Celebrity 5k- Benefiting the Community Partnership for the Homeless

What are you doing Sunday morning? This is where I will be at 7am. It is a good cause and brings awareness. Mr. S will be waiting at the finish line for me... You can read more about the event at http://www.celbrity5k.com/.

Photo Op

While the amazing and glamorous Nancy was visiting, we had a nice dinner and strolled up and down the beach. While we walked up Washington Avenue, I saw a photo shoot going on and there were some video cameras. Being a curious person, I stopped to see what the subject was and this is what I saw. I asked if I could take a picture and I was quickly invited to come in and then also have my picture taken. They asked if I lived here. I told them, yes and then they said it is true Miami Style when you see the outrageous and are not "phased". I think it makes the town fun and lively. (I'm still not sure if the subject was a he a she or a he/she.) Keep it up!

Happy Birthday Henrietta!

The Grand Dame of South Beach, Henrietta, celebrated her 67th birthday on Sunday. Mr. S. and I went to the Birthday Celebration at Twist after Easter Morning Service and Easter Lunch with the family and kids.

Henrietta spent 4 days cooking and baking...it was all delicious and wonderful. The great Mrs Astor planned the event and it was attended by many South Beach and Miami fixtures. I was glad to see some old friends enjoy some time out of the spotlight and from behind the bar enjoy time wishing a great person health and happiness.

It was a rainy afternoon, but when the clouds went away, the boys came out to play. Henrietta holds the flowers we gave her..... Happy Birthday!

Easter Message 2008

Presiding Bishop's Message for Easter 2008

[Episcopal News Service] Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori offers the following message for Easter 2008.

Your Easter celebration undoubtedly has included lots of physical signs of new life -- eggs, flowers, new green growth. As the Easter season continues, consider how your daily living can be an act of greater life for other creatures. How can you enact the new life we know in Jesus the Christ? In other words, how can you be the sacrament, the outward and visible sign, of the grace that you know in the resurrected Christ? How can your living let others live more abundantly?

The Judaeo-Christian tradition has been famously blamed for much of the current environmental crisis, particularly for our misreading of Genesis 1:28 as a charge to "fill the earth and subdue it." Our forebears were so eager to distinguish their faith from the surrounding Canaanite religion and its concern for fertility that some of them worked overtime to separate us from an awareness of "the hand of God in the world about us," especially in a reverence for creation. How can we love God if we do not love what God has made?

We base much of our approach to loving God and our neighbors in this world on our baptismal covenant. Yet our latest prayer book was written just a bit too early to include caring for creation among those explicit baptismal promises. I would invite you to explore those promises a bit more deeply -- where and how do they imply caring for the rest of creation?

We are beginning to be aware of the ways in which our lack of concern for the rest of creation results in death and destruction for our neighbors. We cannot love our neighbors unless we care for the creation that supports all our earthly lives. We are not respecting the dignity of our fellow creatures if our sewage or garbage fouls their living space. When atmospheric warming, due in part to the methane output of the millions of cows we raise each year to produce hamburger, begins to slowly drown the island homes of our neighbors in the South Pacific, are we truly sharing good news?

The food we eat, the energy we use, the goods and foods we buy, the ways in which we travel, are all opportunities -- choices and decisions -- to be for others, both human and other. Our Christian commitment is for this -- that we might live that more abundant life, and that we might do it in a way that is for the whole world.

Abundant blessings this Easter, and may those blessings abound through the coming days and years.

Visit from a friend...

'Canoodle My Underpants" (Mr. S's best friend) is in town this week from Boston. She arrived with some applause at Twist greeted by Dr. Brad and Mr and Mrs Astor. We enjoyed some reconnection time and then had a Cuban meal.

She is going to enjoy some sun, beverages, dancing, etc. I think I will make the effort to take her to "The Calle Ocho" event on Sunday. It is the open house/street festival that takes up 23 city blocks full of live Latin/Rap/Reggaeton music, food, people, etc. The drawback this year is that is is (for those of you who know) on Palm Sunday (the end of Lent and the beginning of Holy Week). We'll just have to go with the flow.

Check one more event off the list.....

Last weekend was the Winter Party. It was full of music, fun men and women from all over, some cultural and community events, etc. I volunteered at the Welcome Center desk and was privileged to work with some great people and meet some of the people visiting for the event (some from as far as Austria and Thailand).

I really liked the "Departure Lounge" event on Wednesday evening. There was representation from all the non-profit organizations (about 24) and there was a brief introduction and welcome from Task Force Organizers, local politicians and Judge David Young (now on TV). It was a chilly evening for us locals so the leather, fur, cashmere and wool were everywhere to be seen.

Saturday, Mr. S and I celebrated 1 year together... We went to the Anita Bryant exhibit at the Botanical Gardens (A day without sunshine), went to the Winter Party Happy Hour at Halo and met up with Dennis and Alan. We hit the Palace and Twist, then home for home cooked food and champagne.

Overall, it was great weekend. We did stay away from the big Beach Party and Pool Party, but we enjoyed the weekend.

Up next: "Spamalot" on Thursday

Have a good week.