“It’s like you’ve never been gone.” Wayne and Chuck said that as they put us up in their driveway in Key West.
I had my birthday dinner with them at Off The Hook on Caroline Street. Pasta and clams (and a whole lot more) for me.
Layne chose tuna.
And they did the same.
Of course I had dessert, banana pudding which Layne tasted but Wayne and Chuck are taking their exercise regimen very seriously and observed me non judgmentally overdosing on sugar. I shall celebrate no more 65th birthdays I feel pretty sure. This one I shall remember.
“It’s like you’ve never been gone,” Kristi and Rachel remarked when I popped into the police station to see how dispatch is doing without me. Not too badly apparently.
I found a room filled with smiles and good cheer and I had a thoroughly good time extolling the virtues of retirement and listening to their stories about work. I have too much to do to go back but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t greatly cheered by my visit. Dispatch is short staffed as always but they are on a upward trend impossible not to notice, in control, cohesive and smiling. I half wanted to rejoin the team. “Take the phones…” the captain said to me as 911 rung and honestly I am so used to that particular ring tone I was responding to the calls, twitching in my seat.
I owe my ability to walk to the city health care plan and the support of the department. I owe my freedom in retirement to the pension plan and I am as grateful as I can be to them. It was a good job but I had fun showing a young trainee the road to Patagonia on Google maps.
Rusty had a grand time trotting round getting pets and passing out on the cold linoleum in the kitchen.
“Whose dog is that?” “Hey, Rusty!” and he flopped around like a fish out of water waiting to be rubbed. Now I remember how I did 17 years and four months in dispatch. There were some very good times.
I went to Stock Island and had lunch with Nick. His apartment burned down during Hurricane Ian but he saved his dogs and his car while not losing his optimism.
We had a Cuban lunch at El Siboney. We spent ten years working nights together in dispatch. We answered 911 together after Hurricane Irma. A clean up crew dropped a log on his car after the storm so I say if Nick didn’t have bad luck he’d have no luck at all.
I went off the Cuban reservation and had stewed chicken fricasse with mashed potatoes. I usually have yuca but I was not following a script.
Our neighbors were having a zoom conversation during lunch which I thought was odd. However everyone drives with their phone in their hand. Why not have lunch the sane way? Nick and I had an actual conversation.
The weather is too warm and sultry to be enjoyed properly in a van. We have to plug in to keep the air conditioning going. In the evening Rusty and I spent some time walking to avoid the sun, like the good old days.
We had lunch with a friend at Oasis an Uzbek restaurant on White Street. I had a kachapurri which is melted cheese in pastry with a loose egg on top. You don’t see these too often so I dived in. Our friend lives in the Casa Marina district and his house was recently valued at more than four million dollars, despite no money put into a 600,000 home when he bought it. He was not happy because as he said there is no reason for such an over-valuation. The prices are ruining Key West and as one who doesn’t need the money he sees the negative side of the problem very clearly.
I don’t know how the chickens survive but they seem to thrive in a world where their wandering is a tourist attraction. See here outside the Harvey Government center on Truman.
I just shake my head when I see cyclists on the Seven Mile Bridge. I’m not that brave.
We spent some time swimming at the Ramrod Pool, a while in the ground dig deep and square for a development that never happened. Locals use it as a picnic location to swim their dogs. We swim but Rusty doesn’t.
Take out the hours spent at work. Take out the drinking and fishing. That’s what’s left. Dinner with friends.
Enjoy the water, if not the process of making a selfie.
And enjoy being a tourist. Not a resident!
