Recession Recovery? Not Here…… Not Yet

As a former news reporter, I am the first person to find fault with the media for hyping the recession and focusing on the housing bust. I think with so much negative press, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. But recent headlines of the so-called economic recovery apparently have not reached where I live. I honestly feel like I am in constant mourning over the loss of extended family members, independent businesses that formed the daily matrix of my life.

Just last week, my favorite mom and pop coffeehouse, Coffee Café, closed its doors suddenly without so much as a goodbye sign posted. In fact, I was there writing the very evening before the lights went off and the doors were locked permanently. I spoke to the proprietor whom I have much respect for as business person and friend. Nary a word was mentioned that the establishment was closing. If I’d have known this was Coffee Café’s fate, I would’ve said or done something-some final parting words of gratitude and encouragement at the very least. I mourn the loss of my favorite coffeehouse. Coffee Café was part of my daily routine, a place to enjoy good quality coffee (sans Starbucks) and chat with my coffee house social clique that had evolved there over the past five years-the people who were regulars and became my friends.

As most of you know, I am a writer and I spend a great deal of time practicing my craft in coffeehouses. Today, I feel lost without Coffee Café and the good people who owned it, worked there, and the loyal patrons. Coffee Café is yet another casualty of this crappy economy. Over the summer, I saw our favorite neighborhood wine shop, Pierre’s Wine Cellar, suddenly shut its doors after ten years in business. This was a place voted “Orlando’s Favorite Wineshop” that thrived for a decade until now. I’ve spent countless Saturday evenings there among friends enjoying the wine tastings and visiting Oliver and his wife Marie, owners of Pierre’s. I have so many fond memories tied to that establishment. Again, the closure of Pierre’s feels like I’ve lost a good friend, a member of my extended family. One by one these independent businesses that I have developed social and emotional ties to have lost out to the dire economic forces at play. These are places that have a stake in our community, that care about us, and I cheer them on like a proud mother at a soccer game. It is so disheartening to see these independent business owners, despite their best efforts, lose their livelihood.

Just yesterday, yet another casualty came to light: SGTV, the Seminole County government channel that I have worked with for the past nine years, is being effectively dismantled. In the dubious wisdom of our county commissioners, (and I do question their wisdom, vision, and ability to see the big picture) they voted to strip the station down to its bare bones firing three employees including the Public Information Officer and Assistant Public Information Officer. SGTV will no longer offer original local programming; instead the station will only serve to broadcast local government meetings (yawn, yawn, yawn). I might point out that our esteemed commissioners justified this move as a way to save money. Let me point out the flawed logic in this. Seminole County needs to cut 17 million (yes million) from the budget. Scrapping SGTV will only save them approximately $300,000 (a mere drop in the bucket) But like many politicians, it appears that our county commissioners don’t have the courage, research and in-depth knowledge to tackle the real government waste. Perhaps they forgot about the dozens of national awards SGTV has won for its original programming and the informed citizenry that results from the original shows about Seminole County’s many programs and services.

Yes times are tight for everyone. Believe me I feel the pain in my pocketbook as well: My husband is a custom homebuilder and need I say we’ve seen better days. However, I think we all need to invest in each other in any way we can-whether it’s coming to the defense of a public service on the chopping block or patronizing our local businesses as much as we can. I do believe in Karma and certainly in this economy what comes around goes around.

We’ve all had to adjust downward. If only for that reason, we should all be able to show compassion in business and commerce. Better days are on the horizon, but we all have to find a way to tread water until the so-called “recovery” reaches us here. So I say keep on swimming, I can almost see the finish line. For those of us who have kept a kind heart in business matters instead of using the dire economy to take advantage of people, I say there is justice in market forces and you will be back on top.

Eco-etiquette: What’s the Rule?

In our eco-concious society that seems to be ever more mindful of the merits of recycling and conserving, I can’t help but wonder just what are the rules of eco-etiquette? The other day I was at Starbucks putting cream in my coffee when I pulled out a wad of napkins mistakenly. In the olden days, I would take my handful of napkins, use one or two, and throw away the rest. Instead, I find myself stuffing the extra napkins back into the dispenser for fear of disapproving looks by surrounding coffee customers. I didn’t want to be a wasteful citizen of the world, needlessly squandering felled trees, so I actually stuffed the napkins back in the dispenser to be “recycled” by the next customer.

Another recent incident of eco-confusion, I was at a friend’s house party and finished a bottle of beverage. My first instinct was to chuck the bottle into the kitchen can but these days everyone has a green recycling bin. Concerned about creating another eco faux pas, I dutifully ask if my gracious host recycles. Of course she does and she points to the laundry room, which serves as a staging area for empty party recyclables. Glad I asked.

Peer pressure has even got me thinking about bringing a refillable water bottle to the gym in lieu of my store-bought bottled water. Lately, I’ve noticed many others are toting around water bottles and suddenly I feel reckless about my gluttonous consumption of consumer water.

It seems there are defacto rules of eco-etiquette evolving but apparently I am slow to grasp this greener social code. I’ll admit it: I’m a recycler of convenience. I sort out the plastic and glass recyclables from my trash when the mood strikes, or if I have the time. If not, I shamelessly throw it all in with the rest of my discarded items destined for the landfill.

I am guilt-ridden about my contribution to global deforestation but old habits die hard. So my addiction to magazines continues unchecked as no less than 16 glossy guilty pleasures arrive in my mailbox each month. I realize that I can get much of this information online but there’s nothing like the experience of thumbing through magazine pages with a good cup of coffee.

The little voice of reason in my head rationalizes that my magazine subscriptions should be on an “as need” basis but I really do need to learn about the latest celebrity gossip, fashion trends, and current events, all in tangible, touchable print. Maybe I should encourage my eight-year-old to use my magazine piles for arts and crafts projects such as papier-mâché or collage. (Doesn’t that count as recycling?)


Alas, recycling is one of my character flaws and I’m working through it without formal therapy. However, I do have a few moral principles- my “no no” rules that I absolutely do not break, such as throwing away batteries, electronics or any mercury containing product, and disposing grease down the kitchen drain. I cannot mindfully contaminate our drinking water but as for the rest of recycling-the process of reusing of materials-let’s just say without social pressure, I don’t exactly behave green- more like a pale shade of moss, which happens to be all the rage right now.

Time to Connect the Dots

You know those connect the dot pictures we did as a kid, the ones that your mom brought on road trips with a pack of pencils to prevent you from yelling “Are we there yet?” every mile or so? It turns out that kiddy pastime might just lead to financial prosperity: The ability to connect the dots breeds success. This news flash comes straight from homeowners in some of the richest zip codes in the U.S. How do I know this? Lately, I’ve been reading the book Rich Like Them by Ryan D’ Agostino because I couldn't resist the title nor the premise. You see-Ryan did what many of us secretly fantasize about while walking through the neighborhoods of McMansions wondering: How the heck did they make their money? And how I would just love to knock on their door and ask?

Ryan is the editor at Esquire Magazine and he had the guts to actually do it. He knocked on the doors of 500 households in the United States’ richest zip codes and ask them: “How ever did you make your money?” It sounds completely gauche, but by humbling himself and being perfectly blunt, the author uncovered quite a few pearls of wisdom that I think should be on the mandatory reading lists of all high school and college degree programs.

We’ve all heard the sage advice: Do what you love and money will follow, but in these door-to-door interviews with America’s wealthiest, Ryan uncovered another life lesson: to be alert, open, observant and curious as collectors of random information. Then, to be able to connect the dots so that all the random information points to an idea-the next big thing-I’m talking about ingenuity.

Connecting the dots could very well be the best life skill we can teach our children- better than reading, writing and arithmetic. If we teach our children to be curious about the world around them, to become collectors of random information and have the intellectual flexibility to sculpt relationships, themes, and trends out of these random tidbits, then we are priming their minds for success in their chosen career paths.

As for the adults, it’s not too late for us to start connecting the dots. In fact, there’s never been a better time since there is no quick buck to be made in the old standbys of real estate and stock market investing. So, grab your mental pencil and start making those imaginary lines, you just might be surprised at the picture that emerges. Oh.. and before you think that this is a paid book review, rest assured, it is not. I only seek to share with you something I think could motivate us all to start thinking out of the box instead of living inside it. That’s my thought for now…Gotta get busy connecting the dots for my next big idea. What’s yours?

Birthday Party Backlash!

My daughter is turning eight soon and wants a birthday party-no surprises here except in the midst of a recession said birthday party is considered a non-essential expenditure. But… I live in the happy, shiny suburbs where birthday parties bring a unique brand of peer pressure to create an event worthy of the local social pages.

I checked out the clothing store Justice (for hip tweens) where at $25 per head, my daughter and her friends can dress up like a faux rock star with colored hair streaks and braids, makeup, a fake plastic headset and to finish off the look-a funky hand sock. (I didn’t know rock stars wore hand socks, but I digress..) A quick calculation brings the grand total to $400 for a Justice birthday party, which doesn’t do my bank account “justice” so I quickly moved on to the next option: a Spa Party –where for the same price she and her friends can get a mani-pedi then head to a nearby pizza parlor for pizza and cake. Total price: $550.00. Did I mention that none of these preliminary calculations involve the extra expenditure of the goody bag? The whole goody bag thing, in my opinion, is a nonsensical social perversion –You give the birthday girl a gift and the birthday girl, in turn, gives you a gift.

Since the goody bag typically rivals the cost of the actual birthday gift, can’t we just call it even with the whole gift-giving-goody-bag-receiving thing? No one gives or gets. (That would save me an extra $100 bucks) and it would save you roughly $15 dollars per invite.

Now, planning an eight-year-old birthday party is tricky. My daughter says that she is too “old” for indoor bounce houses and play gyms so that rules out Pump It Up and My Gym. She thinks that Libby Liu in the mall is too babyish and the whole stuff-a-bear-and-dress-it routine seems stale and silly. I’m definitely not up for pulling an all-nighter as the host of a slumber party so that leaves me with few options. I tried to explain to my daughter that birthday parties are soooo yesterday in light of the recession, and that the “new” birthday party is a “BirthStay Party” , a home party, kind of like those “StayCations” dubbed by the media where people “vacation” in their own backyards.

A “BirthStay” Party could be sooo retro-like when I was growing up and mom invited the neighborhood kids over to my house to play pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey and musical chairs then eat homemade birthday cake and ice cream from a cup with a wooden spoon, all the while wearing one of those brightly colored cone birthday hats. Decorations consisted of crepe paper streamers and perhaps a Happy Birthday sign and a few balloons (not the helium kind but the home blown kind). After the opening of the birthday gifts, my friends and I were free to play in the backyard, where there wasn’t a rented bounce house but rather a metal swing for fun, until their parents returned to pick them up. My departing gift for each invitee was a big thank you hug instead a goody bag and that was completely socially acceptable. I don’t think my mom was even required to write thank you notes back then (a source of post birthday party angst).

Fastforward back to present day and I ask what the heck has happened to all of us? Have we lost our ever-lasting minds? When did it become okay and even socially expected to plop down $500 bucks or more on a child’s birthday? What happened to the good old-fashion home birthday party? I think the time has come for its return-we’ll just give it a new name “BirthStay Party” so this generation thinks it’s some new hip way to celebrate. I call for a birthday party backlash- Let’s ban goody bags and $25-a-head parties and put the money towards something like… oh I don’t know…college savings, our depleting 401Ks, or towards the credit card debt that’s carrying many of us from paycheck to paycheck until this economy turns around. So, if you don’t get an invitation to Alexis’ birthday party this year-don’t be offended. Just know that I decided to buck the system-my own birthday party backlash- but know that I love you all. I just can’t afford to show it with goody bags and faux rock star parties this year.

Top 10 Things I Love About Louisiana

I went "home for the holidays" to Baton Rouge, Louisiana and spent a week reconnecting with family and friends. Back in Florida now, my sing-songy southern drawl is a dead giveaway that I've been to Louisiana. A few days on hometown soil and my twang returns with a vengeance. I can't help it-Louisiana seeps into your soul with all its chaos, character, culture, and cuisine.
I love Louisiana and miss it terribly and though it might not be the most sophisticated state, it has personality and a real history-a story-an identity and it doesn't give a damn what anyone else thinks.

Being there, with my no-nonsense, fun-loving friends and family, visiting the favorite places of my past, I got to thinking about all the other things that I Love About Louisiana so here it goes:

1.LSU Tiger Stadium a.k.a the Death Dome -home of all-day tailgating-the only place where drinking beer kegs in a steamy asphalt parking lot at 10 am sounds fun-where the roar of the crowd is so loud that it registers on the Richter scale.
2.Seafood with real flavor-Louisiana is just about the only place on earth that really knows how to cook good seafood. We owe a debt of gratitude to our Cajun and Creole heritage, which lays the spices on heavy. My ancestors were ingenious at turning a pot full of random ingredients into a culinary masterpiece.-Gumbo- and let's not forget our other culinary achievements-Crawfish Etouffee, Fried Seafood Platters, Boiled Crawfish, BBQ Shrimp, Oysters Rockefeller, Crabmeat Augratin and the list goes on....
3.Southern Manners/Tradition-cotillion dance classes and debutante balls. Growing up in the Deep South meant every little girl's momma made her daughter, at the age of ten, attend Sunday afternoon cotillion classes, where us southern-ladies-in-training learned civilized dance moves such as the Fox Trot, Waltz and other ballroom staples in preparation for debutante balls in high school and the Mardi Gras ball season in February and March.
4. Cafe Au Lait and Beniegts-the Louisiana version of donuts. On Saturday and Sunday mornings we don't do bagels, we do beniegts- puffy squares of lightly fried dough sprinkled with powdered sugar and complimented with a large mug of coffee milk. I grew up on this breakfast of champions and now my kids love it too. Everytime I go home, I am sure to bring beniegt mix back in my suitcase.
5.New Orleans French Quarter-history, architecture, bars and debauchery all mixed together in several square blocks where you can get the cultural experience along with a daiquiri or hurricane in a to-go cup so you can walk the Quarter, sans open container laws.
6. Abita Amber Beer-my fav beer made from the spring waters of Abita Springs, Louisiana. Unfortunately, distribution of this beer stops short at the Florida panhandle so we in Central Florida are missing out. There's also Abita Purple Haze, Abita Turbo Dog, and the seasonal brews. I'm not much of a beer drinker but here I make an exception.
7. Louisiana Politics-we call it a spectator sport back home. I used to cover the Louisiana Legislature while working in TV News and was privileged to have open access to lawmakers and the political process. Our storied political past includes such illustrious leaders at Huey Long Earl Long, current jailbird Edwin Edwards and now our claim to fame-the first ever Indian-American Governor-Bobby Jindal, who incidentally is a childhood friend. He grew up in my neighborhood, one block over. Govenor Jindal brings high hopes to Louisiana as an Ivy League educated progressive thinker.
8. Tubing and water skiing down the Tickfaw river-Louisiana doesn't have a beach of its own unless you count Grand Isle, which is a fishing community. So, we spent our weekends in the stagnant waters of the Tickfaw river and the bayous. I learned to water ski in Bayou Petit Prairie -my maw maw's waterfront property ( a 200-acre farm in Melville, Louisiana). I didn't have to worry about sharks but I did encounter a few snakes.
9.Crawfish Boils-our version of a social soiree- just about every household has a huge boiler pot and propane burner to boil crawfish, corn and potatoes. It's the best way to throw a dinner party-no worries about coordinating flatware and table settings-just spread newspaper over your picnic tables, set out a few rolls of paper towels and kegs of beer and voila-instant party and completely socially acceptable.
10. Southern baby style- little boys in John-John suits (one piece overalls with smocked designs) and little girls in smocked cotton dresses and big bows (huge bows that rival the size of their heads) my daughter had a bow collection all colors of the rainbow and for the first three years of her natural born life I made her wear those bows daily to preschool where my friends teased me merciless about my sense of style. By the end of the school year, their little girls were wearing bows too!
So there you have it, just a few of the reasons why I Love Louisiana. (Don't get me wrong, I love living in Florida-the state has its charms too but it's not the deep south in the dixie sense of the word-I'll save that for another blog )

See Y'all later.