A Grumpy Little Hamaca Park

I am not a fan of Hallmark Holidays, those moments of bliss manufactured by advertisers and merchants that are deployed during the calendar year to convince us to waste time and money on sentiments that corporations should have no access to. It was just after Valentine's Day, a holiday guaranteed to make me grumpy as prostituting the historic Bishop of Terni (my home town http://conchscooter.blogspot.com/2008/02/love-and-tolerance.html ) in the name of selling flowers and chocolates is a corporate invasion of privacy bound to piss off a sensitive soul like me such that I took my dappled dog Cheyenne hunting the smells lurking in the bushes at Little Hamaca City Park.She prowled the trail, nose down, darting back and forth and paying absolutely no attention to me. At times she was barely visible in the undergrowth.These are the walks that I rate a success. The ones when she stands staring at me are the boring ones and then I feel guilty. Little Hamaca is the cluster of woods between the airport and the Riviera Canal in that part of the city of key West known as New Town. It is a hammock of trees and bushes growing on a chunk of raised ground that isn't ever supposed to flood. It has a rather poor reputation as a hang out for drunks and bums and shy men seeking the solace of the love that dare not speak it's name, mostly I'm told men who pretend to be straight and are thus unable to come out in the numerous and entirely acceptable gay locations around town. In my not terribly frequent forays into Little Hamaca I have never been accosted or molested but I seem to have a facility for blithely ignoring that which freaks out other, more sensitive people. You have been warned.Evidence of drinking was everywhere and it's not like there aren't plenty of trash cans in the park.
It was a lovely scenic sunny day with a light fresh winter breeze continuing to make the outdoors perfect. As we were next door to the airport there were planes in the sky.The plane was towing a message. You know what they say about marriage, in Italy where I grew up: a year of flames, a year of embers and thirty years of ashes. Don't do it Lori! Cheyenne and I are like an old married couple when we go strolling along together. She started to break out onto Airport Boulevard separating herself from me...I watched the sky a bit more, waiting for Lori to float her reply: "Bugger off!" but perhaps she, like me, had no idea who had paid for the banner...Anyone who comes to Key West Diary looking for cloying sentiment and valentine platitudes is in the wrong place. Where was I? Oh yes, beautiful skies...

It was just a glorious afternoon with not an icicle or snow shower in sight.

Down in the shrubbery the colors were magnificent also.

Cheyenne and I were scampering along and enjoying ourselves as only we know how. You'd think the bushes would be packed with people scampering their dogs, but not a bit of it. I expect they were all standing around in the dog park avoiding making eye contact.

I also found one solitary boot complete with a sock inside.I have no idea what happened to the other one. Perhaps this one got left behind when they dragged the body away. Idle speculation is all I can offer so now we should consider instead the natural beauty of prickly pears, nature's equivalent to conchscooter, prickly on the outside and ... something else on the inside one hopes...I have spent far too much time being nice to strangers lately. I think it's time to revert to form and contemplate the wonders of nature without human backup, much as Saint Francis of Assisi did in his hermitage near my former home in Umbria.

Except he didn't have a fat happy Labrador to console him, as the breed was only recognized in England in 1820. They arrived as boat dogs on vessels from Canada, Newfoundland actually before it was part of the Dominion and the English thought they were splendid. Which they are.

All this and a cheerful wife at home ready to make up for the lack of human company encountered in the bushes at Little Hamaca. Which was probably just as well if they do indeed have acts of gross indecency on their minds.I did meet some people on my way out on Government Road.

I didn't speak with them but my gesture of goodwill was not to run them over as I swept by. Valentino, Bishop of Terni (Interamna as it was known to the Romans of the day) would have been proud.

No Name With Friends

There are times when friends want to walk their dogs with you, so you pile into their car and let them drive.Being a passenger is novelty for me, and for Cheyenne the novelty is that as we travel she can get my attention.Chuck and Wayne are practicing letting their Vizlas off the leash and this trail on No Name Key is isolated enough their dogs will be safe and will come back. They did. By February the southern reaches of No Name are dry enough to walk, and yield views south across the mangroves and the waters of Bogie Channel, the water that separates No Name from Big Pine Key.Wayne. He was having a better time than appears in this picture. A fine figure of a man.Dead trees. I love the views from this part of No Name Key.Wayne was fascinated by the dead car sitting and decomposing on the dried mud. Chuck watched with the patience of man not in a hurry.How this Buick got here and why it was left here to fade away in the salt water and salt air we will probably never know. It looks, by the type of plastic to have been left here long after Alpha 66 was using this island to train for the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. Wayne was fascinated by the differential flaking apart in the semi-submerged marine environment.When I pointed out that metals in this climate don't last nearly as long as we are told they will, Wayne told me to take a picture of a beer can rotting almost before our very eyes. Supposedly these cans will last for centuries when dumped; this one is rotting away even before the label fades. Tootie (or Zuzu, I can't tell them apart) started to urge more progress, so we left the scene of the wreck and plunged inland through the mangroves.One last look at Bogie Channel and the Overseas Highway Bridge to West Summerland Key......and we were back in the shade of the trees. Chuck led the way, waving a stick to fend off the cobwebs built across the abandoned trail. "I feel like Cardinal Woolsey," he announced, one of those incongruous statements that make no sense in the middle of nowhere. He was comparing his stick to the crosier carried by Sam Neil, Cardinal Woolsey in the TV series The Tudors, and when I remembered that the homoerotic romps of half naked men has been a staple entertainment in their household the comment suddenly had context. I have started watching The Tudors on their recommendation and it is indeed splendid fun, a soap opera in costume with a vice for every taste.Cheyenne's vice is mangrove water and now she is training the boys' dogs to do the same.They however, did not seem to find the tannin infused waters of the mangrove swamp as appetizing as Cheyenne does. She will seek out these puddles and wallow in them and drink them and spurn my water bottle back at the car. And no, her peculiar habits cause her no gastrointestinal problems. Bryce wondered how bad she smells after her immersions. I have had swimming Labradors in the past and the trick is to use Head and Shoulders shampoo on their weekly baths. Then when the dog gets wet she smells not of wet dog but Head and Shoulders. I was told years ago that dandruff shampoo is really good for washing poison oak out of a dog's fur. And yes, I know that weekly baths are excessive but my dogs' coats look great with weekly shampooing. And form time to time she snags chocolate too... I have no idea how my dogs flourish with all the fears and phobias that are attached to modern dog ownership.The ride back was fun for me, as I got the seat of honor so I could take pictures from the front seat of the anglers on the bridge.It was a lovely day, brisk and breezy and sunny. Not everyone was well wrapped up for the cool north breeze.Even the Key Deer were out noshing. A fawn......and her mom.They may not be naked babes but you can't accuse me of never being cute.

600 Whitehead Street

I saw a classic Honda in front of the Green Parrot, a welcome change from the dreary sameness of v twin cruisers all the live long day. Even though I could have done without the sissy bar. Across the street is my favorite place to sit and watch the world go by, generally with a con leche from Jeanna's (pronounced Gina's) deli even though since it sold oh so long ago it is now known simply as the Courthouse Deli, owing to it's proximity to the seat of county government across Southard Street.There's my bench looking north on Whitehead street to the courthouse itself and the Mile Marker Zero sign which marks the start of US Highway One in front of said courthouse. That and the Green Parrot attract tons of tourists for excellent people watching right here.The fact is we seem to be enjoying a splendid winter of masses of people which is quite putting me off hanging around downtown, as is frequently the case for me. So in the interests of pissing off riepe let me show a picture of a visitor who is not nubile or even female. Below are my favorite Keys colors, blue green and white.And more of the same with some bougainvillea thrown in.

Ooh, look, even more blue green and white!And here is a perfectly good porch not being used as a place to sit and watch the world go by. Cheyenne would have been happy to do just that.

The city commission is wrestling with the vexing issue of what to do about private tows from private lots. Unsuspecting visitors, illiterates apparently, see signs like these, ignore them and get towed at vast expense. You can end up paying several hundred dollars, plus taxi fare to Stock Island or Rockland Key to get your car back. So the complaints come rushing in and our elected leaders thrash themselves into a sweat wondering what to do about it.More serene and summery Key West architecture in the middle of winter.Whoever decided to build a vertical roof was not doing anyone any aesthetic favors.Hmm, I wonder what Prana Spa might offer to harried and hard working teacher that I'm married to?Whitehead Street looking north all the way.Who noticed I was out walking without Cheyenne?