Beautiful Bugs

I've made it a point on this blog to rail against my sworn enemy -- the Miami cockroach, known down here as the Palmetto bug. Luckily, the tropics also harbor some strikingly bright and colorful insects that don't make my stomach churn in disgust.

Behold the iridescent, spotted evolutionary marvel that I recently caught sight of on my mailbox.

The palm tree in my front yard has lately been home to a bright green lizard that resembles the Geico gecko.

A few weeks ago, while walking my roach killing dog, I spotted a butterfly just emerged from its cocoon.

Miami is also home to a particular click beetle with glowing green eyes. Yes, it's slightly roach-like, but it's eyes light up brighter than the little green lights on my modem. It's a sci-fi alien bug.

For as long as roaches have been trolling this planet, you'd think they could've evolved some type of non-repulsive feature. Don't hold your breath, world; they're apparently set on offending humanity's collective sense of sight.

Miami Shore

Remember when Miami was the booty music capital of the world? In the ninth grade, my fellow ballerinas and I would practice our fouetées in the studio and our hydraulics at Catholic school dances. Hey, both are good workouts. Not until college did I realize that the rest of the nation had no idea who Uncle Al was. Love it or hate it, this Miami bass music, as it was technically called, gave the city some distinctive flavor in the 90s.

Those days are long gone, and club culture now seems to be all about techno and trance. I'll bet those Jersey Shore kids felt right at home here. Maybe it's just me, but I prefer my dance music to be something I can ... well ... dance to. Yes, there's a lot of hopping about and fist pumping in techno, but I'm not inspired to actually move my hips.

I spent plenty of time on YouTube today trying to familiarize myself a bit with electronic music for this post. When I found a 10-minute video entitled Best Melodic Trance Songs, I thought, "let me give this a chance"; five minutes of the way through I wondered why Cheney never used melodic trance in place of waterboarding. Am I missing something?

I'd be interested to hear from an avid fan of electronic music on the subject. What about it is so appealing to so many people? I'm not trying to be facetious here. I'd really like to know.  

In the meantime, I'll be here, getting down to the 1996 Miami classic, Morena.

Welcome to Miami ... Green Acres?

It's 6:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning. All the free champagne I ingested for happy hour the night before is making me feel a little less chirpy than the rooster next door, who is cocka-doodle-dooing to his heart's content. The neighbors are up early collecting eggs from the five or so hens running around, the dog has fun herding them, and the pig sits around hoping he's not Nochebuena (Christmas Eve) dinner.

I live smack in the middle of Miami, somewhere between Little Havana and Coral Gables, yet my neighbors are raising livestock.

Although I'm not certain what part of Cuba they're from, I'm willing to bet they lived in el campo (the countryside). A lot of Cuban campesinos feel it's completely normal to run a mini farm from their small single-family homes behind Calle Ocho. I'm okay with this; saying hello to a brood of hens just before plunging into big-city traffic is mildly LOL-inducing.

The comical contrast is lost on my dog, though. He is confused by these new weird animals.

Blade's early morning thoughts are as follows:

I'm ... awake? I'm awake. Must ... go ... OUTSIDE!
*cry cry cry (at inhumanly high decibel)*

Yay! Morning walk! Yay!
*trot trot trot ... freeze*

What are those?
*tilts head*

Are they large pigeons?
*wags tail (hunting is fun!)*

Way too big to be pigeons. Are they ... cats?
*wags tail (cats are my friends!)* 

Wait, those cats are too close to my territory!
*assumes defensive stance*

But cats have tails.
*sniffs air*

What ARE those?
*tilts head*

Blade has now taken to ignoring the alien creatures. For my part, I'm just hoping not to find any of them decapitated in the front lawn.

On the Mover

One of my biggest gripes with Miami is its lack of public transportation. Let's face it -- we Miamians need to exercise our limbs and tone down our road rage, but this city is not providing any adequate means of getting around. 

If I didn't need a car, I wouldn't own one. Between the gas, the insurance, and the upkeep, cars are a huge expense. They're also dangerous (particularly when navigating in a sea of Miami drivers). They create stress and pollute our fresh air. Being car-less in Miami, though, is unfortunately too big a handicap. 

Our one Metrorail line runs from downtown Miami (where nobody lives) south to Kendall. It barely gets used. Metro envy has made me slightly obsessed with metro systems everywhere. I love the maps with all the multi-colored lines intercepting one another; I observe how the doors open (automatically or manually? if manually, button or handle?); I take note of the seating; I critique the color choices; I try to identify what books people are reading; I feel mobile, energized. Why can't we transport people around effectively like nearly every other developed city in the world? 

If you live somewhere in the small circumference between Brickell and Omni, though, you can hop on the FREE Metromover! I wish we had a system like this throughout the most frequented parts of the city. I wouldn't expect to ride for free, or course, but I think it would catch on. Can you picture it? Miami, a city of pedestrians? One can dream.

Since I work in Brickell and recently attended a conference at a hotel right by Metromover's Omni station, I for once had the option of taking public transport. Any kind of metro system in Miami must be above ground since we are practically at sea level, which means riding around is a great way to see the city. Enjoy the tour.

Miami: Best & Worst & Santería

My lit geek friends and I seem incapable of throwing a party without a costume theme; it's Halloween about once a month for us. The latest theme, this time for a birthday fiesta, was "Best and Worst of Miami," and the English crew did not disappoint. A few of the highlights below:

- Miami tourists, complete with Hawaiian shirts and fanny packs
- The couple from the show Dexter, which is set in Miami
- The requisite Miami Vice guy
- A ditzy, scantily clad UM student armed with inflatable breasts from Party City
- A scantily clad Hialeah girl (The scantily clad motif was especially popular.)
- A mojito (She was green and looked delicious. Well, you know what I mean.)
- Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden (Best dress idea ever.)

I went as a santera (a woman who practices Santería).

If your background is Cuban, chances are that someone in your family practices the religion (no matter how "strictly Catholic" the family may be), and most who have grown up in Miami are at least aware of it. Perhaps they've wondered at the botanicas (Santería shops) around town, or perhaps they've spotted one too many headless chickens in their day. My Catholic high school, situated next to the Cuban, Catholic church of La Ermita de la Caridad, was no stranger to dead chickens. We scored a day off school once because of dead chickens. Thank you, dead chickens!

Most people at the party, though, had not grown up in Miami and did not know what to make of my ensemble. Was I a gypsy? a tropical ghost? a ... umm ... lady who likes to wear white? Two Cubans and one Spaniard got it, though. Big up!

So, was I representing the best or the worst of Miami? I suppose that depends on whether you view Santería with a sense of wonder or a sense of fear.

Because music plays an integral role in Santería ritual, I leave you with a song about Santería by local Cuban artist Willy Chirino aptly titled "Mister Don't Touch the Banana."

* For further personal anecdotes from a fellow Miami blogger on this topic and to understand why you shouldn't touch the banana, check out this post.

Miami Accent

Wikipedia and research are not compatible. Why? Because my dog can edit Wikipedia, and my dog plays with dead roaches! Hell, I bet his dead roach can edit Wikipedia. I have therefore banned Wikipedia from my English classroom. That said, today my hypocrite self was browsing Wikipedia. In the Miami entry, I spotted a link for "Miami accent" and came upon this priceless nugget:

In Miami, a unique accent, commonly called the "Miami accent", is widely spoken. It developed mostly by second- or third-generation Hispanics whose first language was English. It is very similar to accents in the Northeast, but contains a rhythm and pronunciation heavily influenced by Spanish. However, a Miami accent is not Spanish-accented English, as many Miami residents who are not Hispanic, or do not speak Spanish, speak with the Miami accent as well. It is most common amongst those born and raised in Miami, and can commonly be heard spoken by Blacks and White non-Hispanics, as well as in Hispanics. However, not all Miamians have the accent. The accent is acquired in some areas, but not others.[citation needed]

First things first. My desire to edit the hell out of this convoluted paragraph replete with grammatical craziness was difficult to overcome. Apparently, Wikipedia doesn't know where to place commas or how to form the passive voice. Then there are the WTF sentences. Can someone please tell me what it means if an accent is not spoken in Hispanics or whether accents are even spoken in the first place?

Moving on, what most struck me was the equivocal nature of the passage. The point? Miami has an accent. Only Miamians have it, but not all Miamians have it, and it's not really an accent, but it's an accent (kind of), which comes from Spanish, but not only Spanish speakers have it, and it exists in some areas but not others. Get it? Got it? Fail.

Not that I'm sure how to define this "accent" either. My whole life, I've been able to identify "Americanos" in Miami by the way they speak. Having been born here, I am of course an "Americana," too, but I am first-generation "Americana," which is not the same thing. If your parents respected your teenage privacy by knocking on your bedroom door before barging in, chances are your family has been reproducing in the U.S. of A. for a while.

The fact that these privacy-respecting Americans sound different to me means that those of Hispanic origin born in Miami must have a uniquely Miami accent. As the above passage states, this is not the same thing as a Spanish accent. My parents, who were raised in Cuba, have a Spanish accent. (They don't sound like Scarface, though. Nobody sounds like Scarface! It's an appalling caricature. Okay, maybe a few Miamians sound like Scarface, but that's probably because they think it's cool to sound like Scarface.)

So if there indeed is a Miami accent, it's an American one, in the same way that the southern twang or the New York, Boston, Chicago, or Minnesota accents are American. Yet the distinctive intonation and pronunciation of the average Miamian isn't widely recognized as an American accent.

This is all quite confusing, so I leave first-generation "Americanos" and privacy-respecting "Americanos" alike with the following questions:

1) Does Miami have an accent?
2) What does a Miami accent sound like, anyway?
3) What will it take to get the Miami accent New York accent status?
4) Does Sarah Palin stand as a one-woman accent category? Such a maverick!

Please enlighten me with your insight before my mind explodes with the "accentiness" of it all.

My Dog the Roach Killer?

Monthly fumigation is no match for the heat, rain, and humidity of Miami summers, so my abhorred nemesis continues to rear its hideous antennae. If you read my A Pox on Palmetto Bugs post, you know how I feel about cockroaches, the foul villains. I think they all deserve to die, die, die. So when I caught my miniature pincher murdering one of the vile invaders this morning with a few swift strikes of his paw, you'd think I'd have rooted for him: "Blade, Blade, he's the best! Smack that roach and kill that pest!" That's not how it went down, though. Here's why:

- If Doggy touches roach and Miami Girl touches Doggy, Miami Girl touches roach.
- If Miami girl inadvertently "touches" roach via Doggy, she will feel infected all day, no matter how much she scrubs and washes.
- Doggy doesn't kill roach out of fear or hatred. Quite the contrary. Doggy considers this "fun."
- Doggy considers dead roach so much fun that, upon seeing Miami Girl, Doggy sweeps dead roach under doggy bed.
- In Doggy's crafty attempt to hide new "toy," Doggy lies on doggy bed (under which lies roach) and plays innocent.
- Miami Girl screams, "Blade, it's not a bone! It's a freaking roach! What is wrong with you?!"

Ugh, at least he doesn't eat them. Needless to say, Blade sleeps on a brand new doggy bed tonight and smells of lavender shampoo.

Blade working his "I didn't do nothing" look.