Ambient Photography

I wonder how much I would pay were I to lose Cheyenne? Of all the scenarios simply losing a dog would be quite terrible. In fact when my wife and I were cruising Central America my worst fear was losing a dog overboard or ashore and freaking out wondering what had happened. The one time one of our dogs did fall overboard we were at anchor in a deserted cove in Costa Rica and Debs was sitting on the beach soaking wet when we woke up to find him off the boat. He was a husky who hated to swim, and he was watching the boat waiting for us to wake up and take him home. Which we promptly did and made an appalling fuss of him. Another time Emma our yellow Lab got fed up walking the baking hot streets of La Union in El Salvador and stepped onto a bus without our noticing. We retraced our steps at a run and there she was sitting next to the driver waiting for a lift. We hailed a cab and rode back to our dinghy in style; she had made her point.I don't miss living at anchor though sometimes I miss being away from civilization away from deadlines and obligations. But then I wouldn't get to walk my dog at the Bat Tower on Sugarloaf.And I wouldn't get to drift past the Salvation Army store on Flagler Avenue and ponder the ease of a life spent chatting on a sidewalk. I am not a man much capable of small talk. the weather bores me after a while, sports mean nothing to me, and where-are-you-from seems invasive. I'd rather have a drop down drag out debate about politics or religion but that just offends people raised in the milquetoast tradition of not causing offense. So I wonder how people sit around and talk about nothing all day.And they watch the world go by. Sometimes they have an interesting collection of CDs at the Sally Army. The city commission has managed to avoid taking action ion several issues of great moment. Previously I mentioned the parking changes recommended by the expert the city commission hired to organize parking, whose recommendations they subsequently ignored. The business of city employees using blowers was debated momentarily, in the paper and out and then the matter was hastily dropped.The plan was to test the possibility of banning city employees from using leaf blowers but the thin end of the wedge was quoted and a Bilderberg plan to outlaw all such machines was envisioned. It's hard to imagine a town that can't get whole heartedly behind recycling summoning the nerve to ban dust blowers outright but the fear was raised. Key West as Aspen seems an unlikely future. I watched from outside city limits and listened to the storm burbling in the tea cup. Key West: city of a 23,000 inhabitants and a million angry opinions. About everything which makes it even more puzzling to consider how much pointless weather related small talk goes on on the sidewalks.