A visit to Fairchild Tropical Gardens

Yesterday was my sister's birthday and her, my mom and I went to Fairchild Tropical Gardens in Miami. I had never been before and had always heard good things but I was reluctant because it's $25 to get in. But because it was my sister's birthday it was a good reason to go AND for an $5 I got a student membership which means I can go back for free anytime for a year! Plus a whole lot of other bonuses so it was definitely worth getting that.

It was a pretty awesome place and I took a lot of pictures so I'll just show a few here. When we got there it was about noon so we went to the cafe to eat lunch. The menu was sandwiches and salads that they make there and also different kinds of sodas that they also make there. I got a turkey sandwich with cucumbers and dill harvati and a tangerine soda!

One really nice thing that they offer there is a free tram tour and also they have volunteers with golf carts who will drive you to where you want to go. When we first got there we got a ride to the cafe and then since the tram starts ever hour we walked around a bit to explore on own own before catching the next tram. We walked through the two atriums where they had some artwork by Dale Chihuly.

Natan and I once saw a show on PBS about Chihuly and showed his work room, it was really intense and super hypnotizing to watch all the glass blowing. I was checking out his website and it's strange because they show all these different pieces that were not at the gardens but they also don't show the pieces that are there now so maybe it's just an old website. I really wish some of the pieces on the website were there though, I like the crystals and the sun the best.




I knew that my mom and sister would really like it there because they both love to garden and walking around the place really gives you a lot of good ideas. For instance to put bromalinds onto old birds of paradise.


It was such a nice day out yesterday and it felt so good to be outside and around so many plants. I think my favortie area was the arboretum because I really loves trees.



I also liked the rainforest are because it reminded me of being in Amazon in Ecuador and in January they are giving a talk about Ecuador for the plant lover so I will definitely be going to that.


Aside from Chihuly they have some other art installations there and I really like how they incorporate the pieces into the gardens. For example this dinosaur will eventually be covered with plants and spit out water into a small pond.

And while this piecee may not intertined with the gardens I liked that it was interactive and I could resist climbing in!

My other, other favorite (it's hard to chose favorites!) was the spiny forest from Madagascar.



They have a lot of events at Fairchild which is another reason I'm glad I became a member, in January they have a chocolate festival! Yesterday they had the Fairchild challenge which was for middle schoolers and high schoolers to make clothing and accessories out of plants and flowers. We watched part of the show and it was pretty neat, some of the kids did a really good job. What we saw was the middle schoolers but as we were leaving I saw some of the high schoolers waiting around in their outfits and they looked really awesome. I couldn't really get any pictures of the show because we were far back but here is a shot of the audience and you can pick out some people in plant clothing, I think they must have been some of the first to show their clothing.


I really liked it there and I can't wait to go back, not just for events but just to go and hang out and wander around and maybe read a book. It's a really relaxing place and I even saw people picnicking by the lakes! For anyone who is interested the first Wednesday of every month is free day! I will definitely be dragging some people along and hopefully convincing some to buy student memberships so I have people to come with me for events!

Twice in one year

Last night I went to see John Waters talk at the Miami Book Fair and it was exciting because it's the second time this year that I got to see him! I was disappointed because at at the last minute Natan couldn't come but luckily my friend Meghan is awesome and likes to do fun things with little notice. I thought that the set up would be like how it was at Coachella, which was just John Waters talking and telling stories for about an hour however, last night they had a guy interviewing John Waters. Now I love John Waters and no matter who he is talking to he is very funny but the guy interviewing him was really pretty annoying. His questions were always sort of vague or just not detailed enough so John Waters would answer him but then realize that guy didn't have another question lined up so John Waters would just start talking about something else related. Last time I went to the book fair I saw Salman Rushdie with the same format of him being interviewed and the interviewer for him was a real idiot too so I think they should think of something else to do or get better interviewers. Anyways, John Waters was great and his new book, which is called Role Models, sounds really interesting and I bought it for him to sign so I'm excited to read it.

So, there were many good qoutes from him last night but here are some of my favorites:
At one point he was talking about growing in the Baltimore suburbs in the fifties, which he said despite what you have seen in movies and on tv it was really terrible, and he said that is was hard to grow up in that time because you were expected to be like everyone else but he knew he was different because he didn't want to be like everyone else and he didn't care that he didn't want to be like everyone else.
Another time the interviewer asked him, "Did you guys think you were cool?" referring to John Waters and all his friends that were in his movies and John Waters without missing a beat says, "well we were cool"

Afterwards they opened the floor for audience questions and Meghan forced me to go up even though I was super nervous. Some of the questions were so silly and ridiculous and they took up so much time. The most insane one wasn't even really a question it was just this woman saying, "I noticed in the last election a lot of politicians that seemed like they were John Waters characters, I'm thinking of one in particular (and then she went one to describe in a round about way Christine O'Donnell) can you swear that you didn't create them and it's really like some kind of performance art?" So this woman was right in front of me and then I walk up to the mic and the interviewer on stage says, "Okay so we have time for one more question" and I hear everybody in line behind groan with disappoint and THEN the interviewer says to me "Better make it good" UUUHH so I mumbled into the mic, "Boy I thought I was nervous before but now..." and then I went on to ask him how chooses music for his movies, because some of the songs just fit so perfectly and I said that every time I hear Little Richard's "The Girl Can't Help It" I can only think of Divine in Pink Flamingos. And I also asked if his cd Breaking Up With John Waters is coming out any time soon. So he responded that he didn't know when or if the cd was coming out and that he always picks songs that will help the narrative of the film and all of his scripts have notes about what songs he wants to use. And he also talked about how important it is to get the rights to all songs that are used or else it will come back to get you eventually. I was happy with my answer and that I got to ask a question and I was walking away and then the interviewer says "Let's do one more" and I THINK he said "let's end with a good one" which I took to mean that my question wasn't good but Meghan says that he didn't say that...I don't know. Anyways, the guy behind me gets to the mic and says "John Waters I just want to thank you for saving my life!" ugh Apparently this kid was diagnosed with an extreme case of OCD and his therapist made him watch Pink Flamingos.

I got my book signed and got a picture with him and I had him sign Natan's odorarama card from the movie Polyester.


And while waiting in line Meghan and I befriend this cool girl who was in front of us.

All in all it was a pretty good night.

Haircut 100

So it's not really my 100th haircut, although it could be, but it's really just the name of this ridiculous 80's band. Anyways I really did get a haircut on Monday.

This was me before:


And after:


I have had my hair this short in the past however this was the biggest change that I've ever had because before I cut my hair in stages. It was funny because the girl who cut my hair was more nervous than I was. Also the first thing she said to me when I sat down was "You have such long beautiful hair!" I was like,"uhhhh not for long"



So far I really like it. It's definitely nice not to have spend so much time on my hair. I timed myself over the weekend and it took my 30 minutes just to wash and brush my hair! That was without blow drying or even styling it in any way. Today it took me ten mins which was pretty great. I have a feeling I won't always be late now.

Here is my outfit for today. I just bought this dress at a thrift store but it was a little too short for work wear so I put my ridiculous lace skirt underneath it. I think I'm still on the fence about if I like it.



Tonight I am going to see John Waters at the Miami book fair. I got to see him in April at Coachella but I'm excited because Natan gets to come with me. Should be fun.

Just for fun here is the video for Haircut 100's song Favorite Shirts (Boy meets Girl). It pretty silly, complete with a saxophone and a rap at the end.

Patterned

Today I knew that I really wanted to wear my new skirt that I got from Target last night and I also knew I wanted to look nice because I was interviewing volunteers for the organization I work at so I wanted to make a good impression. I also didn't want to be too dressed up and give them the idea that we are a formal office, which we aren't so I paired the skirt with a plain brown shirt and my new shoes that I got at the most fantastic thrift store. It's called "Out of the Closet" and it's pretty amazing.

I like how one of my cats is the background of this picture.




I posted both of this because in the first one you can the wounds I've gotten in the past weeks from moving things, either at my house or at my job and in the second one you can't which I didn't mean to do when I took the picture but it's convenient.

This was the first time that I was a part of interviewing the volunteers and it's something that I will be more involved in this year and it was pretty fun. The girl who is the volunteer coordinator is pretty awesome so it's fun to be with her and I get to met really cool people, one woman we interviewed was French Moroccan and spoke 11 languages!

I really like my position at work this year because I get to go out in the community and meet a lot of neat people and find out about all the interesting non-profit organizations in my community. So today I went to a training at a place that recruits volunteers for different organizations and found out about his project that will be happening in January to basically survey the homeless population in Broward county. Over a 24 hour period they send out volunteers to various shelters and soup kitchens and just anywhere that homeless people might be, it's basically a census for the housing department of the county. Hopefully I will be a part of this because at my job we have to do so many service projects in the community and this sounds like a really cool one.

Voting

Sometimes I tell people that everyday of my life is like playing dress up and this Tuesday, Election day was a good example. It's not as if I walk around in ridiculous costumes all the time but when I get dressed in the mornings I think about what I will be doing that day and dress up for it. So since it was election day I wanted to wear red, white and blue. So I wore this tank top that was given to me by a friend and my shorts that I love from Forever 21. Sometimes I really want to hate Forever 21, it's always a chaotic mess in the store and their dresses and pants are always too short for me so it's depressing but I found this shorts a few weeks ago and although they are very short I have no problems wearing short shorts. I just love shorts that are made from dress pant materials and these are blue pin stripes! What's not to love?


I was very enthusiastic about voting.

This year marks the 90 year anniversary of when women got the right to vote in this country so I was happy to be able to vote and also to reflect about what it means that we only were given the right to vote so recently, because in historical terms 90 years is not very long. It also made me think about how far women's rights still have to go, especially in other countries. Anyways, I was excited and happy to vote and I love talking with the old people who volunteer at the voting precinct.