When Bruce and Celia came back to the Keys for a weekend visit they were most keen to sink their fangs into a cheese toast once again at the Five Brothers Deli on Ramrod Key. I was attempting to record the immortal moment on my Nikon and got a pretty poor shot of Celia. Bruce started laughing, pointing out how she looked like someone caught on a security camera; with that thought in mind I present the image here, as unflattering as it may be hoping earnestly Bruce gets into trouble:
Bruce and Celia are easy guests and fell comfortably under the spell my wife's latest incarnation, that of tour guide. So off we went at breakneck speed revisiting Bruce and Celia's old haunts from when they lived on their sailboat in Key West. First the Arts and Crafts Fair on Whitehead Street:
Which was where my wife snagged a couple of earrings and a picture frame and Celia bartered her life for a watch band. As Celia wandered from booth to booth it was Bruce's turn to look gormless.
We tromped across town and tried the new Indian place on Duval, lacking in ambiance perhaps but the food met our standards. We skipped across the street from India Cafe and laid into the almost thirty flavors offered by Flamingo Crossing. Celia looks a good deal less gormless when she's lapping up a chocolate laden cone, than she does when impersonating someone caught on a security camera.
Then with sunset rapidly approaching we took off for the southernmost point-the one at Fort Zachary is as good as any other point:
Our little tour of the Fort inspired me to wander off and take a few pictures for a future diary entry.
The entourage apparently didn't miss me: 
Then we dragged B and C to Seven Fish which dinner went across a treat and from there to the Waterfront Playhouse for a drop of play acting by pros of a Saturday night. Tuesdays with Morrie was the offering and I found myself a tad disturbed to realise I had most of Morrie's life lesson already worked out on my own. It was an affecting performance.
Then we repaired to Stock Island for lunch at Hog fish where we took a drive and admired the state of deshabille of this island nearest Key West. Bruce depressed me as he checked out the impending development: he decided immediately the City of Key West will be annexing Stock Island and I suppose he's right, only I fear annexation as it would make my job harder. It's all about me, face it.
From there we lined up in a howling north wind to partake of a fundraiser for the Monroe Association of Retarded Citizens, known as the Marc House. The event was held at the Pier House in lovely waterfront sunshine chilled by the blisteringly cold wind:
A dozen chefs cooked like crazy for us and we ate and voted and ate some more. Robert, occasionally mentioned in this blog was among those standing around in the cold. "Oh Robert," Celia said as I introduced him. "You really do exist!" And so, here he is stuffing his face on a chocolate burrito from Finnegan's Wake:
I quizzed our guests and we got enough votes to bring the tour to a close with an unplanned trip to the Tropic Cinema:
Where we were met by a warming cup of Zabar's coffee in the lobby (Bruce is the one with the hat, shading him from...the indoor sun?) followed by a showing of Atonement, a film Celia fondly expected to be a nice heart warming chick flick.
Not exactly; this was a British take on love and misery and death, a suitable follow up to the saccharine story of Tuesdays with Morrie. From there home to bed, cowering under the blankets as the persistent north wind howled and temperatures plunged to around 64 degrees.Bruce and I have a lot of laughs together and its a shame he is allergic to mosquitoes, sunshine and humidity, which makes living in South Florida impossible for him. When they were looking for somewhere to retire to, Celia's desire to live in Santa Fe met the bill, a place that has never made it onto my radar screen, though now I'm curious about the town. Not least since Bruce was complaining bitterly about the cold. His theory is that 64 degrees in the Keys is colder than 20 degrees in Santa Fe which sounds like rubbish to me. Celia has a clearer take on the subject: "Bruce is full of crap. Its his job." And he is too. He talks about having to shovel snow when he gets home and chip dog shit that freezes in the yard after they let the dogs out, and Celia tells stories about how she couldn't drive their two-wheel drive car for a month last year after they got snowed in. These two lived most of their lives in California like me and they like me, never had to own a snow shovel. Now they own two and I've never even seen a snow shovel other than this example, a joke under a neighbor's house:
Its weird to me, to want to retire to a place that freezes regularly, that is colder than hell and that exists around 7,000 feet above sea level. "Its dry" Bruce says mouthing off all the time about how humidity is bad for him. It must be true even if he is full of crap, they seem to be thriving on a diet of New Mexico. Which is all very well, but it's Key West that has chickens in the streets, not snow: 
and Celia is so sweet and innocent she actually clucks at the chickens and finds them charming. She should have taken a couple home with her, they'd probably be smarter company than Bruce who forgot his shoes on my porch.
How do you take off for a day of travel across country without your shoes? Only God and Bruce know the answer to that. I'm sure he'll make up some totally unbelievable crap about why they got left behind probably because its not cold enough in Santa Fe to require footwear. He really does believe his own crap where I refuse to no matter how funny it may be.
