Smoking Outback

There was a smell of smoke at Outback a few nights ago. Shit I thought to myself as we dispatched engines, what if Outback burns? People ask me where locals eat and and I say Miami Subs and Outback and the visitors get annoyed at me for being obtuse. The fact is working locals can't eat out in places geared to charge visitors the maximum tourist dollar. I don't mind high prices when I'm on vacation.

I like Outback for the same reason I like Miami Subs, value for money and efficient cheerful service. I like to eat out other places too of course but Colombian Grace and Santiago's are not cheap even though I think they offer excellent value for the money they charge. I know, I'm not supposed to like chains but Outback is my exception to that rule. I was really glad to see this was a false alarm.

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A Fresh Start To The Week

A weekend off work means a chance to see the sunrise as the start of the day, not as the end of the work night. There have been some nice pinks and oranges in the cloudy skies and it was a pleasure to walk without feeling ready for bed.

Cheyenne really doesn't care much about the physical beauty. She was last seen ploughing into a bush in pursuit of some foul smelling morsel. Who, I ask myself throws food away like this?

As the sun came up we got into Bill Butler Park and the elongating effect of the camera makes it look like a gumbo limbo forest not an urban green space.

This is winter in Key West so for se reason bougainvillea blossoms like crazy. Far better this than a snowdrift.

Wandering the alleyway that connects the park to Elizabeth Street I nearly got run down by a keen scooterist using his modest machine as a pick up truck.

I met some discarded footwear in a recycling bin. I couldn't conceive what the story might be behind that mess. I didn't look too closely but the shoes appeared to be in good condition, debauchery indicated, perhaps and shoes got discarded along the way?

I've seen a few of these tricycles around town, a Chinese imitation of a Ruckus scooter by Honda, with an axle at the back. It seems cumbersome to me but I have never had trouble holding myself up, most of the time, on two wheels. It isn't nearly as compact as a two wheeled scooter to park either.

I wonder if in old age I will need to ride a hack (a sidecar combination) and if I do, will I be allowed to park it in scooter parking spaces? These sorts of abstruse questions worry me when I have time on my hands. And then I saw a heavily decorated bicycle in a style not similar too but certainly to be appreciated by those supporters of the late Captain Outrageous's mobile works of art. There was no website to be found, unless theold fashioned paper message attached to the machine counts as a 20th century website after a fashion.

And as my walk came full circle back to Simonton Street I found myself in front of the office of the Secretary General of the Conch Republic, a state of mind that has become a matter of business for the self styled leader of the blue flagged republic. The message at the front was mixed, a warning about surveillance near the sidewalk with a cheerful welcome sign on the door, take your pick.

It was just another pleasant walk through a town with things to see and much to notice if you have a mind to see it.

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Silly Season

British newspapers talk of "silly season" during the summer months when news is slow, parliament is in recess and politicians aren't slapping each other in public. In the Keys I think of silly season as the winter months when people come to escape harsh winters Up North and manage to make themselves look silly in the process. I like to see their empty manicured homes waiting for signs of life, like this one shown below on Big Pine Key. It's a reminder snow birds pay property taxes without homestead exemptions (if they are lawful) and they don't use civic services during those log months when they sport Up North with their grandchildren. Good on 'em.

I like this definition from Wikipedia, talking of silly season:

The silly season is the period lasting for a few summer months typified by the emergence of frivolous news stories in the media. This term was known by the end of the 19th century and listed in the second edition of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable and remains in use at the start of the 21st century. The fifteenth edition of Brewer's expands on the second, defining the silly season as "the part of the year when Parliament and the Law Courts are not sitting (about August and September)". In the United States the period is referred to prosaically as the slow news season. In Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, the silly season has come to refer to the Christmas/New Year festive period on account of the higher than usual number of social engagements where the consumption of alcohol is typical, which are in the Southern Hemisphere summer.

I suppose we who live here all the time should find it endearing when we listen to people who claim to live here but in fact just visit a few months at a time. I doubt people are lining up to claim permanent residence wherever it is the snowbirds come from. We should be flattered we who get to live here year round. I notice a higher incidence of intolerance this time of year, more people are on the streets and there is less silence. The snowbirds bring their habits with them and the usual (summer) practices of the communities get disrupted. Cyclists decked out in spandex riding gear woth colorful helmets replace scruffy wanderers on bicycles who ride down here during the rest of the year. Clumps of talkers block aisles in grocery stores not talking abiut workplace irritations like true locals. Snowbirds compare changes from the last silly season while they jostle the check out lines. On the highway retirees drive extra slow and in town they clog commuters by choosing to add to the traffic at peak times. They stop unpredictably to view the sights. Tempers flare and impatience runneth over.

I was walking a public street when I saw a loser bumper sticker. I never took a vow not to gloat so I stopped to take a picture and the honorable defender of freedom (a nebulous concept apparently) gruffly demanded to know what I was doing. Photographing the bumper sticker I said meekly though I wanted to remind him that around here the Michigan Militia holds no sway.

On the other hand when official silly season (elections!) is upon us I turn to the comics of Tim Egan of Santa Cruz, California.

Instead now the noise of vote seeking is over and I am ready to be disappointed once again by our leaders created during the District of Columbia Silly Season. So I look at a lovely pink Hibiscus, suitable for our silly season, that time of year when snow falls Up North and we get to hear about if from lots of people happy to have escaped the noose of the snow shovel for a winter. Silly season down here is when the flowers bloom not when snowflakes fall. Not bad even if we have to put up with slow drivers, loud talkers and silly cyclists clogging our lives for a few weeks. They'll be gone soon when the weather gets really nice.

DEEP COVER - by Tim Eagan

 

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Daddy Xmas

I can't explain it but the Macy's theory of inflated balloons to celebrate Christmas has made full penetration in the Florida Keys. I just don't see these crude balloons as an enhancement of the celebration or of the communities they litter. Call me a kill joy, but Cheyenne's puzzlement mirrors mine.

I don't like Christmas, the saccharine sentimentality doesn't work for me, the family connections less so as I grew up in a very unsentimental family and all the snow and Yule log stuff I am happy to forget about. I have a rather linear way of thinking so when I am presented with the birth of a savior mixed in with Good King Wenceslas and the Nordic holiday celebrating the solstice I ask myself what is this thing called Christ Mass really all about. The muddle deflates my understanding and thus my appreciation of the holiday, which is supposed to celebrate goodwill among men (and women most likely too, unspoken egalitarianism). The bit I like best is working Christmas Night as I get overtime and holiday pay and I earn brownie points among my more sentimental colleagues who want to be at home Michaelmas Night.

For Conchs who have never seen real snow I can understand the draw of cotton wool and foam spray to make up the shortcoming in their lives, but I've seen real snow and want none of it. And Good King Wenceslas should stay in Bohemia where he was invented! And for the rest of us how about we work for less social inequity and less reliance on feel-good charity? What would Jesus do faced with a world filled with super rich and abysmally poor? Would He feed the poor turkey a couple of days a year and call it good or would He do what he did, which is advocate the rich give up all their wealth as they will find it harder to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than the difficulty faced by a camel trying to thread the eye of a needle. See if you hear that sermon in church this or any other season. And then ask yourself why the preachers don't challenge their well heeled flocks. It's enough to turn a saint into a cynic on the Feast of Stephen, never mind a tired old skeptic like me.

Now this is my kind of Christmas:

A Tervis Tumbler, a candle and thou. In the great December Keys outdoors, 'neath a starry sky!

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The Keys Economy

I have been following the news from Europe quite closely and I see nothing but misery in the future for millions on that side of the Atlantic Ocean. Tightly woven economies are coming unraveled and the promise of peace through economic union is becoming a nightmare embrace from which there is no escape, neither for the poorer countries nor for the richer countries. The economic spiral down seems unstoppable. And at the same time the election year prognosis for the US was an improvement in the economy, a gradual but steady return to good times. As Europeans lose their welfare states built on the rubble of the inhumane misery of World War Two, American corporatists pay vast sums of money to convince us self sufficiency in the face of declining wages, reduced benefits and general insecurity is in our self interest. George Orwell had it right but 1984 could have been titled 2014 for greater accuracy.

Even as I cast my vote for the President to get a second term I didn't believe his propaganda. My only hope was that, as a neighbor of mine put it, the more progressive of the two candidates win and less bad shit may take place politically in the next four years. Affordable Health Care for more people in need, fewer attacks on women's rights, less aggression overseas and at last more acceptance of gay equality. Small stuff in the face of increasing surveillance of poor people combined with no strengthening of banking regulations and a terrible track record of not standing up to Republican political blackmail. Personally I welcome the stupidly name sequestration act known as the fiscal cliff, which will lead to less war spending (mercenaries lose, which is good), and increased taxes might bring a dose of reality to those who argue that the national debt is the top priority. If that's true we have to spend less and pay more taxes, mathematically its simple, politically it's impossible.

House prices in the Keys reflect none of that turmoil, expectations by sellers remain high as do prices and even though prices have fallen, compared to national averages the Florida Keys command absurd prices for largely shoddy housing. Bargains are not what home buyers seek in these small specks of dirt. It used to be, during the credit boom when the Clinton Administration posted net decreases in the national debt incidentally, that getting a realtor's license was the path to prosperity. Realtors moved homes and increased their egos exponentially each passing year. They participated in the land grab and bought and flipped houses on credit. Then the musical chairs of land ownership ran out of credit and the retrenchment began.

I enjoyed the boom years, not by making money but by being mobile. Jobs were available for the asking anywhere one went, and sensible jobs were begging for employees which is how I became a police dispatcher, a job worth it's weight in gold in these times marked by endless layoffs in the private sector. I miss the madness and I remember clearly when people bitched about the crowds and the drunks and the gold rush breathlessness of life in Old Town, and I also remember saying at the time to enjoy the money while it flowed. The flow has slowed and what used to be considered normal income before the boom, is now considered to be low after a decade of wild spending by visitors.

Realtors back then used to covet their jobs and post their pictures on their for sale signs. Not anymore. I thought the practice was embarrassingly egotistical and I wonder why nowadays of all the signs I photographed only one had a picture on it, of a long time hold out in the realty business in the Keys, and her picture you'll notice is pretty small. Perhaps realtor-wannabes come and go these days discovering a license is no longer a permit to print money. I suppose turn over is high enough that the cost of printing a picture on a board is an unjustifiable cost. Perhaps the wrecked housing trade doesn't inspire pride anymore among the real estate agents picking through the remains of the market while smiling brightly and talking about "upswings."

There are lots of these signs out, because turnover is always high in Paradise. People come and people go and many of those people who had jobs before 2008 don't have them here anymore. Unemployment numbers in the Keys are low not because work is available but because people who lose their jobs go "home" Up North.

Through it all I keep seeing well paid jobs cut down, unions vilified (the people who brought you the weekend and over time pay) and corporations undercutting local businesses by a few pennies by sending real jobs to foreign countries. Selling and trading real estate isn't enough, nor should it be enough to sustain a Keys economy. We should be the place where factory workers come on vacation as well as their bosses to spend their hard earned pay. The politicians promise good times ahead but without good jobs here at home I don't see how that's possible. And without good jobs well heeled tourists will be fewer and further between even in a place that has a natural draw for people all over the world. Low house prices in the Keys will be the marker that the economy has reached its nadir. I miss the boom years, yes I do.

My neighbors have been thinking about selling their home for six or seven years. Their efforts have been...desultory at best. Time perhaps to refresh the home made sign or hire a hungry realtor were they serious.

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Early Morning Stroll

It turns out Chrysler Sebrings built in the early part of this century had quite a few engine parts made of plastic where they should have been made of metal according to my wife's mechanic. Thus as she has now gone over a hundred thousand miles, it happens that bits of plastic fail from time. Not that they aren't easy to replace and the plastic parts so far haven't killed the car dead when they failed so we had time to take the car in and get it fixed. Even here in Key West parts are shipped overnight and because we work opposite shifts it's easy to drop each other off while the car gets worked on. The upshot of all this shuffling is Cheyenne and I dropped the wife off early yesterday and we took off for an early walk in the Casa Marina neighborhood while the wife's convertible got a new engine cooling part made of plastic installed under the hood.

I tend to forget that pink Crocs surprise some people when they see me walking Cheyenne but I'll tell you what, I never fail to be surprised when I see some bloke passing me pounding pedals dressed in a tight fitting banana skin. Or a pair of serious minded joggers dressed for the occasion, also pounding past me as they run, serious minded like a couple of Politburo members planning a putsch. I wonder why people come to Key West and can't get into the proper Key West slouch.

And because I was stumbling slowly behind my dog I got to notice these bizarre leaves, parked in a flowered in front of the coral house on Reynolds Street.

I liked the high wall and intimidating sign protecting the resort guests for the creeps and freak outside the walls. They made me feel quite unwanted with their threats of insecurity and inaccessibility. So I stayed out side with hoi polloi and felt quite secure with no security patrols at all.

Clearly there is a lower class of person in e neighborhood as I stumbled across some apparently well worn female underwear in the street. The well disposed among us might imagine they fell from a laundry basket though I feel obliged to point out there are no public laundries nearby. I fear hanky panty was abroad on Seminole Street last night. My shoe is in the lower corner of the frame purely by accident.

I am not one for adding stickers to my motorcycle but when I spotted a Grateful Dead sticker on this otherwise innocuous scooter I felt I should tell Cheyenne about my old VW van, a vehicle I owned in the people's republic of Santa Cruz many years ago in California. It was covered with similar stickers that refused to yield to my razor blade and everywhere I went, especially at gas stations where hitch hikers congregated, I was approached by dubious characters reeking of cannabis asking me where the next gig was. I went to see the Grateful Dead once at Berkeley's Greek arena but the evening was not a success. The music bored me and the woman I was with was not galvanized as I had been led to believe she might be, and I decided that I liked camping in my funky van though the musical associations were just a nuisance, and made every fill-up an adventure.

It really was a lovely morning in Key West even though it was muggy and hot as we waited for a non existent cold front to materialize and blow away the dampness in the air. Cheyenne got tired but she wanted to press on and. Enjoy as much of the city's she could so I put her back in the car ad drove her across the Fleming Street by the library and from there we took off through the shadow and light of the leafy cross streets.

 

I liked this weird door, worn and beaten up yet still sporting a flashy flamingo panel on top while exhibiting an unpainted temporary/permanent repair at the bottom.

These old style shutters remind me of the ones we had on my childhood home in Italy giving William Street a slightly Mediterranean look.

By the time we got home it was laundry day at the manse so I got down to work...

...while Cheyenne helped. Luckily I have been properly trained in how to hang clothes to dry so Cheyenne's non cooperation didn't hold me up to much.

After all a girl needs her beauty sleep after a long walk, a large breakfast and a quick shower to make sure she smells nice after all that hiking. The wife's car is repaired, a cool six hundred bucks but Oily said the plastic parts crumbled in his hand when he went to replace them and now my wife has a car heater again for when temperatures drop below seventy degrees, and the engine as a secure cooling system for when temperatures go above seventy degrees, which is all the time in the engine block. Meanwhile my air cooled motorcycle head is being sent out for new valves and guides. Sigh, it never stops with machinery. Engines should take a leaf out of Cheyenne's book and take a nap from time to time. It does a body good.

 

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