Thank Heavens For...

Of all the holidays Thanksgiving is my favorite I think. I like the Fourth of July as well but I find the emphasis on sports and barbecues to be rather tedious. The idea of being grateful for a good life appeals to me as I cherish being born into the First World. I've travelled through the Second and Third worlds and those journeys reinforce my gratitude.

I saw this representation of the Christian Savior on the back of a truck and I wonder what people think when they do this kind of stuff. It seems rather tawdry to me, an atheist, to see this sort of representation of the supreme mystery stuck on the back of a vehicle as though it were an ad for a radio station or a political slogan. I grew up at a time when the Catholic Church was going through the difficulties of adapting to modernization trends and all the rites of the old church were swept away. It felt to me like the curtain was drawn back on the Wizard of Oz. I might as well have seen Jesus riding around on a truck as listen to Mass recited in jargon-filled English. I'm grateful the Second Vatican Council released me from those ritualistic obligations and set me free to figure my own way ahead.

I am grateful I live in the Keys and despite some of the difficulties of day to day life. My wife had to wait three days before she could get a tire for her common-or-garden Sebring. I recommend not driving exotic brands for those who live here but since when was a Chrysler considered exotic? I dread hurricane damage on my home. The difficulties people had repairing their homes after Hurricane Wilma remains vivid in my mind and I'm glad we had a quiet summer. Pity the poor buggers unprepared for Sandy.

I'm grateful for the easy parts of living in the Keys, the small wardrobe required by the mild climate, no need for labels. I wondered for quite a while what these "Salt Life" stickers are all about until the Web came to my rescue. It's some sort of clothing fashion, outdoors for poseurs or some such. The sticker reflects the company's passion for the Ocean Lifestyle." And no, believe me when I say I wanted to know nothing more about the brand, their passions or their lifestyle. I'm grateful I don't give a fig about paying through the nose for a label.

I'm grateful motorcycles give me cheap and cheerful release from the tedium of driving. And I'm also grateful someone other than me feels the need to dress up their ride in sparkling chrome and bright colors. They leave me room to be factory boring. I'm grateful for my anonymity.

I'm grateful for the Web. I appreciate having a page all to myself to jot down my thoughts and take pictures of future memories. I checked the figures and more than 600,000 page views have been racked mere since May 2009. 24,000 a month on average according to the ticker counter provided by Blogger. Just last week I also passed the 2900th blog post on my website which as been in operation since June 2007. It seems like a lot. Even this cactus in Old Own was waving his arms with barely restrained joy.

 

I hope you lot have a suitable Thanksgiving and are grateful for whatever it is that works for you.

 

 

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Surviving 65 Degrees

The fact is cool weather feels cold in the Keys. Perhaps it's the proximity of the salt water or the lack of geographical, impediments for the wind but even outsiders feel cold here when the temperatures seem absurdly high. Most people from temperate climates would say 65 Fahrenheit or 17 Centigrade would be quite reasonable when I fact it just feels downright cold. Heavy gray clouds don't help and didn't help yesterday morning.

Cheyenne relishes the cold and, unfortunately for me gains youthful vigor from the chill in the air. This time of year she loves the urban paradise that is the avenues of Big Pine Key which is where I took her yesterday morning, four miles by car from my house to a grid of semi-urban streets.

The streets are long and straight, lined with homes of snowbirds who winter here but have not yet arrived for this cold season. Locals like this place as it puts them conveniently far from the lure of Key West, the big city, at least an hour away, yet close to the supermarket and small stores and basic services at Big Pine Plaza all within cycling distance.

Yesterday was a two hour extravaganza that failed somehow to satisfy Cheyenne who strode off briskly searching out smells and leaving me far behind as I chased her big yellow tail. It had been trash day and there was enough spilled garbage and abandoned food that she was in literally in hog heaven. She didn't even avail herself of the fork she found in this abandoned lunch.

She loves the hunt past trailer parks filled with garbage cans and dogs and barking and Key deer grazing and all of it is background only to her silent hunt for whatever it is that tens her on. We met a number of dogs yesterday and it always makes me laugh to see how other dog owners struggle to contain their yapping hounds.

There was the young woman dressed to kill at that early hour holding a spaniel tight as the dog swayed at the end of its leash like a loudly barking pendulum as it tried to attract Cheyenne's attention. The dour Hispanic dog owner who strode by, eyes down, his dog eyeing Cheyenne from behind the mans striding legs as he walked rapidly by, no eye contact. One old guy smacked down his cute portly corgi who wanted tI greet Cheyenne. That was my turn to hurry by in order to save the dog more slaps which it seemed to ignore with equanimity. The packs of nasty littler at dogs are the worst, eternally trapped behind fencing yapping at any slight thing that passes and breaks the boredom for a moment.

That lot in the photo above was a pack of five so frenzied I couldn't capture them all in one frame. What a nightmare! Eventually I managed to persuade Cheyenne to stump back to the car and we rode home by 8:40, me tired and quite ready for bed, she panting and happy and ready for a proper nutritious meal.

In the afternoon when I crawled out of bed onto a cold hard wooden floor I was quick to spot that cold gray cloud layer pressing down on the islands. It looked like rain that never materialized. Washing the cars with cold water was a chore, even though I accomplished it wearing shorts and and a t-shirt. Cheyenne was stillperky, as though she had never been walked and all I wanted was tea and exercise to warm my blood.

The rest of the day, until I went to work just after dark, I stayed close to home laying out my uniform ad adding a warm vest as protection agains the night vapors. Perhaps my excuse that I was tired was the reason I took the care and not my wife's Vespa, perhaps I just miss the Bonneville still in Jiri's shop waiting for him to order the shims needed to adjust the valves. I enjoyed the empty highway, watching the headlights coming at me in a stream as te late commuters rushed home. It's cold enough Christ,as lights won't look out of pace this week. Summer is long gone even here in the sub tropics.

West Summerland Key

I like walking my dog up here on the heights of West Summerland Key as its the only more-or-less natural spot from which one can look down on the water. I was playing idly with my phone until at some point I realised I had a series of not too bad pictures. With my telephone!

Cheyenne was busy ignoring me and my Android looking for unconsidered trifles deposited by eager anglers who come here to spend the night fishing.

The phone does a remarkable job with very little effort on my part. The pictures make a nice pocket back up for my "proper pocket camera.

I resisted getting an intelligent phone for a long time as I always felt and feel that to some degree a pocket tool with a locating device embedded is a rather unpleasant tool to be carrying on one's person. I wonder if in the future our phones won't be sending surreptious messages up to the drones overhead that will be keeping a friendly eye out for us.

The Phone's Achilles Heel lies in the digital zoom. As ou can see in the picture below fuzziness rules! Which is a relief, knowing this gadget isn't perfect.

But a panoramic afternoon view looked quite nice.

I am amazed by modern phones. The tiny little box calls people, texts people, takes photos and sends photos to people. It has a flashlight which blinks like a lighthouse o shines like a star. It shows movies and reads newspapers from around the world. My phone is a calendar, a secretarial note taker and an alarm clock. It slices and dices and serves up my life on a platter. I am put in mind of a quotation by Stanton Delaplane the nattily dressed columnist of the pre-Internet San Francisco Chronicle who popularized Irish coffee in the US. He once remarked, early in the electronic era, "The computer is down. I hope it's serious." I used to feel that way but...now perhaps I don't. I move with the times. And take pictures with them too, sometimes.

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Testing the Blogger App

This is the blogger application for iPad. A brilliantly dysfunctional way to blog. Whoever dreamed this page up gets a gold star for not having a clue. Because here I cannot post a picture and then write a paragraph. All the words have to go at the top of the page and all the pictures at the bottom. Geniuses at work at Blogger, for very high pay I expect!

Little Palm Brunch

We had ourselves a brunch yesterday, on a tropical island which happens to lie not in the south seas as may appear to be the case judging from the palms lining the beaches around the resort.

It's a fifteen minute ferry ride from Little Torch Key at Mile Marker 28 and that's the only way you can get to the rather exotic brunch offered at Little Palm Island. Only overnight guests can tie up their own boats at the Little Palm docks.

We ate our meal on the outside deck overlooking the water, after we were greeted atthe dock by a young shapely hostess wins fixed smile. The is something of the Stepford Wives about the staff who are used to waiting on the one percent and thus act subservient to a degree that is unnerving to ordinary mortals.

They offer a champagne and vodka bar with all the fixings needed to mix your own cocktails.

And there are several cold buffets around the indoor dining room, including seafood, meats, cheeses, fruit and pastries. A Falstaffian abundance of oysters!

The hot menu includes a dozen dishes of tasting meats and seafood. Beef churrasco:

My wife liked the shrimp wonton better than I did, while I preferred the beef benedict seen in the background.

we both liked the only vegetarian offering on the menu, a delicious French toast of unique appearance.

Our buddy Phil has been tickling the ivories for twenty years at Little Palm.

We ate with the lovely view you would expect from such a dining room, recorded for posterity in lots of home albums no doubt.

 

And then we caught the two o'clock ferry back home to the real world.

 

I think the full price for the brunch is around a hundred bucks, but we ate with a local's discount which was nice for us. On top of that my wife had a voucher from a local charity auction and so our meal was actually quite reasonable for the three of us, $140 including the obligatory twenty percent tip after all the discounting and stuff. Great fun and a great day out.

 

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Schooner Wharf Bar

I went to Schooner Wharf. I was at a loose end and wasn't ready to ride home so I thought: how about a drink in the last little piece of old Key West.

So there I was squeezing myself between sweating drinking patrons asking myself why is it that I don't much like bars when so many other people love them... I remember a comment on a TV show I used to like (Northern Exposure for the record) wherein the character Chris in the Morning muses on his lifetime appreciation for bars that some people are destined to own and other people just to drink in them. A few are us were genetically modified to sit on the sidelines and wonder about bars.

I like this picture of the musician so near and dear to the hearts of patrons of Schooner Wharf. Feel free of course to use it. His music was okay but I wanted to see the view so I climbed the stairs to the deck overlooking Key West Bight. Okay so the crowds below freaked me out but this was lovely.

The big gray lump is GarytheTourist's home from home, the Galleon Resort, whence one presumably enjoys a similar view across the open water as well. Schooner Wharf's beer selection is a bit behind the times frankly. The best of the draughts was Samuel Adams and the best of the bottled was Red Stripe which is frankly inadequate in the age of craft brewing.

People watching was okay if you enjoy watching people crane their necks looking for fish swimming.

They do a lot of this sort of thing.

The helicopter flying over the power boat races was noisy. But so were the boats, so I guess they were even.

It was a pretty afternoon on top of the bar, made bright by Haiti's flag on the left and Cuba's on the right.

 

Lots of big boats cruised through the harbor for a while. The racers have inboard engines, the local boat had outboards.

These strange vessels draw aficionados to sit and stare. I guess I look as weirdly absorbed whe presented witna. Parade of interesting motorcycles, of all things. I just got to look at a friend's collection of pictures of an exotic car show Up North. Internal combustion rules.

But then reality intervenes and we are reminded that we live In a cool little resort town with lots of water sports possibilities even though I think the waters are too cold for swimming in November. I like watching the oat loads of eager tourists going out on these beautiful waters. I have had a crappy year for bowing this past summer but I will be here next summer, if I'm spared, and 2013 will be my year to go boating, perhaps.

The deck started to fill up and felt like a proper bar so I thought perhaps it was time to beat a retreat, before the pigeons let loose.

They do love their bar, don't they?

Key West sunshine, live music and swirling crowds of people lubricated with beer and animated conversation.

Schooner Wharf, a last little piece of old Key West, since 1987.

 

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