too warm to wear jeans and we run around in January in flip flops, tank tops and shorts. High heels mean sandal heels, we rarely wear closed toe shoes with our mini skirts. Guys wear brightly colored tropical shirts, guyaberas or tee shirts. I have one son who
I had a boyfriend a while back. He told me straight out, "anyone who wants to live in New York and deal with winter is out of their mind" and I have to admit, he is right in many ways.
But some people........do love winter. If you love Winter I say go for the gold and live in Boston, wait for the Spring and Spring Fever and the Red Sox coming out of hibernation or go all the way to Maine.
If you suffer from SAD,think seriously on selling your business, quitting your job and looking for a new job in Miami where you will NEVER suffer from SAD again in your life. I mean NEVER. Mind you... you might still be depressed from General Anxiety Disorder (GAD) but you will never ever again have to complain about SAD.
If you are stuck for things to do while trying to fight off SAD may I suggest a few things to try?
If you are in the Raleigh area on a gray, wintry day that looks like winter will never go away....
Step One:
Go to Falls River Books, walk all the way to the back of the aisle on the left and look through the history books, pick an era, any era... browse through the pictures and the stories and then wander over to the cookbooks. Find a delicious soup recipe, something unique and possibly tropical... maybe a Jamaican Fish Soup? Buy the book, take it with you and immediately head over to the Savory Spice Shop in Lafayette Village.
http://www.fallsriverbooks.com/
Upon entering the Savory Spice Shop INHALE DEEPLY :) You will forget what SAD is and begin searching for those exotic tropical spice blends that you will need to make that Jamaican Fish Soup recipe you found in the book from Falls River Books. Stay and talk to friendly owners or people who work there, taste a few spices, inhale a few far away places and you will no longer be SAD.
Then, mozy on down to the Fresh Market, sip some more coffee, taste a few berries, buy some fresh produce, an interesting drink of some kind to go with that tropical dinner, perhaps a loaf of bread or a bottle of wine. Wander through the store inhaling the aroma of epicurean treats that are baked there daily while mingling with friends that you bump into who are in search of those perfect cherries, or marinated olives for their favorite pasta salad.
Live life. Get out of bed. Enjoy the small, friendly stores all about you far from the frenzy of the Malls. Get to know people. Get to know businesses in your own little hood. Stay far away from the wolves at Walmart. Enjoy the season, make salads in the summer and soups in the winter and look for new recipes and friends along the way.
If you want to work off some of that weight... find your favorite neighborhood gym, do some Zumba at Ladies Wellness and Fitness.
Get up, get out and get about... that's my remedy for SAD if you love living up north and don't want to move down to down south to Miami.
And, if you are in Miami and are blue for any old reason, just plain ole GAD, toss away that General Anxiety Disorder and go to Bayside, because Bayside is my remedy for any sad day anywhere. Sit by the water, watch the boats float in the bay, watch the seagulls glide overhead, listen to the Jimmy Buffett wannabe playing his music hoping to get discovered from his gig at the stage by the blue, blue water while tourists sip pina coladas and lunchtime Miamians stroll along the edge of the Bay for their lunchtime exercise. I know... cause I have been one of those people chillin' at Bayside on my lunch break.
Your choice.... live up north and find ways to love it or surf over to www.jetblue.com and book a ticket for blue water and blue skies and escape from SAD forever.
As for me.... I'm like my ole friend Joe..I like to enjoy the weather I got ;)
Chow for Now Besos Bobbi
Ps... The OFFICIAL Grand Opening of the Savory Spice Shop is this Sunday if you are in the Raleigh area and if not... find a spice shop in your neighborhood where ever you live.... inhale deeply from the aroma of life, sip coffee, read a good book ;)
As for Miami....Boat Show is coming in February ;)
Falls River Books... Warm Cozy Spot in the Winter or Any Season
This should really be titled "How I missed my flight back to warm sunny Miami" but the silver lining on the Ice Storm that kept me from making my plane enabled me was to attend a very entertaining and informative Writers Workshop at Falls River Books in Raleigh. I also got to watch the ice s l o w l y melt from the sky light here and watch the sky reappear a few days later through my window that was my measure on the world for a few very cold days in North Carolina. The picture above is of the sky light, usually clear....but frosted over from the Ice. The table out on the deck looked more like Woodstock's personal Ice Skating pond on the morning that my early morning flight back to Miami was cancelled along with many others at RDU and all across the South.
After a few days of staying home and being afraid to venture out onto the icy walkways with my cute white furry boots that are made for strolling Lincoln Road on a rare day that the temperatures get below 55 degrees and not for a thin, almost invisible layer of ice that covered everything here making the dogwood tree look like some winter decoration covered in silver webs glistening in the morning sun.
But, when plans are rearranged by nature often there is a purpose that shows itself later and one of those nice surprises was being able to attend the very delightful Writer's Meeting at Steven Elliot's wonderful book store in Raleigh. I had told Vanessa Vendola who runs the meetings that I would be back in Miami and not be able to attend sadly, but thanks to Mother Nature I was able to make the meeting after all. Finally, the ice was beginning to melt enough for a Miami girl to try to venture out again and I carefully went over to Falls River Books. Ironically, the owner Steven Elliot is also from Miami, however I didn't know Steven in Miami although I did go to school with a cousin of his and we both grew up in Old Miami.
I spend a lot of time in and out of Raleigh these days and I often find myself complaining about Raleigh and missing Miami. Where I can complain like a five year old about missing the beach or an early morning walk down Lincoln Road, Steven can and does wax poetic about the many delights of this area and the many reasons he is happy that he chose this Southern City to transform his life and in doing so he has transformed the lives of many around him as Steven is a community person. He doesn't just sit reading books from the library or trading them online, he becomes part of his world, his neighborhood and community and for that Raleigh is really blessed.
Falls River Books is a delightful place to spend a few hours searching for your favorite book or a book you never knew you wanted and sit a bit in a comfy chair, sipping complimentary coffee and escaping from the cold, windy, winter day outside.
http://www.fallsriverbooks.com
What can you say about a bookstore that keeps its most treasured volumes in a stately looking China Cabinet and has aisles and aisles of bookshelves crammed tight with books on every imaginable subject and has a never ending coffee pot waiting for you on a wintry day?
Want a book on the History of the Boer War or the War of the Roses? Trust me the delightful owner Steven Elliot has one tucked away somewhere and more amazingly he can usually tell you exactly where that rare and hard to find treasure is in the store. Name a subject and he methodically searches his brain and tells you that he thinks there is a book on that subject in either Philosophy or History, he remembers getting one in a few weeks ago. If it's not there, he will let you know the next time he sees you that one probably came in a while back and where to look for it. Unlike some box house book stores where you have to spell out the exact title of a book for the clerk to try and spell it into their computer vs them being able to easily Google the name of the book.... Falls Rivers Books gives you close up and personal service with real live people who know the names of most of the more famous books on your child's reading list. Even better, one of Steve's best traits is that he offers to help you, he welcomes you if you are a newcomer, he asks you if you have been in before and or need any help and he then sits back and let's you do your thing, never hovering near by to pester you as many privately owned book store owners do. He just lets you be and wander through the aisles marveling at all the titles you never knew existed or looking for that treasure you have been hunting for and hoping to find.
I do have a confession here to make... I've often gone to Barnes and Noble. How can you not love a place that smells of coffee and books? But, my love affair with Barnes and Noble came to a screeching stop one evening when I had a minor "senior moment" and could not remember the exact name of the author or book title my son needed immediately ...as in yesterday as in the book report was due sooner rather than later. I stood there one Saturday Night trying nervously to explain to a Sales Clerk at B&A that I needed a book... it was on a reading list....The conversation sounded a lot like this:
"Um... you know, the book's title is ummmmm Badge, Badge...Something Badge... The author's name is Stephen, come on.. ummm it's a classic....." I said sure that she would know what I mean. "You probably did a book report on it in the 11th Grade maybe? It's about a war.... "
She stared at me explaining she needed either the exact name of the book or the author because she could not enter a partial title into her system so I needed the title or the author's name. And, she didn't seem too friendly or happy as I stood there begging her help.
I found it hard to believe the saleslady did not know what book I meant, she was like 20...way too young for a senior moment you know?? I found it hard to believe I had to try and google it on my very old, slow blackberry while standing there hearing the annoyed sounds from the next person in line behind me waiting for the ditzy lady (me) to Google a title of a book for the clerk who was chewing gum and talking to a co-worker who also didn't seem to want to help me and didn't think the book sounded very familiar. And then.... when I found it in my old, slow blackberry... I had to actually spell C O U R A G E for the sales clerk behind the counter who kept typing in the word improperly it seemed into her computer. After she found the book, she asked another sales person to show me to the section where the book was and the gentleman she sent to help me stood there going "How do you spell the author's last name?" He didn't look old enough to have a senior moment either and it was hard to believe he got through school without having to read the "The Red Badge of Courage". I found the book on my own, a very over priced, large size paper back copy of the classic book and walked out wondering if it was just me or if something was seriously wrong if a clerk in a bookstore had never heard of this classic and why I had to spell the word COURAGE or beg someone to help me find one of the classics of American Literature. Though I still admit to going to Barnes and Noble and Borders they are not my first choice as I have always loved a good Used Book Store and Falls River Books is just that. You are treated like a person, books are treated like treasures and you are always happy when you leave with something special.
Trust me, the next time your child has a list of books to read for Summer Reading, you will save yourself a lot of energy, time and money and be living more in concert with green economics to buy a used book from a local bookseller who knows how to spell Courage and where his American Classics are for students in the local schools. Steve also has complimentary coffee waiting in the corner near the door and often puts out cookies or some such sugary snack for you to sip for free while browsing the shelves or sitting a spell in one of his comfortable over sized chairs.
Want some more reasons to stop and visit Falls Rivers Books?
If you have recently moved to the Raleigh area, and it seems everyone in Raleigh is from somewhere else... Steve knows everything about how to make the moving in process easier for you. He moved here a while back from the Miami area and he is already the best person around to talk to for advice in networking or where to find a good book on ______(fill in your own blank) ____ be it a dance class, a marketing representative or where to buy fresh produce. The latter he is involved with helping support as there is a Farmers Market at Falls River behind his store weekly.
And, lastly.... if you bring your child or grandchild to look through his fantastic children's selection he will let them pic out their favorite flavor on his lollipop tree for the junior set who doesn't drink coffee. And, while Susie Mae or Bubba is browsing.... they have one of the better selections I have seen anywhere of Cookbooks, Hot Romance Novels and Serious Science Fiction anywhere ;) or How To Books and Bodice Rippers mixed in with books on nature, weather, philosophy and anything and everything you could think of to want to read. And, the best part of this is not the comfy chair in the front or the never empty coffee pot but the fact that you can come back, recycle the book, pass it along to someone else and be part of the system of Used Book Stores. I've picked out quite a few great titles on weather and history there myself :)
Alas, the only thing that Falls River Books and Falls River Towne Center lacks is a river nearby to watch through the window while sipping your coffee and reading your book. But, I can do that at Las Olas when back in South Florida :)
And, yes in a Green world you can find that used book on Amazon or Ebay but you will have to pay the shipping and handling and the book needs to often be shipped from somewhere across The Great Divide which is not very "Green" and then you have to wait for the book to arrive....so much for the joys of Immediate Gratification in a Book Store. By buying a book that has been used you are helping to leave a lighter green footprint and help support a small business in your own community owned by a real person who banks and shops where you do. And, if you are looking to leave a much lighter footprint...he has a really great section on Diet Books and Healthy Eating.
Sit a spell, go easy on the cookies, sip the coffee and look through the books you picked out and see which ones you would want to take home.
And, if you live in the Durham area... they have opened up a store there as well.
As for me... I swapped my ticket home for a ticket for my son for him to have a short vacation "up north" and give him a chance at seeing snow for the first time in his life and then we will both go back together to sunny Florida. Back to Lincoln Road and Las Olas and maybe check out a good Used Book store in Coral Gables :)
There are some links below to a few of the authors who were at the meeting we had at Falls River Books and I really want to thank Steven for his ongoing support of the Arts in the Raleigh-Durham area as well as the ongoing education by his example on how to live a more Green life and how to build roots out into a community so that both are nourished, the people and the places you live and shop and how to make the world a better place just by being in it and by being a part of it.
Some of the writers attending the Writer's Meetings at Falls River Books and ...that's Steven on the far right ;)
Besos Bobbi Ps... just a wee bit annoyed I missed the wild weather in South Florida and the Keys today but weather comes and goes and sometimes you got to go with the flow :)
Everyone worries about hurricanes and yet Ice Storms cost a fortune beyond our wildest imagination and there is no real "Ice Storm Season" unless you consider "winter" the season and if so they are more often than not "no shows" so when it doesn't snow but it rains ice.... that's one big financial headache.
The 1998 Winter was memorable to the tune of 4.5 Billion Dollars. Well, give or take a billion... the figure is so mind boggling you can't even believe it...conceive it...
So, next time you are wondering on how you are going to right your mango tree back up and fix some shingles on your roof from a mild, weak Category 1 Hurricane be thankful you didn't get hit by an Ice Storm. I mean, they melt.... you lose a few trees, there is no storm surge but still we forget about them... you know?
Somethings you never forget.
Boy, bet those lineman had work then huh??
The Weather Channel has moved on to weather and snowing, after showing a great tribute to the Ice Storm of 1998 ...which of course was partially eclipsed by the disintegration of my twenty year marriage but I imagine if I lived up north it would be a date I'd remember.
"Best place to swish down the slopes." Burlington, Vermont... whoosh...
Well, I'm off whoosh or whatever your favorite saying is... got to go to the gym.... and s t r e t c h and finish my COFFEE before I do all that stretching and I'll be humming a tune. No ...it's NOT Wichita Lineman....
Maybe I'll watch the movie... or not... or never... I gave up the movies a few years back for good reasons ;) Then again...funny....this predated the storm. Is that like life imitating art???
Gotta go....the light or the shadow is going to the gym....
The Sounds of Rain... What Happened in 2010 and Miami History
Woke up this morning to the sound of rain, tropical sounding rain almost... real rain, rain pouring down washing all the traces of winter temporarily away.
Maybe it's an illusion like the 80s station I am listening to but it's a nice illusion.
Got the window open and listening to the rain.
So, it's 2011! Hello 2011!! Today is the day to practice writing 2011!!
I like it. Looks like double exclamation marks!! 20!! You see?
Okay.... anyways... reason I am here today (other than I owe someone) is to complain that people are very self-centered and obviously lack a sense of destiny for what is happening to other people.
There was a headline on Drudge a while back that I kept seeing, but didn't click on. Joe Klein it seems wrote an article that said "Nothing much happened in 2010" and while I beg to differ with him I didn't click. I guess too much was going on in my life and I was just perusing Drudge to see if anything BIG had happened while I slept and to see what mood he was in or whoever was watching the site for him that night. I chuckled. I thought... "oh really?" immediately followed by the thought, "I guess if he was Haitian he would have thought something big happened."
The funny part of this is...which is not so funny.... people kept mentioning it to me. People who were annoyed, as they thought the destruction of the Eco System in the Bayous surrounding the Gulf Oil spill and the Haitian Earthquake was "something." Some people even believe that the oil spill created havoc with the Loop Current and the Gulf Stream... not to mention some friends had oil wash up on their beaches in the Panhandle of Florida and in Alabama. Tell it to the Seagull that died Joe...
The person I spoke to in Payless who was trying to wait on customers and bring home money to his family in Little Haiti, despite losing his Grandparents, his aunt and several cousins in the Earthquake and about a quarter of the friends he grew up with all died ..... somewhere like 200,000 people more or less died in the Earthquake...hard to get a good figure it seems .... that to me might have eclipsed the BP Oil Spill that was one of the murkiest, darkest moments of modern life for it's effect on the ecosystem of a beautiful region and even darker wondering on what the effect may be from the solvent that was used to make the oil look like it was gone. That's about as much as illusion as me feeling the winter is over, because I can hear the sound of tropical rain. The 10 Day Forecast shows me not a day where it hits 80 in Miami and night time temps in the 40s.... the sound of warm rain falling is an illusion... just like the oil being dissolved. The chemicals went somewhere.. possibly into your next dish of Creole Craw fish Gumbo...
To the mother who gave birth in the lobby of an apartment building in Brooklyn, waiting for 911 to come and save her baby who died... a lot happened and a lot didn't happen in 2010... a sad, horrible story. She waited 9 hours she will remember, for anyone to come and help.... too late for the baby who died.
If you lived in Europe, or visited it you were stuck with a dust cloud that choked and shut down air travel. One of my closest friends was stuck in Paris (poor baby) for days .....that was pretty memorable. Air travel was not that affected after 911 even. She had asked me what the weather would be like, if she joined her husband on his business trip... I was right on the weather forecast, sort of missed predicting the earth, shaking, rattling and rolling and spewing forth ash clouds it seems.
It was a pretty big year for Poland... not often that Putin finds a way to knock off most of his political adversaries in Poland and manage to pull it off as if it was a Hollywood Action Movie. I mean, can you imagine if the President, Vice-President, Head of the Army, Navy, Federal Reserve Bank, Congress and the Senate all went "poof" in a plane crash and the only witnesses were the air traffic controllers in the neighboring state...one leader of state that missed the plane was after having tea with Putin a few days before.... hmmmmmnnnnnnnn sounds like something big happened in Poland, most of all the illusion that it wasn't an accident....
For Miami Heat Fans the Dream Team came together and it was a party that went on city wide as fans bought up tickets to see the Dream Team play in Wade County, Florida.
It's all a matter of perspective is what is going on here.
Yes, looked at the article finally. Saw Time's review of the year... weak... and the Facebook man being on the face of Time is a year or two too late if you ask me, guess there was a lot of advertising dollars involved in that one. My daughter who refused to use Myspace because she was on Facebook no longer posts much on Facebook....
Time, she is a movin .....
And, my last rant in the rain is for TWC who decided to make a show listing the Top Stories of 2010 and listed the 2010 Atlantic Hurricane Season as Number TWO (they wish...) and then made the TOP story of the year as the heating up of the globe. Nice, good political move there trying to jump on the Global Warming Bandwagon a dollar too late if you ask me...
Well, seems December of 2010 was the COLDEST Miami on record, since they have been keeping records...
Lucky for Miami that the Winter of 1894-95 was soooo cold as it helped make Miami the city that it is as it was the only place in the South where there was no frost on the orange trees.
To quote from the link below: "However, in the winter of 1894, Florida was struck by cold weather that destroyed virtually the entire citrus crop in the state. A few months later on the night of February 7, 1895, Florida was hit by another freeze. That freeze wiped out whatever crops survived the first one, and the new trees. Unlike the rest of the state, Miami was unaffected, and Tuttle's citrus became the only citrus on the market that year. Tuttle wrote to Flagler again, persuading him to visit the area and to see it for himself. Flagler did so, and concluded at the end of his first day that the area was ripe for expansion. He made the decision to extend his railroad to Miami and build a resort hotel."
http://www.toptenofmiami.com/overview.html
This is a prime example of how "weather" and "climate" create history.... make history...change history. The importance of weather in the history of the world. Years from now, if and when, we find out what the effects of the solvent that BP used was we may look back at 2010 as a turning point in the evolution of how we treat oil spills or our knowledge of how to clean them up.
Years from now we may understand how the U.S. got lucky and didn't get hit by any of the many storms that formed and use that to help modify weather down the road.
I got lucky, I got to chase Bonnie and play at the beach with my weather chaser friends.
I sadly lost one of my best friends this past year, at the end of the year, it was a memorable year for me. I also got to see a few old friends that I haven't seen in many a year and that too was poignant and beautiful.
It was a year like any other... people fell in love, people broke up, people wish they had gotten together or not broken up. A child was born, a man died. The rain fell, the sky cleared up, the sun came out and then it rained again. Orchids bloomed on Lincoln Road and waiters served me Baklava Ice Cream at the Ritz and rollerbladers rollerbladed by showing of their skating skills and their red bikini and life went on in Miami....and Moscow and Montana.
I toasted in 2011 with friends at the Shabbos table with champagne, chocolate brownies and strawberries...and it was delicious and I know this year children will be born, people will die and the rain will fall and then the sun will come out again.
Besos Bobbi
Ps listening to 80s music on Jango lol...consistent ...funny
Something about that movie always bothered me lol..............and life goes on. And, seriously followed by "Private Eyes" lol thanks Fishing for the link...........rolling eyes.
Location: Miami, Raleigh, Crown Heights, Florida, United States
Weather Historian. Studied meteorology and geography at FIU. Been quoted in Wall Street Journal, Washington Post & everywhere else... Lecturer, stormchaser, writer, dancer. If it's tropical it's topical ... covering the weather & musing on life. Follow me on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/#!/BobbiStorm
