I opened my eyes this morning and ran my index finger along a strange, new and stubbly topography. The high temple hairline on my right side had undergone a seismic shift.  It now rose in a jagged racing stripe line, well above my newly exposed, and protuberant, ear. I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. It had been close to twelve hours since a Supercuts stylist had buzzed and clipped my locks. My hair was now an incongruous mixture of precision clipping and haphazard lawn mowing. I was thrilled. I had received an affordable, sensible and refreshingly imperfect haircut.

My last visit to a Supercuts was around the same time it was acceptable to mull over a mullet when visiting the barber. So when I pulled up to the Supercuts near my home yesterday, I had only the faintest of pleasant childhood memories to cut through the unfair social stigma that’s somehow attached itself to the proud Supercuts franchise.I was greeted by a smiling woman in her mid 50s to early 60s who I will call “Wanda.” She was friendly, weathered and possessed of frayed, thinning and chemically treated hair that would give most potential clients pause. But not me.

I’ve been to my fair share of salons that left me feeling emasculated after paying 25 dollars for a pear-guava shampoo treatment, a 10 minute haircut, and a 10 minute pitch to buy “product.” The friendly “Wanda” harkened back to a simpler time when a haircut was a haircut. She asked me what I wanted and I explained to her the best I could. She then proceeded to do her thing. There was no flourish or style to the effort she put into the job. In fact, her bony fingers seemed to curl from time to time as if she was fighting against some type of arthritic pain. I appreciated the effort.

By the time I left the Supercuts, I was about $15 lighter in the wallet, but immeasurably wiser as a consumer. Supercuts represents a paradigm for a better way of living in this overstuffed, pretentious, and conspicuous consumption driven world. Its a fire hose for the bonfire of vanity and excess that’s led to pretentious salons, labradoodles and subprime mortgages. So what if I got a haircut with imperfections that would cause the cast of any Bravo show to spontaneously combust. I would like to thank “Wanda” for reminding me that effort and intent count for a lot more than style and flash. Oh yeah, I will not be including a picture of my haircut. Let your imagination run wild. Needless to say, it’s nowhere as cool as this one.

It is perhaps serendipitous that I’m drawn to these furry transients, as I seem to have attracted a rather startling collection over the years. From the baby fruit bat I rescued from my church in junior high school to the several full-grown 100+ lb. pit bulls that I rescued with my husband in Tallahassee, I’ve had quite an assortment of species and temperaments over the years.

After a pretty intense, ab-killing workout at Cross Training San Marco yesterday, I walked out to the back parking lot, opened my car door and sat down. At 8:30 in the morning, it’s already too warm for comfort, so I left the car door open as I situated all of my workout gear.

As I was turning away from my passenger seat to close the car door, a little ball of fur came leaping into my car, settling down on my lap where it began to purr. After I got over the initial shock, my heart melted into a puddle on my floor mat. Cradling the thin little bundle of cute, I shut the door and drove the little guy to the sanctuary of B|G HQ.

Anna & Sushi Getting to Know Each Other

When I walked in the door with the little tyke, he got a warm reception from everyone and happily basked in their affection. With help from Brandon, I got the kitten fed and Brandon and I tossed potential names back and forth. As both of us are lovers of all things “kawaii,” we ended up settling on “Sushi.”

After a trip to the First Coast No More Homeless Pets Clinic, Sushi got a clean bill of health and was ready to come back to Saint Augustine with me and meet the rest of my fur-children: Pixel, TicTac, Aries and Jackie. After an evening of getting acquainted with the rest of the Peterson pack, I’m happy to report that Sushi is settling in well and seems to be at ease in his new home.

The torture chamber.

Three days each week, Ross at Cross Training San Marco puts Brunet-García staffers through an intense 30-minute group workout. We can “pick our own poison” and hit the gym at either 7:30AM or at 5:30PM. Burpees, free weights, pull-ups, sit-ups, jump rope, lunges, whipping the fire hose . . . you name it, Ross makes us do it. Repeatedly and without breaks. But, with my creaky knees, the simple squat is the exercise that always destroys me. By the time we finish our session, we’ve racked up anywhere between 60 and 100 squats, depending on how cleverly Ross works them into the rotation.

Friday morning is one of my two weekday mornings off from the gym. Ever the sadist, Ross insists that I tackle some extra cardio on my off-days, so this morning I decided to kill two birds, as they say. Why not get 30-45 minutes worth of cardiovascular exercise while performing my “Block by Block” clean-up, along our section of Hendricks Avenue?

At 7:45, dressed in workout clothes and running shoes, I emerged from the Brunet-García office, armed with my red knit work gloves and biodegradable trash bag. With a quick glance down Hendricks towards LaSalle, I was off. The sidewalk litter, which always piles up as the week wears on, didn’t look too bad this humid Friday morning. “Great,” I thought, “this should be an easy 20-minute circuit, then I’m back to a nice café con leche at my air-conditioned desk.”

Ross, when I see you again on Tuesday, I won’t complain. I did far more than 100 deep squats this morning. Again and again, I squatted and scrambled to pluck cigarette butts from the steamy sidewalk, grass borders and landscaped tree planters. The trees and planters are supposed to be one of our neighborhood’s gifts from the Better Jacksonville Plan, but have become Jack Rabbits’ ash and butt receptacles, pre- and post-concert.

Here’s my sweat-infused plea: Hendricks business neighbors – particularly the management of Jack Rabbits – please join Region’s Bank, High Tide Burrito, Paul Figura Photography, Tropical Smoothie, Tidbits, St. Johns Riverkeeper, Stan’s, Jimmy Johns and Brunet-García to keep the sidewalk in front of your business clean. Litter begets litter. Cigarette butt litter causes blight, doesn’t disappear, and travels through storm water systems to destroy our waterways and wildlife.

Ash receptacles like the ones that have been installed in Hemming Plaza and Riverside cost a mere $125 per unit. The City of Jacksonville will install them if businesses buy them, but business owners are responsible for emptying them on a regular basis. I am looking into one for the vicinity of 1510 Hendricks Avenue. Mr. Jack Rabbits, won’t you do the same?

On a positive note, just the same as litter begets litter, clean-up begets clean-up. A sun-leathered gentleman about 50, was waiting to catch the JTA bus at the corner of Hendricks and LaSalle bound for Beach Boulevard. He curiously watched as I scratched around the tree planter in front of Awards Unlimited. Next thing I knew, he bent over to pick up two styrofoam cups and a smashed cigarette carton. Coming towards me with a friendly smile and “good morning,” he reached over to add the trash to my bulging bag. I thanked him, and as he turned to leave, he spotted a wadded-up paper towel and cardboard cup, both stuffed into the tree limbs above me.

We shrugged in disbelief. Litter nestled between the branches of a pristine, white crape myrtle! Really? Wake up Jacksonville! Each plastic cup, each beer bottle, each candy wrapper, each cigarette butt you carelessly shed to lighten your load is steadily building our neighborhood trash heap, or washing down the storm drains to destroy our river.

But maybe I shouldn’t complain. Ross will be proud that I sandwiched in a smokin’ Friday morning workout. Some 100+ squats and a gallon of sweat later, the 1500 block of Hendricks Avenue is butt-free! At least until the weekend crowd cues up in front of Jack Rabbits later today…

But let’s back up.

It all started on Facebook about a month ago. (Doesn’t it always?) One of my creative writing buddies had posted pictures of two of the cutest bundles of fur I’d ever laid eyes on. I sent her a message, inquiring as to how she had met the wild little bundles of cute.

That’s how I found out about the St. Augustine Wild Reserve, home to some pretty wild animals like wolves, tigers, lions, mountain lions, Egyptian swamp cats, servals and lemurs. I cruised around the site for a bit, scheduled a tour, and arranged a way to kidnap my dad and little sister for the big day.

The reserve was started in 1995 as an alternative to euthanasia for unwanted exotic animals. While some of the animals, like the tiger cubs Turuk and Seze (pronounced ‘zhey zhey’), were born at the Reserve, most of the animals have a sad history of abuse or neglect.

Looking at Turuk & Seze, it’s not hard to imagine what some former owners of these exotic animals might have been thinking. How can you not fall down and worship at the altar of their undeniable cuteness?

Taking the tour and meeting some of their full-grown counterparts, however, quickly put the kibosh on whatever crazy ideas I might have been formulating up until then (much to my husband’s relief). Watching a 450 lb. tigress scarf down an 8 lb. dish of raw meat in a matter of minutes can be a quickly sobering display.

However, an equally intriguing (if less intimidating display) came when we met an 800(ish) lb. male tiger. When larger cats (lions or tigers) are are feeling affectionate and friendly, they make a rumbling noise called “chuffing.” Apparently, mountain lions are the biggest cats that still purr. Who knew?

As the trainers made the rounds during our tour, this 800 lb. tiger was chuffing his heart out and enjoying the chin scratches of his human family. It was all to easy to forget once more how different these big cats are from their “domesticated” counterparts.

But the undisputed group favorite for the day was our playtime with Turuk and Seze. You can check out some of their adorable antics below:

Since our Earth Day kick-off, we have collected about 30 bags of trash. Two employees handle clean-up every week and we pick up 2 to 3 full bags each week. The most outrageous finds have been pants, the remnants of a birthday party complete with rotting cake and plastic cups, and some shoes – never a pair, just one lone shoe.

We have had some interest from surrounding neighborhoods looking to start their own clean-up. We are continually surprised by the overwhelming support of Block X Block. Seeing the merchants of Hendricks Avenue come together to tackle this issue has been a rewarding experience. We look forward to the growth of Block X Block—one block, one neighborhood, one city at a time.

I am a credit card person. Always have been, always will be. It is just easier than bills and coins. I rarely have cash. I have no shame or cause for hesitation when I charge my $2.00 ticket at the parking garage or $.89 for a Coke at the corner market.

Today I really felt like a Coke when I remembered I actually had some change in my wallet. (I have no idea how it got there.) In the processes of counting my change, I discovered a dollar coin. I thought it was some sort of a joke, so I showed it to Aliera, who sits next to me, and she assured me it was actually money and I could really use it to buy a Coke.

A little leery, I walked down to the corner store, dollar coin in hand. At the register, a little afraid that the counterfeit police would jump out and grab me, I announced to the cashier “I have a dollar coin.” The cashier had obviously seen these crazy coins before because he just smiled and said “O.K.” and gave me my change.

As fun as it was to spend what felt like foreign currency in my hometown, I will stick to credit cards. I always know what those look like.

Photo Credit: Amy D'Alesio Boyle

Saturday morning dawned bright and it was with almost palpable excitement that I dragged my husband and a friend who was visiting us for the weekend to the Landing. An Earth Day celebration was in the works with a plethora of vendors’ tables lined up along the sidewalks leading to the courtyard. We wandered around for a bit, taking in the sites (and envying some of the arts and crafts projects going on in the kids corner of the celebration) before making our way to the Super Secret Spot (a venue that will be forever listed on FourSquare).

We mingled for a bit, waiting for the bulk of our fellow volunteers to arrive and once we had a pretty sizable group, Bonnie called everyone to order. The plan for the day? Jacksonville’s first flash mob. The purpose behind this #jaxflash? To get the NFPRSA involved in a fun event and to promote a new charitable organization called 1 Million Shirts, which is looking to collect and donate one million shirts to the people of Africa. The organization was created by Jason Sadler, founder of I Wear Your Shirt, and the website launched late last week.

For the next two hours, we got our boogie on as we learned a dance routine set to Ke$ha’s Tik Tok (which I’m still hearing in my head, btw). At the end of the two hours, we were split off into groups and set loose on the Jacksonville Landing with orders to converge on the courtyard once our music was cued. The next two minutes were a blur as we danced in front of all the Earth Day goers at the Landing, whose expressions varied between shock, amusement and excitement as they watched us shaking it in our Tebow shirts.

Photo Credit: Bonnie Upright

When the music stopped, we dispersed in every direction, slowly making our way back to the Super Secret Spot to celebrate (with a little help from the folks at the Landing who brought us libations). From there, the video’s been posted to YouTube, featured on First Coast News and tweeted about via the #jaxflash hashtag on Twitter.

But, when Jorge sent me information about The Haiti Poster Project, namely the call for entries, I shirked. “Great, an intimidatingly impossible project with very few limitations and a subject matter that can turn a witty thought into an embarrassing, offensive pun.” That was my first reaction.

But something tugged at me. “I’ve seen the reports, and the suffering, I’ve been wanting to reach out somehow. Do this. It’s your gift. Use it.” So we set it up as a studio project and worked up several concepts.

I chose this particular concept because the images focus on the spirit and humanity of happier times in the past, and hopefully, of a new Haiti to come.

The harsh reality of Haiti’s plight and the shock of the devastation caught our attention for weeks. Now, as media attention fades, the life that Haiti once knew, its vibrant people and culture, are still in ruin. “Don’t Let Haiti Get Lost in the Cracks” works to remind us that the people of Haiti still need our help. And the campaign is working tirelessly to relate this truth in a diverse way.

Find out more about The Haiti Poster Project and the volunteers who are contributing countless hours. Then buy some great posters. There are plenty to choose from and it’s for a great cause!

1957 poster

My friend Neil Rashba and Founder & Chairman of the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, Bill Warner, had gone to Cuba late last year to research the Cuban archives looking for information on the cars and drivers who had raced during those years. There, they met Eduardo Mesejo Maestre, curator of the Depósito del Automóvil, the country’s official antique car museum, who facilitated their search and introduced them to some of the old drivers who remained in Cuba. They came back with wonderful stories, great photos and were able to bring back Eduardo Maestre with them to help judge the cars of the Cuban Grand Prix.

When I got to where the cars were, I felt as if I had been transported back in time. I immediately saw a Jaguar D 3500 belonging to Alfonso Gomez-Mena. It used to be yellow and raced in 1957 under # 24. Alfonsito was a sugar baron and a family friend.

Alfonso Gomez-Mena #24 racing by the Maine Monument on El Malecon.

Alfonso Gomez-Mena’s car is now green, has a roll bar, and has lost its cool wing, but it’s still being raced!

Next, I saw Carrol Shelby’s red Ferrari 410 #98. (In Cuba, the 9 had been covered and turned into a 1, so he raced there under #18.) I met the current owner and had a long chat about how he found the car – a friend of his used to own it – and how expensive it is to keep one of these treasures running.

Carrol Shelby fueling up during a pit stop. Note the #1.

Carrol Shelby’s old car looks pretty much the same.

And sounds like a beast.

A couple of cars down was Stirling Moss’s Maserati 3000, looking the worst for wear. It’s down to the bare metal, and you can see where all the welds are; the windscreen is different, and the nose looks longer. Guess we’ve all changed some in 50 years!

Stirling Moss’s #6 Maserati 3000 next to Fangio’s #2 Maserati 3000

#6 Maserati 3000 co-driver Harry Schell

Even when down to the bare metal and showing where all the welds are, Stirling Moss’s Maserati looks fast!

It was a great show, and there were a lot of great cars. Thanks to Bill Warner for his commitment to bringing such a wonderful event to our area. Now, if only someone would bring a Grand Prix to our own Bay Street ….

Luckily for us, St. Augustine was a hopping place this past weekend with the Lions Seafood and Music Festival in downtown, the 2nd Annual Harvest of Hope Festival out at the St. Johns County Fairgrounds and the Southern Exposure Music & Heritage Festival in Alpine Groves Park.

For those who aren’t familiar, the Lions Seafood Festival is a twenty-nine year tradition of amazing food, local arts, crafts and music that takes place in Francis Field (that gated grassy area next to the new parking garage by Ripley’s Believe It or Not).

The Harvest of Hope Festival (HOHFest) is the annual fundraiser for the Harvest of Hope Foundation, a nonprofit that provides educational, financial and service-oriented aid to migrant farm workers all over the country.

We weren’t able to make it out to the Southern Exposure Music & Heritage Festival, but it definitely looks like something we might like to check out next year, as it’s touted to be a great mix of three generations of country, bluegrass, folk and blues.

I had an especially good time at HOHFest. There’s something pretty groovy about supporting a good cause and getting the chance to add some up-and-coming bands to my iPod.

Chris & Karen at HOHFest

Chris and I met up with one of our good friends, Karen, and fell in love with Fin Fang Foom, a band whose name is derived from a dragon-esque alien created by the folks at Marvel. (Or perhaps you are one of the faithful followers of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog and recognize the name from a fanfic featuring him.) Regardless of your familiarity (or not) with the dragon that is their namesake, we enjoyed their music enough to bring home a copy of their CD, Monomyth, and are in the process of working through it.

Fin Fang Foom

Perhaps the highlight of the entire day was when Billy Bragg jumped on stage with the guys from Anti-Flag to play some favorites from The Clash including one of my favorites à la Guitar Hero, “Should I Stay or Should I Go.”

All in all, the weekend was a blast and with any luck, the beautiful weather we had will carry on through the week.