Reality TV at its worst. . . .

I've decided that Kris Humphries got lucky when Kim Kardashian dumped him after 72 days of married life.

I make this wise judgement after watching "Kim & Kourtney Kardashiam Take New York" on TV for the first. . .and I assure you. . .the last time, last night. I got bored with every other channel's in-depth dissection of the upcoming Iowa Caucuses and started channel surfing, stopping to linger on Bravo and this gawd-awful display of narcisistic family life that doubles as a hit show. Talk about boring. . . .the most exciting thing they do is shop.

In the episode I watched, Kourtney's live-in boyfriend,Scott, a total jerk by anyone's standard,buys an expensive grand piano for the apartment because he thinks it will look really spiffy there. That's despite the fact that neither he nor she knows how to play. When she demands he learn or return the piano,he,with great difficulty and the help of an expensive music teacher, masters one stanza of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star", using his two index fingers. Everyone claps wildly.

They lose me at this point when Kourtney agrees to reward Scott for this inspiring achievement of musical creativity with "dirty sex" on top of the piano. Ugh.

I'll take the Animal Planet over the Kardashians any day of the week, but apparently not everyone agrees with me. Chalk it up to generation gap-itis. Or maybe just a short attention span.

Gee,I hope they washed off the piano afterwards. Mr. Steinway must be turning over in his grave.
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A handy bit of business.. .

The Wall Street Journal recently did a study about left handedness. Nobody asked my opinion on the subject, but since I have been personally involved in the matter for some eight decades, I feel I have a right to weigh in.

Yes, I am very left handed, in everything except cutting my meat. Apparently my Mother couldn't figure out how a lefty should cut her lamb chop when I was little. Since she was right handed,she simply taught me what she knew how to do. Other than that, I am a true lefty. (Ask Benard. Because I do everything opposite of the way he does it, he is sure I am going to stab myself when I do anything in the kitchen. Then again, my prowess in the kitchen could easily end in stabbing myself, but that's another story.)

According to the Wall Street Journal study, lefties make up only 10% of the population. Nobody knows exactly why some people are lefthanded although it tends to run in families. Not in my family, however. I was a bit of an anomaly in that department.

A fascinating bit of trivia is the fact that many US presidents were/are left handed, including Barack Obama. The list includes Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Gerald Ford, Harry Truman and James Garfield. Apparently, politics is non-partisan when it comes to handedness.

One of the favorite gifts I ever received was a pair of left handed scissors. Scissors are a problem for lefties, whoever invented them didn't understand that they are strictly for right handed people. I am probably the only volunteer reader at WLRN who brings her own scissors to the studio to cut out the articles from the Miami Herald before going on-air.

By the way, according to the survey, lefties make more creative artists because they are better at divergent thinking. I'm not quite sure what that means, but I'm going to accept it as a good thing, it has something to do with the way our brains are wired apparently. We're also good at sports. . think Phil Mickelson, Oscar de la Hoya and Rafa Nadal. The theory behind that? Since there are fewer of us, we get to practice against righthanders more than righthanders get to practice against us. Who knew!

No, my handwriting doesn't look weird and I don't have to sit at the left end of the table because my Mother taught me to keep my elbows in close when I eat. As a matter of fact, I'm rarely aware of my left handedness until someone sits down at my computer and wants to know why the mouse is on the wrong side of the keyboard.

The article also informed me there is such a thing as a Left Handers Club and we actually have our own day. Apparently I missed it. It was August 13th. But I intend to celebrate next year just as soon as I sign up and become a member.

Gee, I wonder whether they swear you in by raising your left hand??????
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Photo captions: The logos for the Left Handers Club.

I'm in love. . .

I got kissed by a giraffe this week.

His name is Fezzit, and he has a foot long dark purple tongue that he whips out and curls back up. In all honesty, I think he was more interested in the bowl full of greens I was holding out to him than in a long term relationship with me. But I was instantly in love.

My friend Alice is in town for the annual Doral/Publix "First Tee Golf Tournament" benefitting disadvantaged kids. . I help her work the tournament's pro shop selling shirts and stuff to the youngsters from 47 countries who actually play in the tournament. On Friday, before play began, we played hookey and spent the day at ZooMiami, courtesy of another friend, Diane, who is a long time docent at that truly incredible place. If you're a Miamian, and haven't visited the place formerly known as Metro Zoo for some time, you are in for a treat when you return.

I have fond memories of Sunday visits to the Bronx Zoo as a little girl with my Dad and my sister. In those days, animals were in cages, behind strong iron bars. Today, that practice is long since forbidden. The animals at ZooMiami roam free in areas that resemble their native habitats, and visitors are separated by deep moats, or in the case of the adorable river otters, by glass walls.

I am an animal lover so the day was a delicious treat, especially with Diane driving us around in a golf cart and favoring us with a personal tour. Her back-of-the-house knowledge of all the animals is priceless, not to mention that she knows them all by name.

Getting to feed Fezzit was an extra plus. I was a giddy as a little kid. Take a look at the accompanying photo if you think I'm kidding.
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Every dog has his day. . .

A whole bunch of dogs had their day here at Grove Isle on Sunday. Never realized there were quite so many canines living in our midst,although I am on first name basis with several tail waggers from my morning walks around the island.

Sunday at 11:30 was the official dedication of our new, first time ever, on-site dog park, named the Mary Carner "Paws Park", in honor of our late friend and neighbor who was an activist in securing the bayside bow-wow accommodation. There was champagne and cupcakes, plus bags of treats for four legged guests,(courtesy of Pets Mart, they recognize good customers when they see them)as our City Commissioner Mark Sarnoff presented a fancy gold embossed declaration to Mary's husband, Steve, while a photographer and reporter from the Miami Herald looked on. The South Beach social scene has nothing on us.

Since I am a cat person and neither Wasabi nor Ginger expressed any desire to leash up and attend the event, I represented the family wearing my best cat tee-shirt to show my support. Grove Isle dogs don't have names like Spot and Rex. I'm on petting basis with Mila, Henry, Jake, Lolita, Lola, Bailey, Chloe and Oliver. Our condo docs specify pets no larger than 25 lbs. so they also tend to be small of stature but large of heart. Just ask their devoted owners.

Everybody was on their best behaviour, including the adults. I understand there's a move to hold weekly cocktail parties in the park. For the owners, not the dogs, I trust. I'm thinking of demanding equal time for cats.
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Photos: 1. Sheila & Henry, wearing his UM tee shirt
2. Sharon & Lolita watching the proceedings
3. The plaque at the dog park door
4. Commissioner Sarnoff doing his thing

My early Christmas present. . . .

This morning was our last reading session for the year in United Way's pilot program, "Reading for Literacy". The four year olds in my pre-K class will be presenting their Christmas pageant next Thursday morning, so today, after reading about a hyperactive mouse who did something creative for every letter of the alphabet, it was time to say goodbye.

That's when the teacher, Miss Anita, announced that the children had made a gift for me. Can't remember the last time I was so touched. This is turning out to be a great holiday for me. The "significant other" bought me a Kindle Touch 3G for Channukah, and now a handmade gift from these kids I have grown to love.

Little Pablo, who always has an answer for every question I ask the kids as I read, even before I finish asking it, personally painted the Christmas tree on the poster. Miss Anita made sure to tell me that. And each of the kids signed their names on individual pieces of red paper that were then glued on the green background. .the two Sophias,Charlotte, Mia, Pablo, Dimitra, Roberto, Robbie, Alec, Allie, Zoe, Daniel and Jacob. Their names are engraved in my memory. Up in the left hand corner is printed a big Thank you. I may have to frame it, it is so adorable.

Sheila and I have really enjoyed volunteering for this pilot reading program. We're hoping United Way will call on us to read to another pre-K group in the coming year. Don't want to waste my new found ability to read a book upside down so that the kids can see the pictures and interact with the story line.

In truth, I think I learned as much as the kids did from the program. I never had any desire to be a teacher when I thought about a career years ago, but I have a new appreciation for both the importance and the non-financial rewards that they experience from the work they do.

In case I don't get to write again, Happy Holidays to you all. .

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Nature is wild. . .

We had an interesting guest on our tram tour at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden this morning. He didn't have much to say, but he was obviously ready to listen to Benard's and my spiel. We figured that out when even after we told him politely that the seats in the tram were for paying guests, he persisted in running along beside us as we headed out through the Garden.

In case you don't recognize our guest, he's a Cattle Egret, one of many different feathered friends that we see regularly as we travel through the Garden. My personal favorites are the families of Ibis that hang around the edges of the lakes. I love explaining to the guests that while the Ibis was once the sacred bird of Egypt, more importantly to Miamians, he is the mascot of the University of Miami's football team, the Hurricanes. Chosen because of his bravery as the last bird to leave when a hurricane is on the horizon, and the first to return when the hurricane is over. Bet you didn't know that!

One last word about our feathered friend this morning. . he apparently took my remark seriously about only paying guests allowed on the tram. A few minutes after we started the tour,Benard stopped the tram to explain about some tree or plant we were passing. Up trotted our egret, this time with a tiny live lizzard in his beak. I swear he was offering it to me as payment for his seat.

Who knows, maybe lizzards are coin of the realm in the Bird World. I was grateful he didn't ask for change. What can I tell you. Is it any wonder we love this incredible Garden so much????
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Everyone needs a week away. . .

I'm back from a week in Sedona, Arizona's gorgeous red rock country. What I wasn't expecting was the unusually cold weather, but that's another story. Miami had floods earlier this months, Oklahoma just had an earthquake. . .Mother Nature is really on a tear these days.

Visiting my old friends, Alice and David Goodhart, is always an eating experience, amd man, did we eat. Starting with dinner the night after I arrived at their friend Beverly's home where the fabulous chef, who is actually an obstetrician in real life, delivered (pardon the pun!) an incredible meal that concluded with a birthday cake for both me and the chef's wife, also named Joan. (Take a look at the accompanying photo for an idea of what the dinner table looked like before we sat down and devoured everything in sight. That's Chef Nathan in the background.)

From there, it was all uphill, foodwise. If we weren't eating at some wonderful Italian/Thai/Continental restaurant, I was stuffing myself in Alice's kitchen, a pretty fine dining spot on its own, presided over by their delicious dog Shaina. In between meal times, we visited a whole slew of Sedona's marvelous art galleries, attended a wine tasting session, talked it up at her book club, and with David at the wheel, tooled into the mountains until the snow plows let us know it was time to turn around and go back to safer ground. Haven't seen that much snow since my last ski trip. For you Floridians, the second photo is to show you what you are missing,or what you can live without, as the case may be.

Sedona is getting ready for its Annual Film Festival. Last year Alice volunteered me to serve breakfast at the Arts Festival. This year she had me taking tickets in the lobby of the local movie theatre where they previewed a wonderful Dutch film called "Bride Flight". God only knows what she will have me doing next year. Mine is not to question why. . I just go along, and it always turns out to be fun.

It was a great week but it's good to be home. Wasabi and Ginger have been pasted to my side since I arrived, and the significant other looks pretty happy as well. It's Ramble time at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, and I have to be there at 8:30 tomorrow morning to work in the Kids Area.

Have a feeling my next blog may be waiting for me there.
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