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DVD Marathon This Week: Need Ideas!

June 21, 2009 By 4 Comments

Our neighborhood Blockbuster is running a week long promotion.  You fork over $15 and can rent unlimited DVDs, two checked out at a time, for one week.  

This, then, is the perfect opportunity to settle in for a movie marathon.  Or, better yet, to watch a good television series start to finish, one after the next.  Have you ever done that?  Just sat down and started watching from the very beginning and didn’t stop til it was over?
I watched The Wire in a marathon session last summer. Having never seen a single episode of the “highly acclaimed HBO drama”, I started with Season One, Episode One and was hooked.  I had to join Netflix to ensure that I could get the discs in consecutive order and in a timely fashion.  I was steeped in that program and deeply affected by it.  55 television hours later,  it was over and I mourned its finale.  I missed those characters for a good few weeks afterwards.  The episodes were so compelling, the acting so good.  Quality televsion drama is so hard to come by but this was good TV.  Well, actually, it’s not TV, it’s HBO.  (It’s TV, but anyway…)
I’m yearning for another viewing experience like that one.
Any suggestions for must-see films, or television episodes I should watch during my ‘free for all’ week which started today?  I’m watching Weeds Season Four to start with.  I’ll probably finish that tomorrow.
I just need to make sure I still have time to do some work, and read Infinite Jest.
So:  I’d love some ideas!  The Blockbuster girl recommended the series Dexter and another one, House.
I’m not interested in Lost or 24 or Heroes or True Blood.  Sopranos I’ve done and loved it but I’ve already watched those episodes all more than once.  Same with Sex and The City.
Maybe I should stick with films.
Or, I should just let the kids rent the movies and I’ll lay on the couch and read and read…
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Now For My Shallow Side…

June 20, 2009 By Leave a Comment
What a hilarious group of grown up women masquerading as middle-schoolers.
Goils, I’m gonna miss you and your bubbies, too.
You’re unbelievable. 
Seriously.  Are you proud of yourselves?  
Well, I know you don’t care; you like being on TV and it makes passing my time while folding laundry and sweeping the kitchen floor quite entertaining.  But what’s the most fun of all is reading the episode recaps posted online by various sources.
Truly hilarious reading!
See ya next time Joisey goils.



Filed Under: Blog

The Rock

June 14, 2009 By 6 Comments

We found this rock in the low tide this evening.  

It makes you wonder about the story behind it.

I’m guessing that someone wrote all their negative feelings and attributes onto the rock.  To symbolically dissociate themselves from the negativity they hurled the rock into the ocean.  Not a bad exercise if you think about it.

I wonder if it worked.
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Hermit the Crab

June 10, 2009 By 1 Comment
This adorable and captivating hermit crab was our very own for several minutes yesterday.  The young snorkelers at Huguenot Park found Hermit and brought him to me where I caressed him with my lens and got this  one perfect shot to remember him by.  All efforts to entice him to perform for a short video  failed as he remained retracted and immobile within his shell while the camera above him whirred away, waiting… 

Marine life outsmarts the humans once again.  

After a few minutes of admiring Hermit and not yet ready to give up on capturing the hermit crab scamper on video,  a gentle wave washed over us and Hermit was gone.

Goodbye Hermit. You were an exquisite little fellow.  Be well.

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Daycation Diverted…

June 10, 2009 By 1 Comment

(intentional black & white shots of Big Talbot Island Park beach)

...by a certain someone who came to her senses at the last minute and decided that an 11:00 a.m. departure for a 113 mile (one way) trip to a river where the number of daily riders are restricted and the suggested latest arrival time is 2:00pm – not to mention the prevalence of afternoon thunderstorms which can ruin a tubing day in a hurry – might not be prudent.  Yes, the group was disappointed but she doubted that any of them had ever driven two hours (one way) only to miss a cut off time by a matter of moments, and she wasn’t keen to repeat that experience.  The departure time had migrated a bit throughout the morning,  and by 11:00 she suddenly got the feeling that it was entirely possible they’d drive all the way to Ichetucknee and be turned away at the gate. 

The eleven children involved pulled long faces when a daycation detour was proposed.  But (in my world) the adults prevail, and so it was that two very accommodating mothers – and me –  drove the kids up to Big Talbot Island instead. It’s a short ride across the St. John’s River on the charmingly down-home Mayport Ferry, and across a bridge to the lovely Big Talbot Island. 

It took a while for the eleven to give over to the change of venue, and there was residual crabbiness even while they romped on the ‘trees beach’ at Big Talbot Island.  So they passed a few hours playing and complaining amidst the trees on this very picturesque beach. 






They were fed sandwiches and sodas and Cheetos and watermelon and Red Velvet cupcakes. And while they did smile and play for a short time, there was was an undercurrent of discontent amongst them all.  Someone cut their foot.  Another one missed his video games and wanted air conditioning.  There was no euphoria.  I guess I’d deflated that when I pulled the plug on Ichetucknee earlier and they weren’t so eager to get over it.



So when the eleven pretty much decided they’d be happier at Huguenot Park beach, I conceded defeat and we backtracked to Huguenot, which is the first park just off the Mayport Ferry.

I hadn’t loved that first visit to Huguenot last week but this time we chose a different place to park the car on the beach, and what a difference the location made!

The eleven insisted we park the cars at  the spot just before the intracoastal waterway melds into the Atlantic.  We arrived at exactly  low tide, so there was an enormous beach with a wonderfully large tidal pool. The girls of eleven excitedly grabbed their masks and snorkels (intended for the clear waters of the Ichetucknee River) and spent the next few hours face down as incoming tide swelled the shallows with marine life.  The boys immediately set off for a different locale.  The intracoastal’s small lake (a/k/a the “mucky bottom” lake) at low tide had a small island in the middle and they zeroed in on that.  They swam back forth from “island” to beach until the island was once again subsumed with water a few hours later.




And I finally relaxed because now  everyone  seemed happy.




Even the gulls were talkative in a musical sort of way.  The flock was chattering in such a chorus in the distance and it was unlike anything I’d ever heard before.  Today I felt magnanimous toward them.  On other days, I admit to being totally annoyed with people who toss food into the air to “feed the birds” on the beach.  The swarming mass, flapping and cawing for those few bits of bread, fly low overhead and are known to let loose without regard for those of us who just want to read or snooze  without the threat of being shat upon. I’m not above asking people who insist on food-throwing to take it on down the beach, if they would, and I might not even say please.


But not today.  The light on the Huguenot beach in late afternoon was shimmering, lustrous.   The eleven were now lighthearted and happy with their respective Huguenot adventures.  We’d added a couple of kids (and a third mom) to the mix; the two post-script children met up with us after the Ichetucknee letdown so they weren’t holding a grudge to begin with.

The treasures the snorkelers found was a magical way to end the diverted daycation.


 



(look closely and you’ll see the little hermit crab’s legs peeking out of the shell.)
Soon, the tide reclaimed our borrowed treasures, and then the day was done.  We made it in the nick of time for the ferry’s last crossing with our bodies sunburned, a car full of beach sand and several sea gull souvenirs dotting the van. 

I think the eleven would agree that it was a good day after all.
Filed Under: Blog

Getting Ready for This Week’s Daycation

June 8, 2009 By 3 Comments
A majestic hardwood, uprooted in a long-past storm, continues growing ever upward among the lush ferns in a floodplain next to the Blue Hole Trail.

Tomorrow some of the neighborhood beachlifers are taking a day trip to Ichetucknee River.

Sounds like a real southern thang, doesn’t it?

It’s a float down the Ichetucknee River on rafts or tubes – your choice.  It’s a real, spring fed, lazy river rife with fauna and mangroves and your float can take anywhere from one and a half hours, to half a day, depending on where you put in.  It will take us about two hours to drive there; it’s located in North Central Florida.

Afterward it’s always fun to drive around to the head spring, a very chilly, clear large pond that’s fun to swim in.  Those of us who can handle cold water, that is.  Those of us who are (wo)man enough for it.  We’re bringing our snorkel gear.  It’s no coral reef, to be sure, but there are plenty of fish darting about to look at.  I’ll take my snorkeling where I can get it, this summer.



(this is the head spring-fun!)

The cold head spring’s got nothing on Lake Michigan, though.  I grew up swimming her cold waters in the summer, a treat I’m looking forward to later this summer.  I love swimming in the ocean but I do prefer a freshwater lake with a nice sandy bottom and no scary creatures lurking beneath the surface…

Whenever I’ve been there, the head spring has never been as crowded as is shown in the picture.  But it sure feels cold; it maintains a constant temperature of 72 degrees year round.

I’ll be back on Wednesday with a report on this week’s daycation.  The real reason I’m writing so late is to leave you with this delectable picture of the treats we’ll we sharing with our friends:  luscious Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese frosting, created from scratch by my very own pastry chef, Lily, age 11.



I found a good recipe online and printed it for her.  I watched her whip these up from behind my laptop.  I tested only one cupcake but I could have devoured them all.  Then, I photographed them.

Aren’t they pretty?
Filed Under: Blog, Springs

Exploring New Beaches – Huguenot Park

June 7, 2009 By 2 Comments

Last week was our first week of summer vacation so we packed up the car and headed for an afternoon at Huguenot Park.


Now in the nine years I’ve lived here, for some reason  I’ve never gone to Huguenot Park.  I’ve driven by it plenty of times.  But because this summer is the summer of staycation (or do you like daycation better?!) we decided to kick things off right and get going somewhere different right away.

Huguenot Park is part of the Duval County Parks and Recreation and is the only beach that allows cars to drive right out onto the sand!  This was totally weird and thrilling, driving the car to surf’s edge.  It felt wrong and forbidden and just…off, being out there on the sand with the waves lapping at my tires!  I couldn’t stop laughing at the absurdity of it!

The friend I was with is from Daytona Beach which is, of course, the iconic place for cars on the beach.  In fact, on a years-ago vacation to Florida, my husband and I did the requisite ‘beach drive’ ourselves, as all the tourists do.  She remembers hanging out with friends in  cars, on the beach.   She remembers when they banned ‘night driving’ on the beach, which to me seems completely insane that it would have ever been allowed in the first place.

When we first moved to Florida we stayed on Anastasia Island, where driving on the beach is permitted.  My kids were babies, running aimlessly around the sand and I was very nervous about them getting hit by a car. I’ve heard of accidents, so I’m not really for the whole idea of cars on the beach in general.

But for something different to do on a summer afternoon, it was fun.  

We made a picnic, loaded the cooler, threw in the beach chairs, went over the Mayport Ferry, and drove the remaining couple of miles to the park.  There’s camping in the Park, with sites along the St. John’s River.  While it would be kind of cool to camp along the river (I’m not really the camping sort of person), the sites weren’t compelling enough to get me excited about trying it.  I like some ambiance:  trees, a nice spot for campfire, something.  These sites were just plain, open spaces along the river.  No thanks.  I suppose if I had a Minnie Winnie it would be a more attractive notion, but we don’t,  so I prefer the whole daycation thing where I can come home and shower off the salt and sand and be done with it.  It’s fun to visit but I don’t necessarily want to live in it.  

In northern Michigan, I have camped in a tent, on a site, next to my favorite Great Lake, the great Lake Michigan.  But those sites are truly lovely; private, shielded by leafy trees, and picturesque.  I actually camped in a beachfront site which was memorable and something I’d consider doing again. (Though I’d prefer to rent a lovely oceanfront condo on Sanibel Island, or in the Keys, or, hey, how about in Destin, Florida where I hear the water is a lovely shade of aqua?) 

Let me just say that Huguenot Park is no Fisherman’s Island State Forest Campground (now a State Park) in Charlevoix, Michigan.

But what fun it was to pull out onto the beach, hop out of the car and let the kids bolt into the ocean.  It’s really just a few miles north of us “as the crow flies” but everything felt different. Even the water was colder there!  The kids climbed out onto the rocks of the jetty, where the St. John’s River meets the Atlantic Ocean. 


 The Park is very close to Mayport Naval Station so we waved to several helicopters doing their daily runs to and from the base.  There was a smaller, “mucky-bottomed”  lake area that was behind the ocean; I think it was part of the intracoastal waterway.  It was very still and there were a couple of egrets stepping gingerly into the water’s edge.  The kids enjoyed the stillness of this lake and played there, despite the “mucky bottom” for about a half hour.



The sand was white and there were small sand dunes the kids ran up and rolled down several times. 






 Back at the car on the beach, we opened the trunk of the van and had a tailgate picnic while the tide crept in.  All that was different, and fun. 


 One thing that made me sad was the amount of trash left on the beach.  Who does that?  I mean, really, who just drops their juice bags, cigarettes, padding from their bathing suit bras, picnic trash, a flip flop, straws, …anything and everything…and just drives away from it?  Apparently, a lot of people have the nerve to do just that.  I’m guessing that the crew at Huguenot Park must drive a truck with some sort of rake attached to clean up the beach every night.  

In Atlantic Beach, the beaches are very clean.  Occasionally I see some trash but it’s generally isolated and often I’ll pick it up if I can.  It looks like more of a mistake rather than a trend.  I wonder if people somehow feel entitled to leave their flotsam and jetsam because they paid to get in to the park and think that someone else should pick up after them?  And in Atlantic Beach, it’s home, it’s the neighborhood, and when visitors come, it’s free, and people therefore feel more responsible?  

I wish I knew, but the difference in the cleanliness of the two beaches is striking.

The trip to Huguenot was fun and a wonderful diversion for all of us; who doesn’t love a change of venue every now and then? We laughed, had fun with friends, and enjoyed the freedom 


from school and schedules, and admired this handsome fellow:



 Still, the home beach of Atlantic Beach rules in my book.

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Are you (Wo)Man Enough To Read This Book?

June 6, 2009 By 4 Comments

Here’s the deal:

Join the Facebook Group for Infinite Summer.  You know you want to read this.  You’ve been intrigued by it for a long time.  Perhaps you’ve even brought it home from the library and read a hundred or so pages   (ahem) and decided that you don’t have time to do this right now?  

Well, here’s your chance and I’m dead serious.

The reading group will begin on the first day of summer and will take the entire season to finish it.  So it’s not like the book will eat you alive, or you won’t be able to read anything else all summer, or any other excuse you can conjure to prevent you from attacking this behemoth novel. 

It’s a commitment of a mere 75 pages a week. The discussion will be posted online weekly.  It would be so fun if we join together with friends and get this thing read, already!

It’s really brilliantly written.  Yes, I have read those first one hundred pages and I didn’t abandon it because it wasn’t good.  I put it down because I felt overwhelmed by the enormity of it and I’m not necessarily referring to the number of pages.   I was in awe of his writing.  Every sentence was like a literary feast to me.  Every page was enormous in that it contained thoughts and moods and emotions that were so labile I could barely process it myself.  

But there’s no denying it’s brilliant in its way.  And I think I can do it, broken down like this in a manageable way. I want to do it.   And it would be so much fun to do it with friends.  No?

You’ll probably have to buy the book since I don’t know of any library that makes three-month loans.  I took the leap this morning and my copy is staring at you at the top of this page.  

Daring you to join me…

So. Who’s in?
Filed Under: Blog

Parker the Sharker

June 5, 2009 By 3 Comments

Introducing the second shark hooked by Parker in his short career as a Florida fisherman.

This is the first shark of the 2009 season.  Parker hooked one in the Keys last summer.  He was on the beach with friends yesterday when he hooked this beauty.  Scary!
The shark is being held by his friend.  If it was me, I’d have been posing with my prize.  Maybe not actually holding it, but I’d have made sure I was in the picture with it.  But, that’s just me.
 They played with the shark for a while:

He took several long videos that were mostly wildly shaking camera shots that captured plenty of sand shots, a glimpse of the shark’s tail, and intermittent snips of his friend holding the shark.
The tide pools were large and deep so they let the shark swim in one of them.  I actually have no idea how they finally got it back into the ocean but they did.  Parker didn’t actually hold his shark; he was too busy playing photographer.
Lots of people have been snagging sharks on their fishing lines off the beach this week.  We’ll be heading there for an end-of-the-school-year party in a little while.
Maybe I’ll have another Shark Tale for y’all later.
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Seoul in 2006

June 3, 2009 By 2 Comments

In July 2006 my son and I visited South Korea. Parker Sae-Bin was born in Daegu, South Korea and came home to his thrilled Dad and me in September 1996.

A friend of mine is there now, with her two Korean-born sons who are visiting their birth land for the first time since they were adopted.  Reading her blog made me nostalgic so I went in search of my photos. That little sidetrack became a post of my own about those really special nine days with my son.

It was an amazing and awesome trip.  As an adoption social worker and an adoptive parent, I was longing to be part of the tenth annual KAAN (Korean American Adoptee Adoptive Family Network) Conference, which was being held in Seoul that year.  I’d attended the very first KAAN Conference, so I decided to go to Seoul and take Parker with me.  We made the nine day journey to Korea in June/July 2006.

After our three days at the Conference, we visited the Demilitarized Zone, a place where only non-Korean citizens are allowed to go. There, you’re actually straddling the two Koreas, and can look across the 38th parallel into North Korea.  This was a day-long trip with rules about personal behavior, dress code and picture-taking, all strictly enforced.  Much to his utter chagrin Parker was made to don a pair of trousers in lieu of the shorts he’d had on.  The pants did not fit and looked ridiculous, which annoyed him to no end.  I was forced to wear a pair of flat, closed sneakers instead of the mules I was wearing and if you know me, you know I don’t wear flats, ever, and sneakers, only to the gym.  But despite our mutual dress code violations, we had a good trip into the DMZ, something that not many people experience in their lives.


(A North Korean soldier stands at attention.)


(Parker in those hated trousers.)





Another day, we shopped for a long time in Insadong, which I loved.  After a while, my good son was bored so I let him spend some time in an arcade.  Thus renewed, he willingly accompanied me to more of Insadong’s unique shops and galleries.


(A shop in Insadong I enjoyed very much with my American dollars.)

(A shop where I did buy two fabric panels, similar to the ones behind Parker.)


We also visited the Seoul Tower, Namdaemun Market, and Lotte World Amusement Park just to name a few more sites. We took the subway and okay, plenty of taxi rides all around town.  Lots of won (Korean currency), but I liked getting more familiar with Seoul’s most excellent cityscape.


(Parker with our friend Chae Eun at Lotte World Amusement Park, a girnormous Disney-esque fantasy world for kids.)

 The KAAN Conference was held in a business district, so afterwards we moved across the river to the Ibis Hotel in Myeong Dong, an area that’s filled with shops and cafes and people all day and night.  

A special part of the trip was meeting Parker’s sweet foster mother, Mrs. Choi Jung Hee.  I’d met her nine years earlier when I was in Korea to bring our daughter home.  Mrs. Choi came to the agency both times to meet us,  and both times we exchanged meaningful gifts and spent some poignant time together.   Mrs. Choi fostered many, many children in her years as a foster mom for the children of Social Welfare Society.  Her own sons are now grown, and she is the second mother to numerous sons and daughters now living throughout the world.  Mrs. Choi brought Parker a very popular Be The Reds soccer jersey.  South Korea is crazy for soccer (as is most of the world – why isn’t the U.S.?).




(Parker signs the guest book at Social Welfare Society)

We spent time with my good friend Park Min Hyung and her cute little girl Chae Eun.  Min Hyung and I have been friends for nearly 11 years now and she speaks English wonderfully so we’re able to talk as real friends do.  Her daughter’s also learning English, and we gave Chae Eun the English name of Bella.  

Min Hyung is really stylish and enjoys fashion. I call her the Carrie Bradshaw of Seoul because she has such a distinctive personal style.  She’s gorgeous, intelligent, and a very warm person. She’s been a good friend to me.



Seoul is a fantastic, huge, metropolitan city and I loved it.  It rocks, 24/7.  During our nine days there we were on the go constantly but only scratched the surface of the city.  Parker was exhausted by 9:00pm and while I could have kept going, for his sake we returned to the hotel where he flopped into bed and unwound with his Game Boy.

While he relaxed, I’d go to the fitness center and enjoy a different sort of relaxation:  the Korean-style “baths”.  I experienced a clean that was so relaxing…in the bath area guests disrobe and then shower off in a public shower space. Everything was provided:  towels, facial cleansing sponges, shampoo and conditioner, soaps, moisturizers, sanitized hair brushes and combs.  You’d leave your clothes in a personal locker, and go nude.  


(There will be no pictures of the baths here!)

Many Korean guests where there with other women friends, and would chat while cleansing, washing their hair, scrubbing their bodies, and once everyone was sufficiently cleansed, only then would  you lower your body into a communal bath of hot or cold water, jacuzzi-style.  

I decided to give over to the experience, when in Rome, and all that.  I let my personal and cultural inhibitions about nudity go, and just followed the rules for appropriate behavior in the baths. First rule: you must wash yourself thoroughly before using the bath.  Second rule: you don’t wear clothing in the bath area – nudity is just the way it is.  If I was here in the States I never could have been publicly nude (hey, it is a women only bath, of course), but in Korea you would have looked like a fool if you tried the routine while wearing a bathing suit!  It wasn’t about nudity; it was about cleanliness and relaxation.  No one would ever enter the bath if they hadn’t soaped up and showered off, first.

The shower heads were large, rainwater-style and I melted while standing beneath them, letting the shampoo and conditioner run through my long hair.  The showering off was total relaxation, part one.  The icing on the cake was when I’d step into the bath, sparkling clean with pink skin from the heat of the shower.  By this time, though, the baths were nearly ready to close as it was almost 11:00pm.  I’d soak for ten minutes or so, then dress and head back to the room, where I’d find my son, blissed out in his own right, still working his thumbs hard on the Game Boy.

Korea 2006 was an incredible high. I saw some people at the conference I hadn’t seen in years, and got to meet many interesting Koreans, adoptees and others who I’d known about from the online world.  On the way home from Korea we traveled with a few babies who were making their way to to their adoptive homes.  That was an especially moving way to complete the journey for me.



It was a joyous time for me and Parker.  He was a great traveling buddy.  He learned to navigate foreign airports with ease.  In fact, shortly after this picture was taken, he become impatient with me because I was chatting with Dr. Sook Wilkinson (the Korean woman, who’d been a  Conference speaker and was escorting this baby to the States to meet her adoptive family) in the airport in Japan. Parker decided to leave me there and find the gate for our connecting flight –  by himself. It was the only time I’d been truly panicked in my life.  For those few moments, when I looked up and he was not there…my heart truly felt as though it’d moved into my throat, and I was breathless.  My son,an Asian child who spoke only English and who belonged to an English-speaking Caucasian woman, lost in the Narita airport.  I shouted his name loudly; no embarrassment here.  We’d been so careful to stick together the entire time.  Down the long terminal, he heard me and stopped.  I couldn’t believe he’d up and left me like that! ‘What were you thinking?’ I demanded, the relief flooding me but my pulse still racing.  All casual, as is his way, he simply said he was tired of waiting and had gone on ahead to find the gate.   And by gosh, he’d read the departures board, and found our gate. All of ten years old, my boy.

And now, he’s thirteen.  And taller than me.  And has just started a blog, my boy.  I’ll be interviewing him here in the next couple of days to introduce his blog to my vast readership.  And I hope both of you will visit his site 🙂

Time…as every mother before me has said, “Enjoy them while they’re young; they’ll be gone before you know it.”  When he was small, I heard those words but didn’t feel them.

I feel them now.  And it feels like the time with him is slipping through my fingers.

I love you Parker Sae-Bin.  Thank you for being my son.


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