And the Angel of Cleanliness had the same reaction as Lori when my wife told her she was off to Tampa for a few days. "Oooh, excellent. Shopping!" In fact so keen were they to go shopping that my wife and her colleague left town early to put in some quality time at the outlet maul near Fort Myers. Its one of those things, shopping as recreation. Everyone on the island misses it. Except me.---------------------------
The locally owned supermarket in Key West, Fausto's Food Palace has been offering clever little shopping bags for sale. I'm not much of a shopper and I'm not interested in clutter but I do carry a couple of these excellent bags in my saddlebag, especially to pick up groceries as part of the daily grind. We keep four in each car as well and my wife uses hers all the time. We haven't used plastic or paper sacks at the supermarket in months.
Chico bags has a website where they offer these clever nylon sacks at $5 apiece or five for $20 and they come in a rainbow of colors, if that's important. They also take back worn out bags and re-manufacture them into fresh Chico bags. The profoundly clever thing about Chico bags is that they are self contained and fold into themselves:
Which means you have a 20-pound carrying capacity in an 18-inch by 18-inch shopping bag that folds into a ball that fits in the palm of your hand. These aren't typical bulky canvas carry sacks. These you can't fail to carry with you into the store:
And they also come with a handy little clip so you can secure them to your person or your purse. I have made a habit of overloading my Chico bags and they are very tough and durable. They dry instantly as they are made of nylon and they are very useful to carry all the crap that accumulates in a busy life, school books, left overs, even trash and they can be tossed in the washing machine with the laundry.
A couple of Chico bags in the saddlebags lend great versatility to the motorcycle-as-daily-pack mule concept. Plus they may be good for the planet, if you care.
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On the subject of saving the planet I am a member of the Sierra Club, and they have been irritating me lately, most recently with a piece on automobiles. They talk about "greening the planet" which in itself is an irritating phrase to me, because I dislike the nasty habit of turning nouns into verbs, or adjectives into verbs. There are plenty of verbs already in the English language. Greening their ride is a fusty look at what car to drive and be ecologically aware (!). What cage to make cell phone calls from. What four wheeler to buy to clutter up the roads. I appreciate that riding a motorcycle is as much about passion as it is about utility or low gas consumption, but modern scooters are an entirely reasonable proposition for the Sierra Club to consider. Instead we get a review of motor cars that manage mileage between 20mpg and 46 mpg (thePrius). Modern scooters anyone? 70mpg any greening anyone? Not if you are a blinkered Sierra Club editor apparently. They aren't totally opposed to two wheels though as a form of trail wrecking sport:
Pedal bike: good. Motor bike: bad. Go figure. I've got to find somewhere else to waste my money. I am too much the motorized wild one for these fuddy duddies.
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For the past week or more we had been having odd weather, the wind kept clocking round from east to southwest like we are supposed to get a cold front, but the cold front took a while to get here so we got to enjoy temperatures in the upper 80's and a fair bit of humidity too, which all felt very summery. A perfect opportunity for dinner al fresco on the porch with friends.
It makes up for a lot, including hurricanes, high cost of living and lack of amenity to name a few, to able to sit out in February, drink wine and feel the fan whipping the stagnant night air into motion. To able to do this with Lisa and Josh makes it extra good, as they are smart, well traveled and with an eye for the absurd they make an evening fly by.
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Gratuitous motorcycle picture on Spain Boulevard, Cudjoe Key.
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And regarding the Citizen newspaper's incredible editorial this Sunday, February 24th, wherein the Editorial Board listed all the headlines from the past eight months outlining the deficit of common sense in the County Commission's Gang of Three. To quote from the paper: ...stories about inept leadership and poor decision-making in county government are just beginning to click (for residents) now that layoffs, reduced services and higher taxes are becoming reality. We are going to be voting this fall and one hopes we will collectively manage to oust these cretins. I was heartened by the newspaper's scathing editorial, perhaps change will come and it will make things better. Optimism, a much over rated quality in local politics.
