Sugaring Season

The buckets are hanging.
But winter isn't giving up yet!!

Green shoots!

We're back from balmy Florida.

What's this!?  Could it be time?
The daffodils think so.

Birds!

One of the things I love most about Florida are the birds.
When I was a kid my family would come down every year to visit my grandparents and the birds always left a huge impression. I loved the wood storks, the pelicans, the cranes and the egrets.
Here is a Sand Hill Crane walking across the path at a bird sanctuary, about as big as Lily!

Below is a gator poking her eyes out from the marsh.  We all had to stay alert and make sure no one got cornered by a gator.  Rumor has it, they can run 40 miles an hour in bursts, so I was the most likely victim with my shin making me limp.  We made it out of the marsh in one piece and headed to the zoo.

Lily did a ziplining in the trees around the zoo with her cousin.
Fun and difficult to watch.  I kept wanting to remind the leader that Lily was only 10.  10!  Don't let her lead!  Make sure she's double clipping!! But I mostly kept my mouth shut and watched her do a great job up there. 

She felt very accomplished after her adventure!

Here are some Ibis.  I absolutely love these birds and their curved beak for digging worms in the mud.  They were sacred in ancient Egypt and are magical birds to me.

Family pic

Photo with Grammen, who had a good time at the zoo, too.

Ocean time

Tomorrow is out last full day in Florida.  I had really wanted to see dolphins. manatees and alligators during our trip but instead I was getting the low level: Florida-is-so -developed-I can't-feel-the-nature-depression this morning.  I was freaked out by so much development and so much of it so similar.  Harry Potter World sort of did me in, too.

This morning I was a grump.  I had forgotten it was Valentine's Day, Rob and my 23rd anniversary. (we were planning on celebrating when we got home)

We drove to the beach, past Paneras and gas stations and 5 lane roads and finally made it to the causeway over the water where we looked out the window to see dolphins.  Hooray!  Lauren (Rob's lovely sister who we are visiting) told us to keep an eye out for dolphins when we went over the bridge and there they were!  Their sweet fins on their round swimming bodies, breaching and disappearing, then coming to the surface again.  So exciting. Lily and I were on the lucky side of the car, so we got a good view of them swimming.  Georgia felt persecuted on her side of the car where all she could see was a cement guardrail.

We got to the beach and all the grumpiness blew away.  How wonderful to be there on a cloudy day with sand pocked by raindrops and the beautiful crashing waves.  All of our moods were transformed instantly, although Rob wasn't really grumpy, but the girls had been fighting in the car and we had been threatening to leave them home next vacation!  Mean!  But stop fighting!
Hear the soothing sounds of the waves.

So many birds, pelicans and terns, even some beautiful orange beaked oyster catchers. Georgia chased the sandpipers until she got a cramp in her side and Lily and Rob played with a found beach ball.  My shin is killing me, but I kneeled in the sand and just looked out at the ocean.  I felt so much better.

There was this beautiful find of two trees growing together, which seemed fitting for Valentine's day.

We ate a wonderful lunch at this marvelous Cuban restaurant that got very good and well-deserved reviews on YELP.   It was friendly, tropical and original.  By fantastic benevolent coincidence the Cuban place was near a park where manatee where often sighted.  We ordered our Cuban coffee, yellow rice, banana and pineapple milkshakes, pollo asada and fried plantains and Cuban sandwich and then went to look for manatees.  It was rainy and cold and we were hungry.  It was a little canal in the middle of town where there were many large goofy pelicans dropping into the water after fish.  I really wanted to see a manatee so I tried Martha Beck's technique of calling in the animals.  Actually I couldn't' remember her technique and Lily wouldn't handover the kindle before we left the apartment to let me read that chapter so I just winged it.

Banana and Pineapple milkshakes!

There was a man eating his lunch on one of the benches.  I asked if he's seen any manatees and he said, "Usually they're here.  Dolphins, too.  That's why we eat our lunch here everyday."  He had a DPW truck.  He hadn't seen any yet that day.  We waited and paced and hoped, but didn't see anything and didn't want our food to get cold.

We ate our lunch and I had a second cafe con leche and then we went back.  Now it was raining and cold. Rob bailed and said he'd wait inthe car.  Lily bailed.  It was really cold.  It was getting close to time to leave.  I don't want to be stubborn and crazy, but I really wanted to be near a manatee.  I used Martha's tricks.  I tried to feel the space between my eyes. I let my brain expand.  I imagined a web of energy and existance where we were all connected and I dropped into a quiet level, but Georgia was with me, freezing and very very chatty, so I kept coming in and out.  Finally I let the bright clear warm feeling rise in my chest. love, welcoming joy and connection rising up pulsing in my chest.  I looked around and there were raindrops and fish jumping and beautiful gregarious pelicans around, but no dolphins and no manatees, but by then I didn't really care because I felt so joyful.

Then I saw something under the water, all I could imagine it could be was a mangled chicken or bird moving under the water toward us, quickly.  I didn't want to point it out the Georgia because I thought it was a dead bird, but then it came right up to us and what I had seen moving towards us was the propeller scars on the top of a manatee.  There was a Manatee! A fucking Manatee was right below us in the water.  It worked!1 It came!! Ackkk!! I could feel it's peaceful slow energy right there with us.  It was big and had a big broad tail and big eyes and a sweet snout.  I grabbed Georgia and said.  "It's there !  It's there!! Stay here.  I'll go get Lily."  But she said, "NO!  I'm too scared I'll go get Lily!"  I took 2 photos while it was right there in the shallow water.  It's little snout came up for air and it went back down.  Rob and Lily came running out to see and got to see it's massive body and large fan like tail!  It slowly swam away.  It all happened so quickly.  I tried to follow it under the bridge and got my feet in the water.  It was so warm.  No wonder they liked it here.  I didn't see it again and it was pouring rain so we all headed to the car to warm up.

Hello Manatee!

Back at the apartment we told Grammen of our adventure!

And were greeted by a blooming Hibiscus outside the apartment.

Owl Post

The entrance to the post office where the owls wait to be sent out.  There is wonderful detail, like the bird poop under each of the birds, that makes it feel real.  This detail almost makes it sadder when you realize it isn't real.

Owls in the window and above.

Stamping up some postcards to send from the post office on site.

Using a magnificent quill to write the folks back home.

Big barrels of Butterbeer are scattered around the park.

 

Finally we were all tired and we started heading for home.  The park felt bigger on the way out and we stopped for refreshment and a rest on our way to the car.

Wands!

 The timetable for the train that stands at the entrance to Harry Potter's Wizarding World.

Wands displayed in the post office window.
And the 2nd floor of Ollivander's Wand shop cluttered with boxes and boxes of wands.

Georgia got a time turner, which should make time travel, and therefore life, much easier.

Looking up in the wand shop.  The walls were covered in boxes and boxes of wands.

Georgia spent alot of time finding the perfect wand for her.  She picked one that was not based on anyone in the books but just a beautiful wand.
Here she admires it.

One of the wizards with an armload of boxes of wands for restocking.

Forbidden Journey Ride.

The pre-trip park reviews I read insisted we go on this ride.  It takes place in this huge Hogworts castle and the line winds through the floors of the castle, entertaining the waiting people with active magical classrooms, Dumbledore's office, talking portraits and more.  I had measured Georgia at home so I knew she just made the height limit. 

The line moved quickly.  It probably took us about 30-40 minutes to move through the castle and actually sit down in the ride.  It is not unusual to wait two hours! 

Someone's starting to get a bit frustrated with waiting in line, even an entertaining line.

The portraits were very chatty.

 For some reason I ignored this sign that repeated itself on the stone walls where we waiting in line.  it says: WARNING

Guests prone to motion sickness or dizziness should not ride.

 I'm not sure why I thought that didn't apply to me.  I think I was excited and a bit cocky from faring so well on the very turbulent plane ride down, but I had a scopalamine patch behind my ear and was totally drugged.  Here in the cool basement of the castle, I was not drugged.  But I walked cheerfully past the signs and sat myself in the four person moving bench seat where the employees placed a clear lid over each of our heads as we pulled of into the ride.


The ride is only 4 minutes long.
The bench moves up and down and at one point I was lying on my back in this contraption.  On my left I was holding Georgia's hand in the seat next to me. 
I quickly realized I was out of my league.  What was I thinking?  I had to close my eyes as Harry Potter on his broom, dragons, huge spiders and dementors whirled around me.
I was worried I would lose my flip flops because I didn't have a floor anymore.  I was completely disoriented.

I wanted it to end.
Then suddenly I was sweating and starting to drool.
Holy shit I was going to puke.
ON the ride.
I had imagined I might get a little queasy but I didn't think I'd throw up!
I tried to lean forward as the bench moved up and down while I tried to puke away from myself into a dark chasm of steam and dragons  moving around below.  But I didn't really know what was below.  I threw up twice, while trying to remember to keep my toes tight on my flip flops so I didn't lose my shoes. Then it was over and we pulled into the station.  Everyone at the great hall movie screen welcomed us back with cheers.

I felt hideous.
I did not feel like the same person I was 4 minutes before.
She was:
So naive.
So foolish.
So clean.
So steady on her feet.

Getting off the ride was like getting off a ski lift.  You had to step onto the moving band of floor and then step onto solid not-moving floor.  The girls were waiting for me as I lurched up I saw that there was someone next to me on my right.  A single rider.  A young boy with a fat little leg I could see from my seated position.  I could see that his tube sock was covered in clumps of vomit. 
My vomit.
 I had thrown up on a child. 
A child I didn't even know was sitting next to me. 
I had thought I threw up into the abyss.
I leaned toward him as he stood up and I said desperately, "I'm so sorry!"  He looked a little worried and then he looked to his own leg where I was  wildly staring and saying, "I'm so sorry I threw up on you!" He staggered quickly away from me.  Like I was a zombie. First he looked startled and then sad.
My older child was mortified when I stumbled over to her and her sister and told them the news.  Their mother had not only thrown up on the four minute ride but she had thrown up on someone. 

"What?  You threw up on a kid!?" Lily looked accusingly at me in shock and horror.
I stumbled out into the sunlight and saw the young boy being comforted by a grandmother-like person.  I felt ashamed and disgusting, but I tried to hold it together so we could push into the tightly packed locker area and retrieve out backpack (You can't bring anything on the ride, even prosthetic limbs are to be left behind.)  (That really should have been a red flag for me.)

 I glanced down at my arm as I tried to saunter carelessly through the souvenir store that you are deposited into after the ride but looked down to see that my arm was also covered in puke.  It had gathered in the details of my mermaid bracelet.  I had to wash off before I could enter a throng of people.  I summoned the girls and we walked in the heat to the bathroom.  Lily still embarrassed and Georgia very curious.  She had found the ride scary, but throwing up on a ride just hadn't occurred to her.   Lily had also thought she would lose her shoes, but she had enjoyed the ride.

In the bathroom stall I put my face in my hands and gave myself permission to cry.  But I didn't. I laughed actually.  It was so hot, crowded and overwhelming.  We had such high expectations of magic and wonder.  I did not imagine I would find myself alone in the bathroom stall silently laughing about my predicament, the vomit on my dress, the scarred stranger child, my lingering nausea, my unsympathetic children, my searing leg pain and the intense heat.  And I spent almost $300 to feel this way!

I pulled myself together.  We got the backpack.  We bought some souvenirs, Georgia really wanted to wait in the line for Ollivander's Wand Shop, so we did.  It was hot.  The sun beat down.  Neither of my children would hold my hand anymore after seeing it laden with vomit.  The line snaked around and I felt more and more sick.  We couldn't lose out place in line.  I couldn't go to the bathroom without the girls.  I started to sweat.  I didn't want to puke in the quiet seriousness of Ollivander's Wand Shop were he picks out a wand for a lucky guest every twenty minutes as groups of ten are let into the dim crowded shop.


As luck would have it, when we were next in line this vomit receptacle was waiting for me and I puked my guts out into it for a bit.  Georgia very gently put her hand on my lower back while I publicly threw up my lunch, which I thought was very very sweet.  Lily nudged herself ahead in line and looked away, like she hadn't come with us, which was understandable.  A tough looking biker chick behind us in line gently handed me a napkin and I was good to go.  The door to the shop opened.  We were whisked into the pleasingly cool room.

I'm shocked I thought to take this photo but I think it was an "after" so I must have had pretty good aim.