Oprah has nothing on me. . . .

The People Page of today's Miami Herald has an article on "The Estefans get Oprah-ed".  I'm not sure I've ever watched Oprah's new cable network, but I do have my own memories of Gloria and Emilio, and the article got me to reminiscing.

Today, the couple are important members of South Florida's philanthropic community as well as active partners in the Miami Heat and Miami Dolphins.  But when I first came in contact with them they were none of the above..  It was the mid-80's and the musical group called The Miami Sound Machine was yet to make a name for itself or its lead singer.  As a matter of fact they were simply one more name on the list of local bands I would consider hiring for the many different events that my pr firm was constantly staging for our various clients.

The Miami Sound Machine was being touted by Emilio himself in those days, and the going rate was $200 for a 2 hour gig.  I remember very well one real estate client for whom we were planning the opening of a new community who nixed hiring them as "Too expensive!"   I believe I found that client another group that only cost $175.

My next contact with both the Estefans came in early 1991.  The couple were already pretty famous as the forefront of crossover Latin-flavored music into the pop music scene when Glorida was seriously injured in an accident when her tour bus was rear ended by a huge semi-tractor   Her very serious back injuries were treated by the University of Miami's famed Dr. Barth Green and through that successful relationship both Gloria and Emilio became benefactors of the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, founded by former Miami Dolphin Nick Buoniconti and his son Mark..

Our firm had been hired to do publicity for the Miami Project's "Wheels Across America" fund rasing project with Andrea actually going out on the road periodically to handle press for a young wheelchair-bound man who was wheeling his way from California to New York City.  It was a highly successful fund raiser and we continued to do pro bono work for the Miami Project on several occasions.

One such occasion was a call to handle the making of several PSA's (Public Service Announcements) in which Gloria Estefan, who had experienced the real possibility of paralysis when she was so badly injured, had volunteered to serve as spokesperson.  Our office wrote the script for the announcements and worked with the film crew to set up an area in Emilio's private recording studio where the PSAs would be filmed.

Gloria could not have been more cooperative or easy to work with.  When she finished filming the  spot we had prepared, she turned to me and said "Why don't we also do this in Spanish so you can air it on Univision?"  I thought it was a great idea but mentioned that it might take me a little time to find a translator for the copy.  Her answer?  "No problem.  I'll translate it for you."

Needless to say, I was thrilled and the entire filming was wrapped up in another hour.  As we left  the Estefan's building one of the camera men came up to me and asked who translated the script into Spanish.  I could tell by the look on his face he wasn't happy with the translation and I asked why.

"The worst Spanglish I ever heard," he said with a grimace.  "We don't talk that way in Argentina."  That's when this "gringo" learned that being Latin doesn't always mean you speak Spanish quite the same way.  Yes, she's very Americanized, but Gloria is definitely Cuban and proud of it.  She and Emilio are a remarkable couple. I'm proud to have also worked with them.

So there, Oprah!
#   #   #   #

Surfing the radio waves. . .

Tuesday mornings at WLRN Public Radio always make me smile.

To start with, when I arrive promptly at 8am I am greeted in the entrance lobby by a larger-than-life cardboard cutout of Big Bird.  I have no idea why he's there but he does brighten the morning. (See photo for how big Bird really is!)

Next I climb the stairs to the second floor sound studio where I will spend the next two hours cutting, editing and reading the day's Miami Herald to the visually impaired.. On my way, I pass the open door to Joseph Cooper's office.  WLRN followers know Joseph as the station's premiere on-air interviewer of all sorts of celebrities and interesting people.  This morning as I pass his door, I hear Joe's phone ring.  The familiar baritone voice answers thusly: "Bates Motel.  Norman speaking."   This time I burst out laughing.  Can't imagine what the person on the other end of the line had to say to that opening.

Once upstairs, I enter my studio and settle in with my scissors and newspapers along with my special reading partner, Marianne.  Within a minute or two I know I will be warmly greeted by one of the stations most loved staff members.  This one has four feet and lots of white fur and goes by the name of Daisy.  She will lavish me with kisses and tail wags until her human, Wanda Stiles, shows up, and they both move on to the day's business. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Daisy has her own talk show. She certainly knows her way around the station.

Are you getting the feeling this is a most unusual work place?  After some three years of volunteering here I've gotten to know many of the regular staffers and on-air personalities.  I actually play "Words With Friends" on my iPhone with Mario, the head of Radio Reading Services.  He's a tough competitor.  WLRN's building is in downtown Miami.  It's an interesting millieu that I would probably never have had the opportunity to get to know if the significant other hadn't been doing school tours through the station for many years and suggested I audition for the reading job.  (Yeah, I passed.  On the first try, too.)

I guess what I'm doing here is recommending volunteering as a meaningful way to spend retirement years and even before retirement if you can find the time..  Doesn't matter where or what you choose to do.  I find it very rewarding.  I think you will too.
#   #  #

Have you ever done "The Wave"????

I was straightening the top shelf of my linen closet this morning when I came across incontrovertible evidence that I am a sports fan.

Why my linen closet, you ask?  Because Miami teams. . .I'm talking Heat, Dolphins, Marlins and the long gone Panthers. . .  all seem to resort to colorful towels of various sizes when things are going well.  Especially during playoffs.

In addition to the Heat "wavers" in the photo below, one of which dates back to a 1997 semi-final game against the Knicks where I believe we got beaten, and the '98 Playoffs when we won.  I have two giant beach towels, one for the Dolphins and one for the Marlins (that was prior to the recent arena bruhaha) and a true relic from the one time the Panthers played in the Stanley Cup in 1996 against the Philadelphia Flyers. Yes, I threw rats on the ice at that one.

My season ticket days to all of these teams are also long gone, preferring to watch on the flat screen TV from the comfort of my bedroom, but the wealth of tiny towels on that top shelf brought back a wealth of sports memories.  Grandson Adam was my companion of choice for Dolphin games until he left for college.  The "significant other" learned to be a fan of all of the above teams once we became a couple some 18 1/2 years ago and went to all the games together.

Gee, how come I have nothing for the University of Miami in my closet??  I certainly sat in the old Orange Bowl for enough games starting back in 1957 when I arrived in Miami.  I think I have a tee shirt somewhere that commemorates those memories. 

I'll take a photo of it for you as soon as I find it.  Wave if you have one also.
#   #   #   #

Have scissors. Will cut.

We are a well greased machine, Mariane and I. 

We meet every Tuesday morning at 8 o'clock sharp at the front door to WLRN, Miami's public radio station to read on air to the visually impaired..  Two copies of the day's Miami Herald are waiting for us, placed there by "our leader", Mario Lozado, the head of the station's Radio Reading Services. Without missing a beat, we take our preferred seats before the not-yet-live microphones and start the process of cutting up the newspapers into four 15 minute segments:  Local  / Regional, State & National / Editorial & Opinion Columns / Business, Sports & Health.

We go live at 9 sharp, so that first hour is used not just to select articles to be read, but to cut and chop them to a readable size. . .in other words, we edit.  And I have to admit, we have our own biases as we do so.  Since time is limited for each segment, we tend to read the articles that (1) will hopefully appeal to the mature age of most of our listeners, and (2) more than likely, will be something that happens to particularly interest us.  A good example was this morning's sizable article on The Heat Repeat!.  If you are not a Heat fan, you might not understand.

Since we never actually see or hear from our listeners, I always wondered if anyone was really listening.  Out of curiousity, I queried my friend, Virginia Jacko, the CEO of the Lighthouse For The Blind.  Her response: "Are you kidding!  I can't tell you the number of people who depend on listening to all you readers."   Makes volunteering worthwhile, doesn't it?

An unexpected benefit of these Tuesday morning sessions is a delightful new friend.  We may be of different generations, but we get along famously, not to mention that I am Godmother to young Leo Pantin-Parish, the newest member of Mariane's family, who recently sat for his portrait.  (See photo.  OK, so I am showing off.)

WLRN could use some additional readers, I'm told.  If you're interested, call Mario at 305-995-2218.  I promise  you, you won't be sorry.
#   #   #
Photo captions:  Mariane, ready to go "live" and Leo The Lionhearted

Time to be nostalgic. . .

Today is Father's Day and I'm remembering my own father.  I always felt we had a special bond because I was born on his birthday. . .October 19th. . .family legend said it was just a few minutes after mid-night, as if my Mother hung on until the date offcially changed before giving birth to me.

My sister Fran and I have talked about how lucky we were with our parents.  They both were totally supportive of us our entire lives.  Daddy. . .we called him that until the day he died, although Mother was always called Mother. . Daddy thought his two daughters were the most beautiful and the smartest girls in the world.  Both parents never stopped telling us they loved us.  You can't buy that kind of security growing up.

I'm also thinking this morning about my grandson Adam.  This is his second Father's Day and he is an incredible father to his son Grayson.  Fathers today are a different breed from my generation.  They are "hands on" Daddys, who very much share the load.

With that in mind, I made one phone call this morning to say "Happy Father's Day" to my daughter Andrea's father.  He came into our lives when Andrea was five years old, and he is still very much a loving Dad, Grandfather and Great-Grandfather. Divorce doesn't change that one bit.
#   #   #   #
Photo caption:  My sister and me, with our Dad.   Yes, I had bangs even then.

A new edition to my work resume. . .

You may want to consider hiring me as the bartender for your next big party.  I have the creds, my prices are very reasonable, and I am pretty sure I can give you references.

How did I come upon this new addition to my work resume, you ask?  By accident, that's for sure, but I am proud to say that I rose to the occasion, all 4' 10 3/4" of me.  Here's the back story.

I recently became a docent at the Kampong, the renowned horticulturist Dr. David Fairchild's former home here in Coconut Grove.  Last Thursday the Kampong hosted a Twilight Tour celebrating the opening of the Mango Season and I was slated to stand guard and be charming in the Museum on the property. This was a job that did not qualify as high energy work.  Except I arrived early and Ann Schmidt, the woman in charge of the event, pressed me into service in the kitchen.  Need I mention that is not my natural millieu????

In a few hurried sentences she explained that she needed me to start creating the Mango Rum Punch that was the signature drink for the occasion.  The recipe was pretty simple:  1/3 pineapple juice, 1/3 white rum, a healthy dose of fresh lime joice and an ice cube tray of frozen mango cubes, picked earlier from the trees in the Kampong's garden..

I may not cook but I do like to drink, so I got the hang of the recipe and filled up several pitchers   pretty quickly.  Then Ann asked me if I could trot outside with the first pitcherful and set up the outdoor bar because the guests were starting to arrive.  Arrive they did, thirsty and ready to drink.  And guess who they found all alone behind the bar, at the moment, and for the next two frantic hours.  Simply moi.

"White wine, red wine or Mango Rum Punch," I inquired sweetly to the guests at the front of the fast lengthening line.  Business was booming and the Rum Punch was obviously a major hit, with one of the other volunteers running back and forth to the kitchen to refill pitchers while I stirred and poured and stirred and poured and stirred and poured  some more..  I don't mind telling you, I was very professional, smiling brightly, and wondering desperately when they would stop coming back for seconds so I could take a bathroom break..

I have new respect for bartenders these days.    I can tell you it's exhausting work.  As a matter of fact,  I think I'll drink to that.
 Skol!  Prosit! L'chaim!

No animals were hurt in this experiment. . .. .

I am learning to paint with a palette knife.  What was I thinking when I signed up for this? I have trouble cutting my meat, much less figuring out how to get paint on a canvas with a knife edge.

My Thursday morning painting class is taught by Mai Yap who wields a mean knife and is a wonderful artist.  I am totally intimidated and yearn for one of my trusty brushes.  My friend Sheila and I share the class with five confirmed palette knife painters who turn out incredible paintings while we struggle valiently on our side of the room.

Sheila painted a giant green pear this morning. When she was finished it looked good enough to eat.  In case you didn't know, fruit is very big when you're working with knives. I've already gone the apple and the pineapple route, so today I'm working on a kind of abstract horse.

What I really need to do is figure out what to do with the few thousand canvases that are piling up behind my desk and layered in the drawers where once upon a time I kept my fine china, long since transported up to Andrea.  OK, maybe not a thousand, but close to 50 at last count, and a dozen or more given away to family and friends. Prolific I am, that's for sure.

How you paint and what you choose to paint, I find, is very indicative of the painter's personality.  I'll bet Rembrandt had a dark side. One look at Van Gogh's "Starry Starry Night" and you can tell he had some heavy mental problems going on. Me, I live life in a hurry and paint in a hurry.  Every class I take I turn out three paintings to every one else's one.  If I could get paid by the piece I'd really be in the chips these days.

Here's today's adventure, on a 16x20 canvas. . .all done with knives.  OMG, I hope I didn't hurt the poor horse.
#   #   #