Scenes from a South Beach Halloween

Halloween has long been one of my favorite holidays, but ironically, for the two years that I've lived here, I've missed Halloween on Lincoln Road (from which I lived half a block away, BTW.)

Last year was my first experience on Lincoln Road and it was crazy packed, worse than the grove. But it's hilarious. This year el hombre and I dressed as ninjas and hit South Beach to scope the freaks, geeks, ghosties and ghouls. Ironically, the place that took Pacific Time's spot aptly describes Lincoln Road Halloween festivities:


You see all sorts of costumes, we all know that. The most prominant was the slutty pirate and the drag queens:




Speaking of being political, this is a strange sign outside the Wolfsonian:


Española Way was more quiet and pretty:


And of course, what's SoBe without people ridin' dirty?


Or a random sumo wrestler looking for a worthy foe (he didn't see me because of my ninja-like skills!)

Fox's - the place to go if you are hungry or in hiding

I love Fox's Sherron Inn. It's one of my favorite lunch spots and hide outs during the week. When it's beautiful clear skies outside, sometimes you need a place where it takes you a minute or two for your eyes to adjust to the pitch blackness of this restaurant/bar. The food is not bad - it's more like home cooked comfort food and it's really convenient if you are near South Miami. Plus I like the fact that you can't see your neighbors at the tables a few feet away. Makes it a real intimate experience. Here are some pics (I was amazed my phone picked these up in the darkness):

Welcome back, el capitan!

Here's an addition to El Capitan's mannequin photo collection, taken on Washington Ave, South Beach, on Halloween:

Yes we can

No matter what you think, you have to admit this night is monumental.

No kidding, I don't have the words to express how proud I am of our country right now.

Tonight Barack's acceptance speech was electric, it was passionate, it remained positive and after the long, drawn-out campaigning and negative ads, it was tasteful. To see both Obama and Biden glowing, to see the looks passed between Obama and Michelle, i can't help but think that things will be ok afterall. Sure, there will be moments when Obama is less than perfect, every president will have them. And it won't be easy to get through our current crises, but I can't help but thing a positive attitude and the ability to listen to what people are saying is half the battle.

And I have to commend McCain as well. His concession speech was tasteful, despite the boos from the crowd at the mention of Obama (how low class.) I appreciated his call to support Obama as president, because while he should have to say it, I can think of some, in their total moment of disappointment, who wouldn't. That he owned that his loss was his fault, not the voters, was also respectable.

One of my best friends, Nerd in Chicago called me from Grant Park and I couldn't even hear her from the screams. What an amazing moment that must have been for her. No matter what your politics, this is a turning point in our country and we should be proud we can put aside the historic and hidden racism that still prevails to elect a black president, not on his race, but on his credentials and ability to run a smart, engaging campaign.

Election Night!

Hello! I am back in the USA and how did I spend my morning? Waiting in line to vote for 3 and a half hours! I am exhausted and feel like I am about to pass out but feel like I did my patriotic duty. I hope everyone else had a better time voting than I did. Some people I talked to had no line and others waited 2-4 hours. I still don't understand why Florida has to make it so hard to vote. Do they not want us to, is that their plan? I'm starting to think that it is...

Miami New Times Iron Fork

To calm my rattled election nerves, I have decided to post about one of my favorite things, food.

Specifically the Miami New TImes Iron Fork event. Originally scheduled for September, the event was postponed due to one of our fizzled-out tropical storms, and was rescheduled for the 30th.

Iron Fork took place at the Science Museum, which was pretty cool since I have never been. All I knew about the museum was that it has a giant dinosaur/monster standing outside the entrance, and it's across from Vizcaya.


entrance to the museum

The Iron Fork was a sold-out event. It's sponsors included several different types of restaurants, handing out food, wine and liquor sponsors, and a culinary competition, which was packed, as several local celebrity chefs were in attendance, including Chef Allen.

It was so packed that all we could make out of the competition was the smell and blurred action on monitors:


Since we couldn't see, we wandered around to several wine and food sponsors. This was one of my favorite things (hey, I'm into simplicity!):

Dark chocolate covered strawberries... doesn't get any better than that!

By wandering the event, we also saw alot of the science museum, and right now they have an awesome exhibit about Latin music.



Since I grew up on blues and 70s music instead of Cyndi Lauper and NKOTB, I was pleased to see a giant picture of Santana.

All-in-all the event was fun. We went as a girls-night-out event, and got to try a bunch of food and wine along with checking out all the exhibits. I think perhaps we were having a little too much fun for some people, but life is too short to be pretentious when you have good food, fun friends and an interesting venue, right? At least I think so... and we weren't stumbling around drunk, or flitting around in skanky Halloween costumes at least.

Election coverage

So I have made the decision to keep my politics quiet on this blog for a number of reasons. The first being that I was taught not to make a big show of who I am voting for because it's a private choice (to this day I have a problem with people who ask me who I'm voting for.)

The second reason is that unfortunately, I don't want people to find my blog and judge me on a professional bases because of my politics (how sad is that?)

The third reason is that I work for a company that is politically neutral and for that reason, even though I don't reveal where I work, I don't want people to get the wrong impression that my organization supports one candidate over another because of something I put out on the internet.

That being said, I cannot wait until tomorrow is over because this election is starting to give me some serious anxiety.