Mostly White Street

Every time it starts out with me simply walking my dog cruising along happily minding my own business. Then it happens: I see something and wonder where my camera is, and then I remember it's just a pocket Canon, as it were and right there, so out it comes and then the walk turns into a stop and start tug of leash as Cheyenne finds something to smell and jerks me to a halt, then I find something to photograph and she has to stand there patiently while I get the focus and exposure settings. It's very herky jerky."This estate..." I just couldn't let that one pass without a comment. The estate appears to be a couple of nice conch cottages.The backside of the former Jose's Cantina on White Street hasn't changed much. I noticed the exhaust fan was running madly... ...and it was only when I got around to the front that I realised the ex-Cuban Restaurant is coming back as something else.It was a drizzly day, overcast and threatening rain. The temperature was pleasant enough but the light was pretty crappy for pictures, not that Cheyenne was deterred. She always likes a city walk, as do I though for different reasons.There was something forlorn about the window unit, silent on this cool winter day, sitting high above the street. I always feel lucky to have central air at home which is much quieter and more efficient in the thick heat of summer. This sign had some ridiculous statement about no hunting trapping or fishing while trespassing. One wonders if elk lurk beyond the high fence. Looking across White Street past the patch of green which is listed as a 19th century military cemetery I could see the back of the storage lockers on Gonzalez Lane in the Meadows. Gonzalez is one of those tiny block-long alleys that one only really gets to know if either one lives there or one dispatches the police around town to all the obscure lanes and alleys.Elizabeth Bishop's house got a contemporary touch with a bicycle hanging under the porch. She lived here from 1938 to 1944 apparently. At which point she decided Brazil with her girlfriend was a better choice than Key West with Tennessee Williams around the corner. Considering how cold it's been lately Brazil doesn't sound so bad at all. From "The Bight" 1948:

The frowsy sponge boats keep coming in
with the obliging air of retrievers,
bristling with jackstraw gaffs and hooks
and decorated with bobbles of sponges.
There is a fence of chicken wire along the dock
where, glinting like little plowshares,
the blue-gray shark tails are hung up to dry
for the Chinese-restaurant trade.

Poetry is all very well, but prosaic Key West keeps moving along. On the lawn inside the former Navy Housing at Peary Court we see a weather station, terribly modern and functional of course. I could have told it the weather was about to break and rain was imminent.At Southard Street I saw this line worker connecting a new cement pole to the phone system. I asked his comrade shuffling paper in the cab of the truck how long it might take to connect the bundled red wires and the yellow wires and he looked startled. "Shouldn't take too long then," I answered my own question, "done by tea time." He gave me a sickly grin. Well, there were a lot of wires up there.Familiar decorative motifs in Key West:How far would one have to go to see an elderly gentle structure like this one, in daily use on a street in a North American city?

It's a cold time of year in Key West and lots of people have boots and sweaters and wool watch caps on their heads. Last weekend in the middle of the cold front night time lows were in the mid 50s- 12C.As I walked down White to Stump Lane and then back on Frances I passed a bunch of homes typical of Key West, in style and decoration.

Alexander's guest house looked huge from this angle. Maybe it is vast.

This cat was busy chasing an insect across the windowpane. It gave up in disgust seconds later.Lovely old Key West.

Louvered windows are special but louvered shutters look just as good to me.

This car was filled with possessions as though the journey was more like a move. The sentiment apparently came from Asheville, North Carolina, a hotbed of alternative living which I know quite well as my sister-in-law lives there. I like Asheville real well except summer is about three weeks long and the rest of the time it's freezing cold (by my tropical standards).

My neighbors apparently have been puzzled by a tree growing on my lot, a gift from Robert and Dolly. "Pomegranate?" they said,"I never knew it grew here." Well, neither did I but Dolly assured me it would do fine and so it has. I doubt this pomegranate in Cafe Sole's window was grown locally.

I have no clue what these are but I liked the color and the shape.

And so it went, we squeezed the walk in before the heavens opened up and as the rain slashed down we both were back in the car and headed out of town. Just as well really, this tourist season seems quite busy this year, economic downturn or no, and the city seems packed with people.