Autism & Testing 1-2-3…

Originally uploaded by CleverIndie

This is from our local Autism Speaks’ Facebook page:
***Please note that the Care Mobile will also be at the Autism Speaks SWFL Walk Now for Autism on November 7 at Estero Community Park*****

The Children’s Hospital of Southwest Florida, in partnership with the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Southwest Florida, will offer free monthly autism spectrum disorder screening for toddlers 18 months to 36 months of age.

The first screening will be held Nov. 6 from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Ronald McDonald Care Mobile, located in the Cape Coral Hospital parking lot. Additional screenings will be conducted monthly at different locations across Lee County.

It is estimated that one in every 150 children is diagnosed with some form of ASD, making it more common than childhood cancer, juvenile diabetes and pediatric AIDS combined.

That’s why parents are encouraged to bring their toddlers to the Ronald McDonald Care Mobile for a free screening. Clinicians will use the M-CHAT, with Denver Developmental Screening Tool to assess the toddlers. The screening is not intended to make a definitive ASD diagnosis, but rather to determine whether your child may be at risk and needs further evaluation.

Medical consultants for the project stress that an early diagnosis can make a vast difference for toddlers and their families. They say early intensive behavioral intervention, or EIBI, can make an immense difference not just in the development of the child, but in their families as well.

The ASD screening is conducted by the Neurosciences Center at TCH, under the guidance of pediatric neurologist Jose Colon, MD, MPH, and pediatric psychiatrist Marianne Krouk, DO. The onsite screenings will be administered by an Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner, who has extensive training and experience in typical child development and developmental disorders.

A physician referral is not required. To schedule a screening, please call 239-985-3608.”

If you have any concerns, I’d make an appointment. For those who think that a pediatrician would have mentioned something during the annual checkup, I wouldn’t put all of my trust in that, though it is getting better. Remember, getting clarification and help for you and your child, is the best thing for your kid and their future, and the earlier, the better.

Just wanted to share….Hope this helps someone…
xo
Bek

Fay….

No Diving!

Originally uploaded by CleverGirlBek

Here she comes….

F.A.Y.

From CapeWeather.com

Wanted to find some witty lyrics to post as the title, but a search for Fay came up with F.A.Y. , so that is what I’m running with (not FAY from me…Just hopefully not F.A.Y. from Miss Fay as she comes up the peninsula…

Well, she’s a-comin’, but in what force and tme we don’t really know…

Here’s where I’m tracking:

Cape Weather

If you want to see what else is going on I do recommend NOAA.gov and even our local news and papers can offer some info… I found that News-Press.com is not always amazing on the updating (I usually just head to CapeWeather.com or Wunderground.com for weather info) BUT they were one of the only sources on information when my mom was going through Charley and we were feeling helpless up north….

We have, for the time being, decided to stay put…So we are doing lots of organizing and packing this morning, just in case we need to move….

As far as my etsy shop goes, I will not be shipping again until Friday (8/22)…But as long as we have power and our ‘net connection is up I will be checking in and updating my shop announcement….

Anyway, giant hugs and stocked emergency kits and wishes for safety to all in Fay’s path….

xo

B

MangoMania! 2008

MangoMania!

Originally uploaded by CleverGirlBek

Ahhhh MangoMania 2008…
What can I say? There were mangoes.
Mangoes for sale…Treats incorporating mangoes…Mango preserves… T-shirts aimed at mango humor… Ahhhh yes.

We went. We wandered. We purchased some mangoes and a dwarf Meyer Lemon tree for the lanai (I have always longed for my own fruit tree… more on the new leafy addition to our home later)….

We did a ton of wandering around looking for the Mr. MangoHead competition which promised a mango decorating opportunity for the pee-wee set. Alas, nobody(not even the supposed Mr. MangoHead sponsors) had any clue where or what it was. But that is life in SW Florida…If information about a local event can be gleaned from the internet it is always a year out of date (minimum) or just completely inaccurate…

The only folks who were able to help were the kind librarians from the Pine Island branch…

And boyo got his first library card and is so excited to swipe it through the machine on his next visit…

Turns out we missed the competition entirely by wasting all the time looking for it. They had 3 prizes (great ones, according to one of the librarians) and nobody entered. Probably because nobody knew they were supposed to decorate their mango at home and bring it to enter it in the competition… Oh well. Maybe next year our strategy will be much improved.

Anyway- it was a nice morning out for us… We returned home after 2 hours dodging some of the pushier vendors (of various services and “event only exclusive offers” blech) with 6 mangoes, a meyer lemon tree, and we bought 3 jars of preserves but the gentleman packing them for us goofed and instead of a variety we have 2 jars of mango raspberry and 1 of mango strawberry (and none of the tropical ginger which sounded so freaking tasty)….

Next year, I hope they don’t have such a vendor free for all and they make better use of the German American Social Club’s sprawling grounds…It was a little suffocating and not as tropical fruit festival feeling as it was even last year…

Also, there was a rash of brutish boys terrorizing the little guys. These were kids that should have been taught manners at some point and probably denied entrance to the bounce houses, where they terrorized the younger kids and annoyed their parents.

Also, note to mangomania 2009 vendors: yes, water pistols are fun. It is however unwise to spray strangers with water pistols from your booth if they are not interacting with you at the time. It will not gain you business and you might just shoot the wrong person. People carry all sorts of electronic devices- from medical related things to shmancy iphones. I would not want to short out someone’s gadget or spook the wrong person in this firearm toting, quick tempered region of the world…. It is not refreshing. It is rude. Even the rudest of the brutish wild boys wouldn’t stoop to zapping strangers with water. Even they know better.

Sorry to come off as cranky, dear reader…But for the love of pete those two elements were *that* irritating…

MangoMania!

Woohoo! It’s time for MangoMania again!

Can’t wait to taste some locally grown tropical fruit and mango creations at this year’s festival celebrating that crazy cousin of poison ivy, The Mango.

Mangomania will be hitting Cape Coral, Florida this Saturday and it is being held at the German-American Social Club on Pine Island Road (between Chiquita and Veterans/Burnt Store Road… This year they are having a Mr. Mango Head contest for the kids, various vendors.  Last year I scored some awesome all natural spray for my old bones and muscles- called, very cleverly, Snake Oil (and it is a real treat for an aching back and sore muscles)…there were a few folks selling jewelry (some of it handmade, but usually not by the people selling it) and a soapmaker or two.  We came home with bags of mangoes grown on nearby Pine Island (which is wear the festival originated… The German American club does provide a slightly more central location with more amenities and space)… We also brought home jars of homemade (by some of the farmers and their crews) preserves, mango bread, and a few other treats…

Adults can get in at the gate for $6…Kids under 10 are admitted free.  We wound up spending around $50 total last year- including a couple of carnival game tickets, a light lunch for the 3 of us (the German -American club had their Potato Pancake hut and Weiner huts open, not sure if they will be doing that this year) and a beer for the hubby (the beirgarten was open), and two grocery bags chock full o’ homemade baked goods and locally grown fresh fruit…  There are plenty of places to sit and eat and take a load off…It does get hot though- definitely wear a durable sunscreen all over as the event is entirely outside.  There are port-o-potties available and possibly regular facilities inside the german club (not sure on that…I’ve been to a bunch of events but I have never been inside!)… Bring a lightweight, breathable hat for everyone.  If you go near dusk bug spray is a must.  I doubt they are allowing outside beverages (other than kid’s bottles in mom’s handy backpack…) so bring cash for tickets, food, and drinks- especially water to stay cool and hydrated.

Boyo is excited as he is a mango maniac from way back… The kid cannot resist Mango sorbet…

There is usually a fruit tree vendor as well…I’m hoping that they have some dwarf/container trees as I would love a miniature meyer lemon for our porch….We shall see…

Anyway, here’s an article from the news-press on the festivities…

We hope to see you there!

Woooooohoooooo!

Woooooohoooooo!

Originally uploaded by CleverGirlBek

Finally, it has happened.
We are getting a sidewalk.

Sidewalks in this area are sporadic at best. It depends when the structure was built and what rules were on the books…

Except for a few main roads (in this case I mean roads with traffic lights as our road is a whole lot more “main” than the other roads that come off of it) the only sidewalks you see are 20 feet or so in front of a random house- not connected to any other sidewalk….Not forming a walkable length of more than 20 feet. Just 20 feet, at most, and then nothing for miles…

We have corners that are “sidewalked”, complete with the pedestrian images and the walk/don’t walk lights… But they are the only sidewalk around for miles, or until the random house that has the 20 feet… None of them were connected. I cringe every morning when I see kids walking to one of the many schools in the immediate area. They are walking on the actual road…Cars, trucks whizzing by all too close seeming to believe that the speed limit is optional. And the kids can’t walk on the grass thanks to our militant fire ant population…Not to mention our snakes and other critters.

Now we can walk out of our complex and walk all the way down to the water treatment facility and be that much closer to that sulfurous stench. Maybe someday we will be able to walk safely to necessities that would relieve the need for a second car. I can dream, right?

Before I moved to SW Florida I never would have imagined that I’d get this giddy over a cement truck and traffic cones.

I need to get out of here… If only the sidewalks all connected…

Evening weather….

Outside

Originally uploaded by CleverGirlBek

PLEASE VISIT CapeWeather.com or NWS for weather updates

Weather Underground is a great resource for weather information….

A Twister!

more rainbow and tornado….

Originally uploaded by CleverGirlBek

Since our “faux”-nado I’ve been a little on edge… I pace the floors like a nervous dog from one end of the apartment to the other checking the sky. We are lucky, at least in the way of having a bird’s eye view, that we can see all of Cape Coral, the river, and Ft. Myers out of one window and toward Pine Island and the Gulf of Mexico from the other…Being a little higher up I think I tend to bite my nails a bit more as everything looks so magnified in intensity…

Well, yesterday we had the real thing.

It was around a mile away from us and there were at least 2 funnels that I could see at one point…And there was a rainbow.

It was beautiful and scary all at once…

The twister threw whirls of sparkling fairy dust where it touched the ground. We now know that the sparkles were window glass.

So far reports are that around 49 houses were damaged, a bunch of cars (it was strong enough to flip a car and move it down the street) were smashed but no fatalities.

Except for perhaps some underwear.

It’s weird though- I didn’t even know that there was a warning in effect when I heard thunder that just hit me in the chest in a primal way, I guess. I logged on to our local weather resource http://www.capeweather.com and didn’t see anything… I opened the front door and voila: a tornado. There are more images on Flickr (there should be a box to your right, you can click there if you’d like… or google “Cape Coral Tornado” a few of the news stations have aftermath photos up…That particular block was hit hard by a tornado during Hurricane Charley, from what I am hearing, and the residents say Charley didn’t do this much damage…It’s mind blowing how pinpoint these things can be though…

Hope everyone is safe…..I hope everyone is healthy….

Hugs

Bek

ps. While we were out and about and then waiting patiently for comcast to get our internet up and running again (funny that it was on right after the tornado and then went down. Ugh. Just when I needed it. Comcast logic…*shakes head* ) guess what? My Eye of The Storm pendant (inspired by the experience of the faux-nado a couple of months ago) sold! Yay! And to a sweetheart of a person who had been watching it for awhile and then had to jump on it… Perfect timing! :-)

Not A Tomato.

When I was very small I thought that the violent storms I heard about were “tomatoes”. I had visions of small towns on large prairies being pummeled by tomatoes.

Until I was in one. A small one, but a tornado none-the-less.

We were fine. It was a very close call as we were trapped in my mom’s rockin’ coppery Camaro in the Late 70’s in the burbs known as Westchester…

But I’ve been fascinated by tornadoes since. Pretty much I’m fascinated by “sudden” weather. Big stuff like hurricanes elicit a transition of modes – I go into autopilot. With sudden, severe weather there is no time to transition into a mode of vigilance and preparation spread out over days (which is how it is here in SW Florida during “the season”)

I am vigilant about keeping my eye on the sky and my ears open though as we do have almost daily storms where the sky looks like something out of Ghostbusters II. It’s also that much more dramatic as we have a complete lack of hills here and you can see for miles. (side note: I really want to move back to a place that’s on the curvier side, I feel too exposed here… but we are stuck for who knows how long as my mom being a little more off than usual these days and the baldguy is just settling into his new job.)

Late yesterday afternoon (5:30ish) I unplugged my computer so it wouldn’t fry. I went into the kitchen and poured a giant vat of tea so I could get to work while Lexo was napping. I looked up from my mug and saw smoke and dirt barreling towards our complex from the woodlands. My eyes followed the dark dust up to where it connected with the ceiling of the mother of all storm clouds. I grabbed Lexo from his room, put him under my arm and ran. I had my keys in the other hand, slammed the door behind us, but didn’t lock it. My brain was saying “run. it’s far enough away that you can get to the garage.” My legs, my brain, just knew that running outside for a moment when it was still relatively safe would be better than being on the 3rd floor, right under the roof, when it sliced through our home.

I flew down 3 stories. Lex looked puzzled. I normally don’t pick him up for any length of time as my bones are older than the 31 years they are supposed to be. I fumbled with the keys and opened the deadbolt to go into the garage and I stopped. I listened. There was a strangeness about the air, the light, the sounds. It was windy in the courtyard and I could feel a breeze but nothing right on top of us.

I ran further with Alex to the parking lot thinking I’d lost my last marble. Our neighbor John was loading his truck and I said to him “tornado or fire or what?” and he looked at me like I had 10 heads. He looked at the back part of the complex, toward the woods, but didn’t say anything. I heard a car behind us. It was the baldguy. He opened his window- I pointed “what the hell is that?” and then I saw it move. I saw the charcoal billows rolling to us. I hopped in the car, Alex on my lap.

“Drive.”

“Don’t you want to put him in his car seat?”

“GO!”

We pulled over 1/2 a mile away and buckled Alex in. I watched the funnel. I could see where it hit the cloud and where it was dicing the ground. It looked like a cuisinart eating the air and the ground.

We drove toward my mom’s house.

Everyone in the other cars looked calm and unaware.

I searched the radio. FM. AM. Nothing.

I turned to look at the sky and there was a definite disconnect between the sky and the smoke on the ground. Slowly we circled around the area and watched as the dark grey smoke became a ball on the ground with smoke drifting off. It was a complete shapeshift. A complete mood switch.

Alex voiced fairly deep concern for the location of his shoes and pants. I grabbed him and that’s all.

We came back home. Still nothing on the radio or TV.

I cried for a bit and snuggled with Alex.

After we got him clothed and settled with some milk and a prized matchbox car I called my mother.

She said “it isn’t even thundering out” (I think she’s losing her mind and her hearing these days…It happened to my Opa – her stepfather- in reverse. He went from cantankerous to sweet, Mom is going from friendly to vicious, nasty.)

I explained it all to her and she made me describe it. She insists that there wasn’t a weather advisory so nothing could happen. There was an advisory. I saw it on Weather Underground moments before shutting the system down. Something big happened less than 1/4 mile from our home.

The violent appendage turned into a ball of smoke and fire and into what we are used to seeing from brush fires and the occasional, distant, house fire I have seen in my life.

I finally sank back into the pillows to relax to Scrubs reruns rather than do any work. Way too drained for hammering. Still to shaky to trust myself with my torch.
Alex joined me under the covers and completely lost his shit. Not because of the incident earlier- or any of the feelings of fearing for your life and the accompanying adrenaline rush.

He wanted pants and shoes. Today he is still asking for “Pants! Shoes!” even though we are staying right here for the time being and I’m dreaming of the northeast more than ever.

note: There is nothing on the newswire today. Not a mention in the local paper. The baldguy and my neighbor saw it as well so I know I’m not completely batshit. Today I’m still not even thinking “oh maybe I overreacted”. I did what my gut told me to do when my kid was being threatened. That’s all.

Big hugs all around,
B

MangoMania

We just returned from MangoMania and I’m all mangoed out.

MangoMania is an annual festival thrown by the Pine Island Chamber of Commerce here in Cape Coral (why is it not in Pine Island? I don’t know. Maybe the mangoes are snooty and are all about celebrations just not outdoor ones with carnival foods and bounce houses.

“Yes, by all means, promote commerce and local farming just not in our back yard.”

I said to my sister this morning, “I don’t even think we have mangoes here” but I googled and I was wrong. So very, very, very, very wrong.

Pine Island alone has over a dozen types of mango. And lychee. LYCHEE! Who knew…

When we head to the local grocery store or even to the farmers market I rarely see anything grown closer than 50 miles and most of the grocery store produce is from Costa Rica.

I thought about this while walking around the MangoMania grounds (at the German-American social club). There were many craft vendors and a pretty fair amount of mango peddlers and purveyors of mango products. But it definitely seemed as though most of the mango folks were from out of town. I was kind of surprised. Prior to realizing this I bought a loaf of mango bread for breakfast tomorrow and I was talking to the guy working the booth. These folks, and their evil mangoey goodness were from the Miami area. All the way on the other coast. I feel cheap. I feel used. I feel like they should crown me Mango hussy of the year. I was so excited and blind when I was reading about MangoMania this morning and supporting local farmers and businesses. Now I feel like I need a shower.

As artists many of us try to “buy handmade” and buy locally when possible. In this world of mass production and sweatshops we are trying to make a difference and we are trying to keep our money where it is needed-to support folks like us. Now I’m thinking so locally that I feel bad about buying the mango bread from the guy from Miami and not from the local farmer. I want to apologize to that local farmer and his family.

I don’t always buy local but I am making a choice with every purchase I make these days- I’m trying my hardest to buy from real people. I am trying to buy from the source. Some times it’s not financially feasible. But then I am reminded of a fabulous business report written by my old boss way back when I was working in commercial production (tv commercials) – he put in his manifesto that we all need to think about NEED and WANT.

So that’s what I’m doing… I’m thinking a whole lot about need and want to help me stay local and stay smart. My thought process goes something like this:

1. Need or Want

2. Financial factors

3. Local or long distance

The way I look at it- if it’s something we need, that we have to afford, then I’m probably going to spend the couple of extra dollars (if necessary) to buy local. Why? Service. I’m a firm believer, after years in customer service and sales and trying to trim budgets, in that a purchasing experience is more than shoving money over a counter and claiming an item- it’s the service that comes with that item. I am big on online shopping these days as we are a one car family and I’m home with the little guy 24/7 for the most part. So I don’t always buy local- but I am making a huge effort to buy from the source. Service and quality are that much better.

Anyways- enough of my rant… I’ve got to go put away our MangoMania accoutrements.

And I have work to do (I’m working on 2 new pieces…I’ll share really soon! I promise!).

By the way- for those of you that know me and know how much I miss the Northeast these days (except I do love these little corny small town festivals) I am happy to report that the nice couple from Boston were back today (I met them at Oktoberfest) selling their ices and the guy shared with me some new secrets: there is a pizza place I had not uncovered on my own and the owners are from New Jersey and there is also an Italian market…So I shared my top secret good bagels location (those folks are from NY)… He said the pizza is not perfect but it’s the closest you can get to NY this far south…We’ll have to try it…They are going to do a Taste of the Northeast thing in the autumn with all local establishments that have their personal roots up north. I can’t wait. I’m going to turn into a pizza. Probably with pastrami and mustard on it.

Hugs all around,

B