It's personal.

The front of the house; Coral Gables only permits panels on external walls. At least I was able to tend to my accordion shutters myself (and was able to have some light enter the house during the daylight during the two-week aftermath before the electricity was restored).
The wooden door that could have blown in.

Praying very hard for the smallest possible impact on the Gulf Coast.

It's personal.

Monday, November 14, 2005
Anatomy of a House
For roughly six hours Monday morning, October 24, 2005, Wilma did everything she could to try to get into this house.She slammed against this front window, hurricane panels, notwithstanding, almost turning them--the panels, that is--yellow with months-old black olive pollen residue. She desperately tried to ruin the bougainvillea. A few blossoms valiantly withstood her attack.She knocked repeatedly against the outside of this door. Knocked? She banged, shook, rattled it even more than she did the panels. She whistled in and out of its sides. She let several bucketfuls of water seep in underneath (though--to be fair to her--not as much as her first cousin Katrina had splashed in). At least several times I was consumed with curiosity as to why she was so intent on entering. Fortunately I never made it to the how.Never good at directions, now I know: her southeastern 110 to 120 mph punches could have blown this door in.This palm tree escaped her wrath because I'd had it removed several months earlier. Just in case...The mango tree to its left was slated to be next. Hugging the house as it does, however, it withstood her onslaught (and possibly yielded some protection). It's more than earned its reprieve.Those black olives--aah, those black olives--fell and all but encased the house on both sides of this southeastern corner of the block. The street light's wiring fell and became entangled in the midst of the melee on this side of the house.In the unaccustomed to pitch blackness sun room, at around 1 a.m. on post-Wilma Tuesday, I got through to FPL. It was essential to report any downed power lines that were imminently life-threatening, FPL's automated system kept informing us, over and over. A crew from Hialeah showed up the following Sunday just to repair the line, much to the neighborhood's dismay.I'd been so scared the metal-framed awning covering the back porch would blow away. Like the mango tree, it held its ground. The table and chairs, however, were safe and secure inside the garage.The garage held the car, the treadmill in a corner, and the table, chairs, trash cans and every other possible projectile in the back. That TV hasn't been around in awhile.I'd also been scared her howling, clanging, and banging had blown the garage door wide open, but, as the awning and the mango tree, it held its own. That's a now truly defunct mango tree on the right.For almost two weeks, I continued to traipse through the hallway-like living and dining rooms, usually preceded by a narrow beam of light. Note the old living room furnishings, and both original chandeliers in place. There have been some changes......in the kitchen, however, it was business as usual. I didn't have to dump much in the refrig that mattered, with the sad exception of my penultimate bottle of Key West habanero hot sauce. I learned to make do with multi-course dinners consisting of increasingly wilted lettuce, with olive oil and balsamic vinegar splashed on to the dancing beam of a Rayovac floating lantern; pop-open, ready to eat containers of chicken with stars, spaghetti rings, or mini-raviolis; Baskin-Robbins flavored puddings; and 100-calorie peanut-shaped Planters peanut butter flavored treats. Definitely my favorite part of the meal. All washed down with the remnants of a bottle of Piper-Hiedsieck. But that's another story.For the first time since I moved into the house, I neglected the study. Note the old desk, the old computer--I can't believe I'm writing this, but I didn't miss it. Any of it.Ditto for the kitschy bathroom, except that I actually contemplated taking a cold shower there.But it was in the white-tiled master bathroom where I braved the waters, after holding out for my last warm shower until I wasn't sure when until post-Wilma Wednesday night. By the soft glow of candlelight, I luxuriated in this shower as a soon-to-be chilled to the bone wet woman lathering, and rinsing. I learned to dart after that, or did what I've been told I do best: I pretended. With a spritz of Jo Malone Nutmeg and Ginger Shower Gel in hand, I darted; pretended; darted; pretended. Anything is possible if you believe.Important enough to include. Trust me.And this is where I hung out most of the time, pre, during, and post Wilma, during the better part of two weeks: on the bed in the master bedroom. The following array of tools, gadgets, and accompanying whatnots became my best friends: flashlights; a tape recorder; audiobooks (I only made it as far as Frank McCourt's preparing to go fight in the Korean War: his lilting brogue kept lulling me to sleep); my night blinders and ear plugs; and the all-important battery-powered TV, with extra batteries on the ready. I quickly unplugged the 5+ Gigaherz metallic wonder phone and replaced it with my pink Barbie land line one. I lowered the lamp to the floor and placed candles on the nightstand. Night after night, I lit them, thereby reserving the floating lantern and the regular flashlight for forays into the dark, yet not unwelcoming, unknown. Ginger Peach: I chose a Ginger Peach candle at the Winn-Dixie to accompany the rapidly dwindling Indonesian leaf and raffia-encrusted one, part of my dear friend Harvey's birthday gift set from several years ago. Ginger must be soothing to the soul...Toward the end, my Coral Gables friend, Ceres, provided me with a sturdy flame that brightened the room up all the more.I slept; ate; spilled mini-raviolis all over the top sheet; and, for all intents and purposes, lived in the bed. My increasingly smelly, messy, yet ultimately comforting bed.Olivia kept me company.So did Mis Dos Papitos (I only have a picture of him in his most recent incarnation).So did Panni.And so did I. For the anatomy of the house in which I live is, ultimately, the anatomy of me.Thanks for helping me crack the egg wide open, Wilma!Now, begone!

Feel

If anyone had told me earlier than mid-February or so that I'd be rooting for Hillary Clinton today, I would have told him or her to go jump in the lake...

I barely remember anything from the early 90's--I was so wrapped up in my own dramas. On Election Day, 1992, I entered the polling booth and numbly voted for George H.W. Bush's second term. I knew there were a number of spoilers--well, actually, quite a few of them--for Russ Perot. "Oh, no, I can't do that," I remember telling someone. The Clintons were young; energetic. I was not prepared to see a First Lady become so personally involved in public policy. National health care: did I discuss this with my mother? I was more wrapped up in returning to a more grown-up existence in Florida; to meandering up and down the East Coast; traveling to the West Coast, and beyond. November 1996 found me in Upstate New York. By then my mother was sold on Bill Clinton: "He feels," she said. In her own way she was trying to convert me. She lost one of her best friends in the process, at least in this lifetime. I've realized why she'd "turned": she was so very smart herself, yet she did not wear her empathy on her sleeve (unless you really knew her: her adopted family in Cuba; staff and patients at South Florida State Hospital; and a select handful of friends had been the beneficiaries of her emotional largesse...but not necessarily members of her own family, I now realize).

Through Bill, she felt. Believe it or not, she almost convinced me. However, by the time I'd entered the polling station in Ithaca, I had a crisis of conscience...and voted for Bob Dole. Monicagate ensued soon afterward, by which time I was ensconced up the street at Rodman, glued to CNN, and/or reading The Post, for all they were worth...We discussed the issue on the phone. Once again, she tried to intervene: "Mitterand's mistress attended his funeral," she said to me on more than one occasion. As I'd been raised--well, let's just say that now I understand better than ever. In the long run she backtracked a bit: for the sake of the various levels of national shame/pain her adopted country was experiencing? Should I translate this to mean, her shame/pain? Perhaps. Anyway, her current events focus was usually global: she was still keeping an eye on Saddam Hussein. She periodically used to send me news clippings on developments in the Middle East, and elsewhere. Or else--usually--she was focused on me. She passed away just shy of the end of November of 1999; the pre-2000 election jitters were already under way. Was she paying attention before she had the final stroke the first weekend of November? Knowing her, probably. Was I? I was becoming excited about the governor of Texas. However, I was more concerned about Y2K...That's the way I began my return to Miami. There was so much to do. Election Eve 2000 found me in my third home that year--I remember staying up til after 3 a.m.; as well as keeping an eye on the weeks that followed. Hanging chads? I think I had a butterfly ballot. I don't have to tell you who I'd voted for. That's when Hillary became Senator from New York; all I thought at the time was, "How ambitious." She quickly joined Rudy in the aftermath of 9/11. All well and good; and proper. Afghanistan (and how did I remember my little Afghani refugees in Nashville in the late eighties). "Shock and awe": even as I watched, that first day and night, shamelessly glued to the tube, I also thought: "Vietnam." My pre-teen through my early adolescence: had nothing filtered through? Obviously something had...Moving along in Miami by now, I watched both conventions in 2004. As mesmerized as I was by Barack's speech, Kerry couldn't motivate me...and, sure enough, I voted for 43 again. I noted, however, that Colin Powell--whom my mother had admired immeasurably--got out. I'd begun to perk up. It was an interview Byron Pitts had with some soldiers on CBS that resurrected my teenaged memories once and for all. Now what to do? The 2008 race was shaping up. I didn't fully tune back in until I returned to D.C. I was fully back on board by the Iowa Caucus: reading (usually online this time); and watching the tube into the wee hours of the morning. Reading; watching; listening; and...yes, making up my mind: for myself; and by myself. I'm not going to go into a blow by blow at this point, except to say that, by the time I'd heard Ed Rendell and Terry McAuliffe and Kiki McLean and other Clinton surrogates endorse Hillary for the umpteenth time--and I was paying attention to the Obama presentations, too--I began to realize what she stood for, and what it means for me, as a woman: what her nomination could--and would--mean. By then I'd remembered one of my mother's most oft-mentioned stories: about how, when my parents had spent time at the University of Michigan during World War II, one of the things she'd noticed was that women worked in the laboratories, awaiting their turn to be able to enroll in the medical school. There were quotas...(as opposed to the relative self-attrition that seemed to be more the norm in Europe). And how could I forget that one of her aunts had been the third woman doctor in Hungary? Ilonka hadn't practiced, for she'd married a wealthy man, but she'd made it. Pioneers: my great-aunt; my mother; and now, you. All it took was for me to make this connection, between the woman who wanted to feel; and the wife of the man who feels--who does, herself, feel. You didn't just make dents in the ceiling, Hillary: you broke through. On this, the 88th anniversary of a woman's right to vote in this country you and my mother love so much (and she did), I salute you!

For Hillary Rodham Clinton, Ana Raab Marrero, and Rosario Camacho de Golderos

Craig in 1935: A Record to Hold On To

Here we go again...

With Florida about to be assaulted by (hopefully not more than Tropical Storm) Fay, it's hard for me not to be there in heart and mind. Lower Keys; Middle Keys; Upper Keys: it's still The Keys. Here's a little something I wrote as Rita was pounding the area around a little town named, Craig, back in 2005. It was in 1935, however, that a record was set there that's--shall we say--worth holding on to?

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Tres Aguitas and Seventy Years

From Jerry Wilkinson, History of Upper Matecumbe Key Website.

TRES AGUITAS AND SEVENTY YEARS
BY GEORGINA MARRERO

Tuesday, September 20, 2005, 5 p.m.: The National Hurricane Center just lifted the Tropical Storm Warnings from Miami-Dade and Broward Counties. I’m breathing a sigh of relief.

About an hour before, I’d been watching the removal of debris from US 1 in the Lower Matecumbe area. Upper Matecumbe is now known as Islamorada.

Lots of flooding in the Upper and Middle Keys: the Overseas Highway had HAD to be cleared, or else no one could have reached the folks in the Lower Keys.

Not too bad in Key West, the city’s mayor stated within the last hour. Rita’s done less damage to our Southernmost City than either Dennis or Katrina, he said.

The bad stuff’s still coming down in the Middle Keys.

Matecumbe: what a pretty name. I always notice it on the way down. Upper, and Lower

A BIG one. A HUGE one, hit the area in 1935. It’s still known as the Labor Day Hurricane. It destroyed about forty miles worth of tracks, on Henry Flagler’s Overseas Railroad. The eye stretched from Craig (yes, there was a family named Craig) to Long Key.

The township of Craig boasted—and still boasts—the lowest barometric pressure ever recorded on the mainland of the United States: 26.35 inches.

The Hurricane of 1935 was a Category 5 storm. Twenty-five years later, Category 4 Donna again wreaked havoc in roughly the same area.

Seventy years later, along comes Category 2 Rita. It’s pounding Marathon as I write this.

For all intents and purposes, we in Dade and Broward Counties got away with tres aguitas.

As Rita proceeds on her headlong rush toward landfall somewhere in Texas, all we can hope for is that a little town, somewhere between Upper and Lower Matecumbe, retains the record it set seventy years ago.

Shakshuka!

Shakshuka!

Shakshuka: a Moroccan dish of eggs poached in tangy stewed tomatoes, which makes a good breakfast but is eaten any time. (Lonely Planet guide to Israel & the Palestinian Territories, 5^th edition, March 2007, p. 63.)

By Sunday at 8:00 a.m., I was on my own. The money changer at the Hotel Dan wouldn’t open until 9 a.m. My cousin had told me I’d find restaurants right on the beach, so I headed down toward Frishman Beach.

Down; and then up; and then, down again, just to be sure (and to while away the time until 9 a.m.). At the appointed time—sharp—I crossed the money changer’s threshold and promptly changed $330 US into 1089 NIS. The exchange rate was 3.3 scheckels to one American dollar on that first Sunday of my trip.

With mainly crisp 100 NIS notes in my purse, I headed back down to the first sand-side place I’d stumbled into. I still hadn’t gotten the hang of the NIS—or New Israeli Scheckel—U.S. dollar conversion, so I was a bit of a captive audience. However, I was quite hungry.

Other than a la carte, there appeared to be three specials. They all came with juice, bread, and coffee. I remembered reading about shakshuka in Lonely Planet. Tomatoes sometimes give me heartburn, but I decided to take a chance.

I hadn’t had a glass of juice since the States. I was about to find out that, unless you order a fresh-squeezed glass of some juice or the other (and it is, indeed, some of the very best in the world), you’re presented with something that remotely resembles Tang. The coffee turned out to be strong enough: more than American; less than, say, Turkish (which is also often available). It was quite palatable.

And then the shakshuka arrived, with three perfectly just this side of runny eggs gently continuing to cook in a boiling sea of stewed tomatoes. Stewed—and seasoned—as it turned out: I added an unnecessary dash of pepper out of habit.

Tearing off a piece of bread, I dunked it into the shakshuka. True to form, I cautiously worked my way around the egg yolks. Soon enough, though, I couldn’t resist. How could I? Hell, though my HDL is blessedly through the roof, all this cholesterol ingestion wouldn’t help my cause on this beach-side and increasingly hot day in Tel Aviv, Israel. But I was hungry, and so I went to town, devouring every bit of egg white and egg yolk in that skillet. As I could already feel the heartburn rising, though, I refrained from finishing all those seasoned stewed tomatoes.

As in other Mediterranean climes, the bill came in its own good time: 48 NIS. Should I tip, I wondered? I handed the waitress one of those crisp 100 NIS bills; she returned with two twenties and change. Change enough—though I still hardly knew what was what—with which to leave her something? I took the liberty of asking a young hunk sitting across from me. 5 or so scheckels, he said. So I left seven.

55 scheckels divided by 3.3 equaled $16.67 on that particular Sunday, that was growing steamier and—if humanly possible—sunnier by the minute.

Worth it, for that sunny-side-up concoction of eggs and spicy stewed tomatoes that is otherwise known as…Shakshuka!

Copyright, 2008 by Georgina Marrero All Rights Reserved