If you live in the Tampa Bay area, tell me you have already saved the date, right? Yep, Saturday, June 26th is coming up and The Motherhood, Hebrew National and all of the blogger co-hosts have a very fun picnic planned for that day. And we really reeeeally want you and your family to come.
And why should you? Well, here are my top five reasons WHY you MUST come.
1) Get your grub on. Who wants to think up lunch for the whole family when it’s already there waiting for you? With fun and games too. It’s a lunch no brainer.
2) Be one with nature.E. G. Simmons Park is located in Ruskin on Tampa Bay. You’ll enjoy all that is beautiful about our local environs. Our coastline is so damn beautiful it will make you weepy – and you know it. Don’t forget the camera!
3) Watch me wrangle three boys. They aren’t all mine but I will be parenting them that day. And they like to fight. You might want to grab food from reason #1, park yourself on a bench and watch them have at it. I promise to try and keep my scolding G rated. It’s a family event after all.
4) The Mechanical bull. Ride ‘em cowboy. And you think I’m kidding? Check out the video taken by Mommy Words at her local Hebrew National picnic!
5) The Oil Spill. That’s right, here’s your chance to DO SOMETHING. A representative from the National Wildlife Federation will be there to answer questions. And we will be hosting a service activity aimed at giving children a chance to assist with the oil spill. We will also be collecting donated items which can help oil spill relief. The organizations we are supporting have donation lists here:
I was sitting in my dining room this morning trying to negotiate a very busy summer schedule and another blogging trip. Deep in concentration, I was still a bit groggy but vaguely keeping one ear open for my four year old playing in the other room.
When something caught my eye.
My husband had just gone out the kitchen door through the garage and was getting something out of his car. So the door was kind of open. And I think that’s how it got in.
A snake.
A LONG snake.
Groggy or not, I could NOT believe my eyes. And I was suddenly very much wide awake.
With wide, slithering arcs, our new visitor was apparently trying to make his way across our kitchen floor. And quickly. And so like any calm, self-sufficient woman, I screamed for my husband to GET in here RIGHT NOW!! Confused, he rushed in – and jumped. I laughed at him jumping only to find myself standing on a dining room chair.
And the snake, even more concerned about being cornered by this new apparent predator jumping at his rear, streaked right for our oven. Under he went.
…What the hell was THAT? My husband and I stared at each other disbelieving.
But we knew we had to get him out. With what, we weren’t sure. But we had to find something, some way, to coax him out of there.
We took a look at him first. And there he was, curled up under our stove trying to get away from his potential predators and the overwhelming heat of the day. The bubble over his head clearly read:
Dude. Be cool. I just want to curl up back here awhile. I mean no harm. So as you were. Nothing to see here.
That wasn’t going to fly. Not with dinners to cook in that very stove and children about and bare feet and who knows WHERE he might wind up next.
I think it was the sudden visual of his slithery silent body making his way up through my sheets and into my bed at night that made me start shaking the oven. Violently.
So, with a fishing pole slashing around the back of the oven and my panicked careful shaking, he cautiously made his way forward. And yes, I laid on the floor with the camera to get a shot. My husband was aggravated. How I could prioritize camera angles over just getting him OUT already? Come on now. But blurry or not, I had to get some shots. HAD TO.
It felt like an hour later, after the trash truck had passed (and scared him back in) and more patient waiting, and calm whispering and much less coaxing, slashing and violent shaking in general. After some still and silence, he seemed ready to emerge.
(I should mention here that my four year old never emerged. He remained deeply engrossed in his play elsewhere. How? With all that noise and stressing and cussing? I have no idea. But he stayed put so phew to that.)
Anyway, so we sat there quietly. An inch at a time he moved forward.
And once he had come out entirely, we stood very slowly.
My husband gently reached out with the fishing pole and used the eyelet of the pole to pull the snake away from the shelving he was heading towards next.
Miraculously, the snake figured out what we were trying to do and saw his escape. He bolted with full arcing speed, and zipped back into the garage. Into a pile of boxes and toys and crap we haven’t organized.
Awesome.
No. I have no idea if he is still out of there.
But he’s not in my house. And in Florida, where snakes move through our lives more frequently than we’d like to admit, I’ll have to settle for a snake in our garage versus a snake in our kitchen.
In retrospect, that snake was cool as hell. No, not poisonous. And certainly not aggressive. Perhaps desperate for a bit of cool shade. As we all are right now. Because it’s damn HOT outside. So I certainly can’t blame a snake for trying. I’m just proud of us for getting him out unharmed and not flipping the frock out too badly.
My only regret? My kitchen floors. That poor guy sped out of here with a dust bunny attached to his head.
Because if unexpected wildlife wandering through my home wasn’t enough to put you off a visit sometime soon, my dirty floors may just be.
So. Cleaner floors. Fewer snakes. More friends. I’ll get right on that.
I don’t post about the Gulf as much as I think about it. Because I think about it a lot. And I think about posting about it a lot.
Honestly, I just don’t know what to say.
Silence.
Somehow the words I partially piece together in my mind don’t measure up to my anger.
Silence.
Screw it. Here I am. With a maddening itch to write something. Because I really don’t think enough is being said.
It’s too damn quiet. And I wonder why this is.
Maybe we feel a little guilt?
Maybe – thanks to our dependency on oil and the power oil has over our politics – we somehow allowed a bunch of oil drills to set up off our coasts, never actually requiring that they have an effective disaster plan in place. And maybe that’s bugging us a bit?
It’s all good. We just need that oil. Gulf be damned.
Sure, I’m mad at the oil giants who make heaps of money off our shores. And I’m mad at the politicians who invited them there in the first place. And I’m mad that so little focus has been given to alternative energy resources.
But my anger is directed at the rest of us. I’m disgusted at how easily we shrug our shoulders and accept our oil dependency. I’m mad that we never questioned how those rigs are run. I’m furious that we never considered making our shores and the citizens who depend on these waters a priority.
This is our fault.
Silence.
Nothing. Its too quiet. We aren’t reacting to this.
Recent outrageous gas prices certainly weren’t enough to wake us up. I’m not sure the worst oil spill in American history will either.
And why is that?
Silence.
Because there isn’t enough outrage. Really. There just aren’t enough fancy pictures that can clearly illustrate all of the anticipated long term damage. There aren’t any celebrity phone banks and movie stars handing over millions and cell phone numbers to call and donate to any particular cause.
And there aren’t enough families obviously affected to really concern our country. Because too many other families are affected by their own lost homes, jobs and credit. Because everyone else is just trying to afford enough gas to get to whatever job they can come by, oil spill or not.
The country is numbed out and indifferent.
There’s not enough outrage because there isn’t any energy left for it.
Silence.
So the spill will be haphazardly, kind of, sort of cleaned up. Maybe. Enough so that the cameras will report back about various attempts to slop something up. And those living near the coast will get used to a new normal with oil just… everywhere. People will pick up the pieces a bit and move out of towns depending on the Gulf coast and regroup as best they can and this spill will just be part of our permanent reality.
And once the small bit of current clamoring does die down, BP will be back out there again, pumping the oil up to the surface while we are too busy trying to keep dinner on our tables to stop and reconsider other ways to power our cars and finally push oil companies off their gilded thrones.
I’m just not hopeful.
And when I’m not hopeful, I don’t really want to write.
Adventure Island in Tampa officially began its season of “Island Nights” on June 10th. And the folks at Adventure Island graciously invited me to bring my family and check it all out. Considering how much my children love water and how HOT it has been in Tampa already, we jumped at the chance to see what this water park is all about.
For three nights a week during the summer, Adventure Island opens its doors to families late into the evening. Guests are welcome to cool off at night on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from June 10th – August 14th.
And why would anyone want to hit a water park in the evening? If you’re asking that question, you’re obviously not from Florida. The sun here is HOT. Floridians are constantly concerned about sunburns and sunscreen reapplication. Also the heat of a summer day in Florida, water park or not, can be a bit overwhelming. Even when the sun sets, the air stays very warm in Florida. So being able to soak our summer weary bodies without the intense sun makes an evening visit to Adventure Island a very cool and refreshing plus.
So what did we think? My boys and I had a fantastic time. Truly. There are water rides for every age: splash pools for toddlers, age appropriate slides, climbing fun, water guns and dumping buckets for bigger kids, and then every combination of water slide for the oldest kids.
And by oldest kids I mean adults. Because there is something about a water park that makes every adult a kid again.
There are good deals for Florida and Georgia residents so check their website for ticket prices. However, be prepared to pay an extra $12.00 for parking. And if you want to rent a locker (which is very convenient) they cost $12.00 a day too. Also, I’ve heard that you need to get to the park early during the day to stake out a spot. We didn’t have any issues with a place for our things during the evening (we also rented a locker) but it is something to be aware of as the park gets busy.
Here is a quick video of our visit. It’s quick because I spent most of my time having fun. But it should give you a feel for the place during the evening. Plus my very sad seven year old at the end of the video (he did NOT want to leave, he had the time of his life, truly) cracked me up. Poor kid. But his tears are a sincere indication of how much fun he really had at Adventure Island that night.
Enjoy!
FTC Disclosure: Adventure Island paid for my family’s parking and admission.
A few years back, I happened to put a few roots down some miles from the Gulf. I had no presumptions about what magic we would find here either. But within days, we found it. Drawn by some inner pull towards the shore and our general curiosity to see what all the fuss was about, we arrived at the Gulf’s coastline.
And we fell in love.
The Gulf stands clear and calm, mild and magnificent. Unlike the rough, tumbling waters we already knew off the shores of New England, these waters relented. They allowed us to wade in easily and settle quietly. They greeted us with fish darting around our toes and did not knock our baby on his butt. The Gulf was a warm welcome party, lulling us to stay awhile and sink our feet deep into its powder fine sand.
The Gulf is unlike any other body of water I’ve known before.
And since we have arrived, I’ve brought my family back again and again. I have walked on its shores with a new baby inside, calmed and safe. I have puttered out on boats and tossed myself blindly into it. So have my children. I have swum away from it’s shores and dived deep. I have been surrounded and filled with its aqua green, up around and over all of me.
The Gulf drops you to your knees and insists that you bathe in it, to roll around in it, to soak it up and slosh unheeded with its ebb and flow.
The Gulf surprises you with its true inhabitants. A dolphin slips by – a finger tip’s length away. A large gray shape lumbers past (not a mermaid but a manatee). Rays skate on its bottom. Fish of every size dash and jump and race through its quiet movement. Birds dive and swoop and come up with full beaks. Crabs scurry past your feet. Sand dollars are dug up with your toes. Star fish bend on your hand.
Life is everywhere.
And I am only a visitor. A guest. A passerby who barges through it’s open front door and settles her family on it’s shores. But there’s always a place for us – and a few intended hours predictably turn into an entire day. My children are endlessly entertained and utterly exhausted. I am rocked, repaired and relaxed. We stay and stay and stay.
The Gulf feeds and cleanses. The sand our bread, the water our wine.
We are renewed.
And then the Gulf bids the sun in and signals the inevitable end of our day. We pull our salted bodies up, gather our things and plod away. No matter how long we have overstayed our welcome, we are never entirely sated. We always come back. We always want more.
Over the past month, I have awoken to updates about the oil spill on the Gulf. While clearing my cobwebs over a bowl of Cheerios and some quick news, without fail I see the same thing: footage of gallons and gallons of oil bubbling up from the bottom of the sea.
This oil will ooze and spread and affect hundreds of thousands of lives – animal and person alike. It will have an enormous potentially unprecedented economic and environmental impact. Although, we have no idea to what extent yet. We have no idea how many eco-systems will be interrupted, or how many fishing businesses will go under, or how many beaches will be unswimmable making Florida not quite the vacation spot it used to be. But the oil keeps coming and those living in the Gulf’s coastal communities have no choice but to wait and see how all of this will unfold over the months and years to come.
It has filled me with such anger, fear and sadness.
But most of all? I am left feeling horribly helpless.
What can I do??
Well, I can write the hell out of this. And so can you.
The utterly fabulous Deb on the Rocks had an idea the other day. And my dear friend Maria and I jumped right on in. We would like to host a Love the Gulf Blog Carnival. And anyone else feeling as helpless as we are is welcome to come join the party.
Here’s the deal.
1. Write. Write how much you love the Gulf. Or about your memories of splashing on its shores as a child. Or maybe you need a place to vent your anger about what could happen. Or maybe you know a family whose livelihood is being deeply affected by this. Or maybe you have some breath-taking and beautiful pictures of the Gulf that must be shared. Bring it here, link it up, let’s collect our mutual love for the Gulf and make lots and lots of noise about it.
2. Post your link using the Mr. Linky widget here. Or post it on Maria’s blog Mommy Melee or Deb’s at Deb on the Rocks.
3. Pick up a Love the Gulf badge to put in your post or on your blog.
4. Spread the word. Share the Gulf love. Tell folks to come join this carnival on twitter (we’re using #lovethegulf over there), facebook or in the coffee line at Dunkin Donuts. Whatever. Just tell people to come and write. All are welcome.
I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: we get a lot of animals out back. And if you follow my twitpics, you’ll see that I post a picture of some variety of backyard beast whenever there is one. Which is all the time. Anyway.
Today my six year old called me out onto the screen porch.
“Mom, a frog!”
Sure enough behind a box of blocks was a good sized frog, panicked and leaping about. We captured him gently and released him into the yard. But before he leaped away, I was lucky enough to catch a quick shot. I adore even the little beasts. Just look at him. Isn’t he cute?
And then, after hearding my stampede of boys indoors for dinner, the backyard quieted. The sun got lower, the air cooled, the water was still – it was a beautiful night. They finished dinner and started in on their homework. With my six year old working on his writing, I happened to glance up. And that’s when I saw this beast hauling himself onto the grassy median between our two back ponds. He too happens to be in the reptile family. But he certainly upstaged his distant cousin above.
I snuck outside and caught this picture before he darted back into the water. And please give some credit to my zoom for doing a decent job here because I swear he is only about 3-4 ft. long. Not big enough to make a run at us (but I think our cat might want to keep her title as an “indoor” kitty for now). But as my friends have asked me – where is it’s mother then? I told you all I need to stay on my toes out there.
And I promise. If he decides to make this grass bank his new home, we’ll call the gator hot-line.
Until then, wow. Florida. This place continues to amaze me.
When I woke up yesterday morning with no particular plan for my family, I sat down with my cereal at the computer and happened to read this article. The headline read:
“Oil Spill: DEP says it will hit Florida’s beaches mid-week”
I immediately felt ill. Ever since hearing the news about this spill, I have felt desperately ill. It has seeped into my conscious and I can’t seem to shake it. Last week, when I read the Governor’s reaction upon seeing the spill from the air, my stomach lurched once again.
“Until you actually see it, I don’t know how you can comprehend and appreciate the sheer magnitude of that thing.”
And it’s still spilling out. It’s not capped. Just erupting into the Gulf ceaselessly and oozing its way across the Gulf’s expanse. And now, it will hit our shores this week.
So without thinking twice, I announced to my family that a trip to the beach was in order. We better go enjoy it. We better spend a whole day appreciating what a fantastic slice of the natural world we have 45 minutes away from our front door.
And of course I packed my camera.
I want to share with you what we have here – what one small section of beach in Florida looks like.
This beach is in Tarpon Springs, a small town north of Tampa. This beach is in a park actually and we pay nothing to be there. The water is shifting, rolling glass – clear, blue and breathtaking. The wildlife rivals any aquarium. Locals fish on the beaches edge and pull up striped, gulping species that I certainly can’t name. And it is nothing new to find dolphins swimming around the periphery hoping to snag a fish escaping a line. I got so close to a dolphin once I could have reached out and pet it. There are stingrays and birds and starfish and sand dollars and hermit crabs and horseshoe crabs and regular crabs. There are these small sand colored fish that nibble at your toes in the surf. There are beautiful tiny white shells lining the shore. And powder fine sand, like nothing I’ve seen, that you sink your feet into and then swear you’ll give up your job and your life in suburbia so that you never ever have to leave.
It’s heaven.
And it’s all up and down this entire coast. A resource like nothing else. A resource we take for granted.
So what can I do? As if some super sentimental post about my favorite beach will do anything at all. The oil is coming and we are all sitting aside, waiting and watching. Powerless.
Obama calls this “a massive and potentially unprecedented environmental disaster”.
I don’t even know what to say to that.
I hate oil. I hate that we need it for our cars. I hate that we haven’t worked harder to harness other fuel resources. I hate that this kind of crap gets tied up in politics and partisanship and money and power and who has whose back. Our coasts and livelihoods and amazing wildlife care nothing about all that. But they will certainly pay dearly for it.
So why don’t we leave this post on a humorous note, shall we?? Because I think we could all use a good laugh right about now. And whose better at inspiring a giggle or two than our good buddy Sarah Palin? Here’s what she had to say to Biden about drilling during the Vice Presidential debate over a year ago (via The Huffington Post):
“You even called drilling — safe, environmentally-friendly drilling offshore — as raping the outer continental shelf. There — with new technology, with tiny footprints even on land, it is safe to drill and we need to do more of that.”
I don’t claim to be much of a gardener. But by no means should that imply that I don’t love to garden. I’m not sure how it happened actually. I fought it for years, but it’s joy lay deep below, patient and waiting.
As a child, my mother had a garden plot a few blocks from our home. She piled my brother, myself and her garden tools into her station wagon and hauled us all over there. We didn’t particularly like going. We were bored. I would wander down the mulched paths in between stringed off gardens boasting lovely heads of lettuce, squash and snap peas lost in whichever fantasy I had currently replaying in my mind. My mother would call me back, and could I bring the wheel barrow over while I’m at it.
I remember the year she had grown so many tomatoes. Heaps and heaps of them. She was given a book about “Too Many Tomatoes” and set to canning. I remember the smell of vine ripened tomatoes and then stewing tomatoes. I didn’t even like tomatoes. There were just so many of them which she found very amusing and clucked on about daily. *Shrug* I was six. What did all of those tomatoes really matter.
When I finally moved into my first apartment with a little bit of land, I never expected to consider gardening. But as the cold months finally passed and green buds piqued the trees, something unfurled within. As if some gene which I had no control over had finally matured itself and pushed through. Maybe I should go pick up a few bulbs? Maybe a trowel. Maybe some better soil.
But I am missing the skill portion of this gardening gene. And so my first garden was a catastrophe. Bulbs had been placed too close together, enormous plants grew on too small a plot of land and then one flower took over like a weed and spread everywhere. Things were leaning, nothing matched, hopeful flowers were strangled and started dying. I forgot to water. What’s the difference between and annual and a perennial, I had no idea.
Years have passed and I have my own home now. Usually I tend to my small garden of children so I spend less time heeding my temptation to grow much outside. But I try every few months to make an effort with my garden. It is a Florida garden however with extreme heat and humidity and then occasional damaging freezes. We have horrid sandy topsoil which is regularly overturned and dug through by a local armadillo. And then there are hoards of fire ants ready to strike any flip-flopped foot that happens to misstep. I don’t know the names of what grows here so growing any of it is some version of garden Russian roulette. But I dig a hole, plant one in there and certainly try. Sure, only about 50% of what I have put in has had lived on with much success, but I try.
Today I put in sod. Last year our backyard was bulldozed suffered at the hand of a wild boar and five of her babies. The weeds whooped and hollered as they crowded in and took over. But today my husband and I trucked in slab after slab of sod and threw together a patch work of grass which we hope will make its mark and regain the upper hand. As we stood there coated in dirt and sweat, watering and stomping at the ground, I felt good. The dirt felt good. The soil and water and all of it combined in a muddy green grassy mass smelled divine. I am growing something.
A few weeks ago, I tentatively planted a tomato plant in a pot on my back porch. Because, you guessed it, I like tomatoes now. I adore them. I wish I could ask my mother how she did it but I would bet the care and the organic mulch and the specific zone she lived in had everything to do with it. Nevertheless, I am trying it. And so now I go out onto my porch everyday and stare at my plant. Would you believe one of those lovely papery tomato flowers bestowed a small gift the other day? Yes, a small green tomato has shown itself. I hardly have too many tomatoes – but I have one. One and maybe another as I tentatively water it’s soil and will the next papery flower to produce a friend.
There is a magic in growing. A small, dry seed can become something real and green, stalked and hardy. Soil and all of it’s rich substance anchors the potential of food and beauty and shade. Water. Have you ever seen what a good soaking rain will do to a garden? It all stretches to the sky and reaches and reaches. It greens and buds and flowers and creates fruit and color and hope.
Clearly, there is also therapy in gardening and growing. We lose ourselves, find our thoughts and enjoy this quiet peace while tending and tending and tending until it exhausts us. We place our attention on something which doesn’t take anything away. We find creativity in growth and life while reigning in and respecting all the possibilities of the natural world.
It is certainly no coincidence. I have snuck back into my garden because it offers a careful promise of life and hope. A promise I tend to, hoping my love of gardening which was passed on to me might actually heal me.
Its a phenomenon to be sure.
And again, it’s not one I claim to have much of a handle on. Don’t expect bright swaying trellises of bougainvillea and enormous bushels of Birds of Paradise or hearty fruit trees weighed down with orange treasures or even a lawn that grows one type of grass (as much as I lust for all of this). But you might expect a small tray of sunflowers poking their way up on the sunny side of the house. Or one clump of Bird of Paradise make a respectable run for it in the front yard. And a fairly successful patch of petunias keeping my mailbox company.
Oh yes and one small green tomato, which smells exactly like my mother’s garden plot. You’ll find me next to it, staring it down and finding pride in it’s possibility. I’m here remembering my mother and hoping to find all the same amusement and joy she plucked out of her own garden. And also, like my mother from 30 years prior overwhelmed by her harvest, I am here clucking on about my one dear tomato daily. Because this first tomato does matter.
Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of Magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden – in all the places.
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