Hurricane Ike And The Overloaded Suitcase

I got up this morning just after the eleven o'clock bulletin was issued by the National Hurricane Center. The news eclipsed the fact that my home is a chaotic shambles, my wife's plans to fly to Turkey tomorrow make our little home look like a Category Three has already mauled us, which means that as I'm off tonight I can look forward to a last evening together of sitting on bulging suitcases and frantic pursuit of last minute lost objects. My wife is a wonderful woman but to travel with her is to know how it must feel to watch your Sherpas abandon you on the slopes of Mount Everest and to be left staring on the trail at a large heap of all your belongings with no way to move them. The car we will use to transport Herself and her paraphernalia to the Key West Airport has been looking anxious for several days. Where was I?

Oh yes Hurricane Ike. Well I am officially pissed off. Every single day the National Hurricane Center has been edging Hurricane Ike's path nearer and nearer to my house and this morning it looks like it's either going to be Ramrod Key or Marathon that is going to be run down by this nasty looking storm. I think somebody at the NHC hates Triumph Bonnevilles and is putting the little dotted line over my house for a reason. Then at the bottom of the discussion they write "it's too early to tell where Ike is going to go exactly so ignore the dotted line..." Easier said than done. Perhaps I could get my wife to stay so all her ample suitcases filled with dead bodies can anchor the house down on Tuesday and Wednesday. (My days OFF please note! I just can't catch a break this week). The dance of the demented hurricane shutters is scheduled for Sunday afternoon, no matter what they say about the bloody dotted line.

2:25pm

Okay, now I'm anxious. I just got a call from work checking that I did volunteer to stay at the Police Department in a Category Four. Hell it was easy to volunteer on a cool sunny winter afternoon! Mind you I have no children (my wife says she has one every time we go shopping together) and as of tomorrow she will be safely out of harms way flying to Turkey. Talk about timing...

9:50pm

Now I'm told the city is planning visitor evacuations for Saturday morning and residents will be facing a mandatory evacuation on Sunday morning preparatory to a possible category Four storm hitting the Keys Tuesday. There are still lots of possible paths for Ike and I hope it chooses to miss the Keys. But it's only a hope at this point. Oh well, I went to the Grotto today- photos to follow...

Chasin' The Wind

I have quite a lot in common with writer Michael Haskins though I have never met him. Like him I sailed to Key West from California. He from Southern California, I from the northern part, which makes a difference to Californians. He works for the city of Key West, as do I though in radically different departments. He has written the novel I thought about writing a while back and never got to a conclusion. Or at least the only conclusion I got to was that I had nothing much to say that would fill a coherent book.He on the other hand did get the job done.I read the mystery and found it to be a decent workmanlike job. It's set in contemporary Key West and follows a more or less believable plot involving drinking, killing, boats and Cubans. The first person narrative is peppered with insider commentary on Key West, and I have to confess I found the separation of tourists from us locals to be tedious. I suppose it's necessary to give readers who don't live in Key West the feeling of insider status. Never did I live in a community where being a local conferred so much status inside the heads of some people. And the good writer takes notice of that fact.

For myself I gave up on the idea of writing a book years ago. Aside from the fact I can't stay interested in my own narrative beyond a certain length, it's an unhappy fact that a modern writer has to be a modern salesperson and that isn't me. Perhaps it is Michael Haskins, he has a website chronicling the marketing tedium in a world saturated with mysteries. In his cover photo from the book he actually even looks a bit like me or vice versa:Not really, we're just two white men with beards you might say. If you need a Key West fix this winter check out his novel. It will put you right in the streets of Key West for a few fast paced hours, and it makes more narrative sense than my blog.