I was thinking to myself that this is the time of year when people put up Christmas decorations and perhaps I could photograph them.
And then I saw this simple juxtaposition of traditional pine needle and palm with the red stuff:
And I thought this gutter ball was imaginative. My sisters would have slapped me had I had the imagination to suggest putting Christmas ornaments
outside the house (they were the Gauleiters in charge of decorations in my childhood):
On White Street I spotted more Xmas ribbon alongside a strong sartorial statement from the hip youth:
And then I got bored. So I thought what about just celebrating the Christmas decorative season with photos of red stuff? Like these red shorts on a person I'm guessing wears a parka at home this time of year:
And while I'm busy guessing I'm going to stick this dude in the same category. People come to Key West to let it all hang out and tie dyed may have gone out of fashion long enough ago that even I am aware of it's passing, but so what?
On a more traditional note I figured Old Glory at the White Street Armory gave the picture enough red to be included:
And it seems I am not the only fan of Netflix. I
wanted to borrow the envelope and see what this stranger enjoys watching but I limited myself to a picture of the red bordered envelope bound for their Fort Lauderdale warehouse:
This next is a bit of a stretch but there is something vaguely pink about this formal interior spotted as I walked by:
The figurehead on the old sponge warehouse on Fleming Street is a redhead I think. The convenient green stuff is algae or seaweed or something:
I have learned to despise publicly the ubiquitous bougainvillea thanks to the contempt expressed by a Man who rides a scooter in Turkey, but secretly I still like these bushes:
I added to my collection of kids art on city fireplugs:
And the Haitian Art Gallery on Southard Street is still going out of business slowly, slowly. I keep telling my wife pretty soon he'll be gone for good but she is resisting making another purchase for now. Not that a suppurating crucifixion would be likely to find it's way into our home, but I can add it here as the figure bleeds red. I am going to miss the gallery when it finally goes:
In my pursuit of red of an afternoon I thought a simple old fashioned stop sign said something particular against a blue and green background:
I saw this card in the window and though I don't know who Molly might be, she has to have done something right to be greeted like this when she arrives:
What this contraption might be, found loitering next to the library I have no idea. A parrot's gymnasium perhaps:
A Fleming Street view with a red bumper sticker. I took my self imposed "red mandate" fairly lightly:
And a red brick chimney on top of the Spottswood building at the corner of Fleming and Simonton Streets:
You never know what you'll see when you look up in Key West. This next one I think must be some sort of chain store coming to the 400 block of Eaton Street. It was just getting stocked as I strolled by and I believe all the merchandise is stuff...advertised on the box. I guess someone must care about that sort of thing:
And in closing something I prefer over another doodad made in China, is a prickly pear made in Key West:
Which reminds me I need to go out and fight the doves for some of the rapidly ripening sea grapes in my yard.
"Good idea coming here," my wife said to me after we completed our first brief visit to the pile shown above. It's a house dating back to the First World War that was built for the pleasure of a man who,as far as I can tell was a confirmed bachelor. There is no mention in the literature of a Mrs James Dearing, so what we have here is the product of the fevered imaginations of four men.
Apparently the three designers, Messers Hoffman Suarez and Chalfin were charged by the Vice President of International Harvester with creating a villa that was to have appeared to have been lived in for 400 years but was actually constructed from scratch in two...The whole thing covered almost 200 acres on the shores of Biscayne Bay and included a farm modeled on an Italian village. All this extravagance lasted less than ten years for James Dearing who went to a better place (where, one wonders? He had Earthly homes in Chicago, New York Paris and here in pioneering Miami) in 1925.
Nowadays $10 gets a Dade county residence inside the grounds, and it costs other plebs from elsewhere fully fifteen dollars. However one might consider it well worthwhile if rococo limestone is to your taste:
Josh and Lisa appeared to find this place as fascinating as my wife and I did:
For some people the Viscaya mansion, named for a Spanish province, is just another day at the office:
In the literature this building is compared favorably to Hearst castle in California, which is not unreasonable given the emphasis on artistry and overly elaborate decorations. Personally I thought Viscaya looked quite a bit like the Biltmore estate in Asheville, North Carolina. However neither of the other famous mansions faces onto Biscayne Bay:
And it just so happens that James Dearing's private suite of rooms, upstairs inside the mansion happened to overlook this "venetian yacht harbor" a location that Josh thought might be quite the spot to lounge on the balcony and smoke a large cigar, his recurring fantasy:
The house apparently fell into some disrepair after the owner's death before it was opened to the public in 1953. Nowadays the place is quite magnificent and my pictures really don't do it justice. The place has to be seen, a magnificent courtyard in the center surrounded by a magnificent series of rooms decorated, over decorated perhaps for my taste with tapestries, paintings statuary and elaborate candelabras and chandeliers framed in gilt.
Lisa told me that National Geographic rated the gardens as the best formal gardens in North America, which is high accolades indeed,though I have no clue how one rates such things. There's no doubt the gardens that remain (the vegetable farm has long since disappeared) are outstanding and beautifully maintained. Apparently they represent classical European gardens adapted to the sub tropics which seems reasonable enough to me. Villa D'Este outside Rome should feel the competition, I think:
In the midst of this beauty we came across a wedding photographer doing his thing. We were quite surprised when the "groom" dashed past us, a child in an ill fitting man's suit. It seemed beyond his ability to have got the bride in the family way to have forced the issue of marriage on one so young...
Until we figured this was a Latin quinceanera, the celebration of a girl's fifteenth birthday to mark her accession to womanhood and all the responsibility that entails. Marriage would come later. Lisa started pondering what a young girl might do to top this event in this spectacular location when marriage in fact rears its head for her. "Can't do better than Viscaya," was the general sentiment. At which point the Latin inscription on the sundial comes into play:
Accept the gifts of the hour joyfully and relinquish them stoically, which it should be noted is easier said than done in real life. In our world jet aircraft speed us on our way at six hundred miles per hour, a speed that makes it easy for us not to notice the jewels in our midst.
I've known about this place for the better part of twenty years yet this was my first visit, thanks in part to too much jetting around. I hope it won't be my last.
The streets of Ocala's historic district are a pleasant place to walk a dog, with lots of Live Oak trees, dangling the Spanish Moss beloved of horror movies to give that macabre look to a neighborhood:
The cold front hadn't reached North Florida by last night so the temperatures, it has to be said, were quite pleasant, hovering just below seventy degrees. I had on a sweatshirt as a precaution but I might have been able to get quite aways round the block without getting knocked down by the dreaded mainland night time frost. Rosie and I spent about an hour wandering hither and yon and just like Key west we saw some houses:
Some in better shape than others:
And we watched the sun set over the...no not the Straits of Florida, but the plains...of somewhere...Anyway I watched it get dark while Rosie ploughed a furrow through some bushes with her nose:
Rosie showed no signs of flagging, not surprising as Nancy's idea of a foundling dog is a super energetic beagle, so we kept walking. And walking. And walking and to my profound relief she never did take a dump, as Nancy had promised me she wouldn't. I've quit picking up after dogs ever since Emma died, so Rosie was exemplary in that regard (I am a responsible dog walker even 400 miles from home). And as it got dark the houses lit up:
Deck the palms...even the stubby little ones. Especially the stubby little ones.... 
She is house proud of her historic home in Ocala, a home that cost a good deal less than it would have in Key West or on her favorite island Big Pine Key:
We brought her a Conch Republic flag for Hanukkah.