Show: Tonight!

Costume: check!
Music: check!
Noives: uh....uncheck!

xx


Tu me das fiebre!

Burlesqueteers @ Stage Werx Theater 3/26

Ft. Lauderdale, FL: To the Sea!

(view from the top)

Today we left Sarasota for Fort Lauderdale, on the west coast of Florida. The weather is equally mild but the sight and sound of the Atlantic carries in a tide of nostalgia for a seaside youth.

Before checking into our swank digs I dragged my family to one! last! attraction! We arrived at the Sheraton Clipper - one of the more vulgar accommodations in town - just in time for the Friday Happy Hour/Mermaid Show. The "Wreck Bar" is set below the pool area and vaguely resembles a sunken ship. The tank windows behind the bar look into the swimming pool, creating an appropriate tableau for underwater entertainment. For thirty minutes, two mermaids and a guy in a scuba outfit swam back and forth in front of the windows to the delight of a dozen six year old girls and a few rowdy UConn fans (the performers were in competition with the NCAA.) I snuck up to the pool mid show for an areal shot of the ephemeral fishes.


Mermaid #1


Enter mermaid #2
















Atlantica from our porch! messed up formatting!; paparazzi shot of my mer-sister in the pool (top center)

Sarasota, FL: Geriatric USA

Greetings from Sarasota, Florida!

I am here with my family visiting my grandfather at his winter home on the Gulf. Sarasota is a popular winter destination for the Greatest Generation. This reality becomes apparent upon arrival. The airport here is congested with wheelchairs, walkers, and other unhurried octogenarians. Life is good in southwest Florida. My grandfather ships his candy apple red Cadillac down each January so he can drive to golf three times a week. When it gets too hot, he and my step grandmother go back to their house on the Maine coastline. This is my first time visiting them in Sarasota (this morning we could see a baby gator feet from the back patio!)

Driving from the airport I was immediately reminded of some of the sights from New Mexico: Kitsch Americana - I am so easily seduced. How disappointed (though not surprised) I was to see that my grandfather's home was not a pink bungalow with plastic flamingos dotting the lawn, but a modern house overlooking the 16th hole. In peering though the rental car company's complimentary guide I came across several places of interest: The G-Whiz Science Museum, Sarasota's Home of Mystery, Myakka Safari Tours, and the Linger Lounge ("Top 5 Weirdest Restaurants in the USA" by the Food Network.) My gravitation to such locations supports the thesis that I was indeed intended for a generation half a century before my birth. I am lucky that, without much prodding, my family generally obliges and off we go.


Highway 41

Today my parents, grandfather sister and I went to the Sarasota Jungle Gardens, a few miles north of the country club. Built in the 1940s, the Gardens is a sanctuary for local and exotic animals. According to the brochure, the Gardens "will bring back the memories of Florida days gone by." Indeed. We trekked through the aging 10-acre campus, stopping at the various bird and reptile displays, including parrot with beautiful red plumage named Ruby. The highlight was feeding a flock of fairly submissive flamingos, all plump from daily visitors.


Old Florida sign; blue bird


Beautiful plumage; nature girl


Feeding; in the Tiki Garden


Mennonites come to FL!; sign

For lunch, per my direction, we went to Oleary's Tiki Bar and Restaurant on Sarasota Bay. I was expecting a Trader Vic's of yore, but it was a modern take on the theme. While there were enough tiki masks and straw huts to satisfy the motif, I was hoping there would be girls in tacky grass skirts serving mai tais in hollowed-out pineapples.


A tiki hut; Sarasota Bay


Tiki lunch; momma

Robot Goes Everywhere

My friend Dave Rand is a super genius! The man who first taught me about the neuro-wiring behind foot fetishists is now in the news:

Tomorrow Nature, a big whoop nerdfest, is publishing a study that Dave co-authored as a grad student at Harvard. The research examines the role of punishment in a game between two equal players. It turns out that those who did best in the game punished the least.

You can here Dave himself on a segment of today's All Things Considered.

You can also find Dave's rockstar (literally - I otherwise refrain from such a term) alter ego Robot Goes Here touring in a city near you.

New York, NY: Dryas julia

On Tuesday Brian and I caught the butterfly exhibition at the Museum of Natural History. My big fake flower kept psyching-out all of the butterflies. Unfortunately, when it came time for a photo-op, they all scattered - so one of the employees stepped in for a reenactment (with an Owl Butterfly.)

photo credit: BSL

New york, NY: Tiocfaidh ár lá!

Saint Patrick's Day is an important holiday among my group of friends. We have been celebrating it wholeheartedly now for ten years, taking the festivities as far as Dublin (SPD '05.) This year tamer than years past (a tie SPD '03.) I can think of a few explanations for this, but I'll skip it for the sake of excluding some of our behavior from the world wide web. Still, it was a craic-filled day. I was especially happy to spend so much time with Lauren and Alessandra together, a rare occasion as of late (murrfff.)


Cropped!; fez - photo credit: Jazzocat


PS: The Best Dressed Award goes to Claire Sheehan, who can work moccasins and shorts like no other:


BDA top; and bottom - photo credit: Beatrice Lee