Pink Crocs

Readership numbers have climbed significantly so I feel the need to explain why I wear pink Crocs when out walking. Years ago my wife offered to buy me a new set of shoes and asked what color I wanted I said whatever and ignored her pretty much. As one does. She came back from the flea market with a pink pair and asked how I felt about that. Fine I said. And I was. And then when I discovered a lot of people were afraid to talk to me in weird pink shoes it got better. I figure if they put people off only boring people would be put off by them so it was a wining choice all round. Then, get this, the Birkenstock store offered me all the pink Crocs in men's size 12 I could handle as they couldn't sell them....I was hooked on pink. Today I was downtown so I stopped by the shop and they had four pairs sold to me for $17:50 each. I loaded up two shopping bags and gloated all the way back to my wife'a car.

 

I wear these things and thus I wear them out but I figure I'm good for 18 months, possibly two years with this haul. They are great for walking Cheyenne through mud or puddles, salt water or even on the streets and they are excellent boat shoes. They look odd and they scream something extra odd in pink but they work for me. They should for you too as daily footwear.

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Onlywood Restaurant, Key West

George is going back to Prague to enjoy an icy Czech winter soon so we decided to have dinner together one last time before he retreats to the frozen wastes of Central Europe. I mean you have to admire a man's eccentricity, where most people would enjoy winter in the Southernmost City, this particular one turns his back on his second home in Old Town and girds his loins for a winter even he describes as likely to be harsh. Ten degrees Fahrenheit anybody?

That or a shirt sleeve winter enjoying dinners al fresco under the cerulean winter sky particular to Key West. I will be delighted to keep the home fires burning for him.

The menu page from the website italian pizza restaurant should be legible. Basically you get appetizers, pasta pizza and meat chicken and fish dishes. If you are used to Italian American food this style may come as a surprise.

The bruschetta was my choice. I wanted to see how this proper Italian restaurant would handle this American favorite. The waiter was glad to hear me pronounce it properly, with a "k" sound, not a "ch" sound as English speakers tend to do. I did not explain my secret ancestry.

George chose a bottle red which was produced in my hidden corner of Italy, much to my surprise. Our Brands -Vitiano - Winebow, Vitiano is from Montecchio in the province of Terni. It was robust and went well with dinner. I had pesto pasta with shrimp, an odd combination I've not had before but George a fan of this restaurant, assured me it works. It did too, I woofed it.

George had a four pork pizza and he generously offered me a slice. I liked it a lot. The crust was properly thin but it wasn't dry and crisp, it retained a suppleness you'd be surprised to see in a crust so thin. It was also not greasy, which is a quality I enjoyed a lot. I am not a fan of overloaded pizza, or crust filled with melted cheese as modern chains advertise.

I ordered an American coffee to refresh me for the ride home and I got a soup tureen full. The spoon in the picture is a full sized implement...I rather suspect Americano coffee here is made with something stronger than the soft gentle coffee many Americans prefer. "Soup" (brodo) my buddy Giovanni calls it.

We sat inside as the evening was rather humid once again. Cold fronts are coming fast and thick, bringing strong winds and momentary drops in temperature but soon temperatures seem to go back up. We still await the strong front to break the back of Fall.

The interior of the place is nicely done. We ate unfashionably early but by the time we had drifted through the meal two hours later the place was filling up.

And they do actually have a real live wood burning pizza oven. It does a nice job.

A life time lived in the Czech Republic has given George a rather formal outlook. Damned if he wasn't busy making more reservations. I am rather less organized and actually reserving a table seems a highly unlikely activity in Key a West. I am going to try to be more prepared in future. Davide the owner was very accommodating.

I did finally break my silence, "Oh" he exclaimed, "you're Italian!" " You never said anything," the waiter laughed. We exchanged pleasantries and off we went,

...into the warm November night. I wish George and his family well this winter, and look forward to seeing him when he gets back. If he survives the snow.

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The World's Most Expensive Twinkie

When I take a shower in the middle of the day Cheyenne knows I'm heading to work without her. So she gets on the couch and pretends to sleep. That I was going in to town to see a movie didn't register with my dog as she can't tell the difference between shorts and long pants. She just knows she is being abandoned so she gets on the couch and makes me feel guilty. Good dog.

The true pain in the ass of living up Highway One is the oddball stuff that happens along the road. A roll over by some poorly trained teenage driver will close access for hours. A tanker crashing and catching fire could cut us off from Miami for a couple of days- no bad thing in itself of course but road closures are annoying. Because this is the Overseas Highway lots of groups think it would be cool to use our main drag to "raise awareness" of some cause or another. Anyone out there not "aware" of cancer? Human trafficking is a new favorite celebrity boredom chaser. I have no idea what the cyclists were making me aware of Saturday morning but I became very aware of the fact that they weren't using our new expensive bicycle path in the places where it is freshly paved and lovely. Instead they stuck their spandex bums in our faces, ran the red lights on Stock Island while cars showing support for all this important awareness paced the cyclists while waving white flags out of their windows. I was very good and sat back and enjoyed the approach to Key West at human powered cycle speed.

The sad part is that our effort to enjoy some local cultural activities fell flat on its face as the movie was a total bust. The Key West International Film Festival seems to be run by twelve year olds who when informed by me that their website sucked and I couldn't buy tickets online they responded by looking at me like I was their grandpa who had soiled his diaper once again. Which could explain why only two dozen wooly heads were in the theater to watch Big Sur a film about Jack Kerouac going through a horrendous bout of depression on the cold dank Central California Coast where I used to live. Redwoods and otters, fog and crashing waves are considerably less enticing when you've spent many years among them and know how cold and wet and windy that rugged coast really is. Give me the flat warm waters of the Keys any day. The plot unspooled inside the brain of a writer hellbent on hating everyone, a group of people left as two dimensional cyphers by the film's writer such that I realized that Key West at lunch time held far more appeal than Big Sur on the silver screen. So, my wife said as we crept out of Jack Kerouac's latest alcohol fueled death hallucination, how about Blackfin Bistro?

We strolled to the 900 block of Duval and I was looking forward to this pretty little Bistro where I have wanted to eat for some considerable time. It may be that the movie depressed me but I think I was on an even enough emotional keel to realize that this was not good value for money shortly after we arrived. Well, at last you have got this place off your chest my wife said tartly as we admired the menu. Soup du jour was expensive so we went with a small bowl of eight dollar gazpacho. And two other appetizers washed down by tap water came to 36 dollars including state sales tax.

I like to think that this is not a restaurant that uses ingredients off the Sysco truck, which criss crosses Old a Town early every morning selling "Food Products" whatever they are. I glumly approved the presentation of our first shared dish, shrimp and polenta, an upscale version of the Key West classic shrimp and grits. Pretty enough but two shrimp and a postage stamp sized piece of polenta for fourteen bucks was rough. I earn twenty four bucks an hour so subtracting taxes etc I have to work at least 45 minutes to buy this morsel. Ho hum.

We had goat cheese croquettes next with sweet onion slivers and drizzled with honey but sauce free. Twelve bucks for this dish and luckily they use quality goat cheese as the cheaper stuff I do not like as it reeks of goat to my delicate sensibilities. However a wodge of fried cheese does not a luncheon make. We could have had a main course for thirty bucks but the menu was not imaginative, sandwiches salads and sirloin steak, and all I could think was that Santiago's Bodega on Petronia is a warm inviting place where Blackfin's acoustics prevented us conversing across our table, Santiago's wine list excites my curiosity and we get a ton of tapas for the same money. Sitting up all night taking 911 calls to pay for this does not compute. Bummer.

I am not a compulsive restaurant goer and as time goes by I am more and more inclined to buy quality to go food, have a picnic or eat at home on the couch (with Cheyenne snoozing on her bed thank you). I know Dion's fried chicken isn't fine dining, bad boy burrito is just a funny sandwich, and a Cuban sandwich is packed with calories but value for money makes a treat taste good. Hell's teeth I can make a plate of pasta for pennies and I know I like the wines in my cooler at home. I am astounded how many people I see packing these restaurants day after night after day in Key West and they seem to love spending money in places I feel no affinity for, so I feel like I am missing something at BlackFin Bistro, Key West.

For some reason Kilwins a newish chocolate shop has been nudging the edges of my consciousness. Two of my colleagues love this place, two tightwad hot blooded, opinionated Cuban women who started batting around the idea if having ice cream and candy apples after work one day. I was surprised by their vehemence but I ignored them, calorie conscious me. Ha! Then my wife, as we played tourist on Duval yesterday suggested pudding at Kilwin's out of the blue. Okay I said, always the follower and never the leader (I tried at Backfin) when it comes to menu making. Kilwins Key West is some kind of franchise thing with those bland corporate "values" Head Office likes to sentimentalize like "having fun" on the job, which sounds like a substitute for a benefits package, as usual. The chocolates speak for themselves without any need for Orwellian sales talk. They are good. The one I had was at any rate.

The kid at the front expressed the proper corporate sentiments and offered us a taste of fudge. I thought that would do my wife but she was ready to buy. Kilwins was the antidote to the cultural shortcomings of the weekend thus far. I haven't yet mentioned our foray to the Red Barn Theater Friday evening to see a new play written by an actual Key West resident who has had a career I am told selling dust catchers on television. This guy goes by the name of Bobby Bowersox, which sounds like an alliterative stage name but not so apparently, and he used to make a living selling zirconium whatsits on one of those shopping channels. Anyway he wrote a play and the Red Barn put it on and we went to see it. The setting was an Irish pub in Philadelphia sometime in the past when coin phones did the work of cell phones. One of four friends has died and the other three have slipped away from the wake to drink whiskey. The widow shows up as does a stranger with a story to tell and everyone gets annoyed. I found the drama a little pat and the loose ends tied up too easily but it was a pleasant night out even driving home through the rain that lashed the Lower Keys Friday night.

I don't want to give away the plot of the drama which plays through the 23rd at the Red Barn Theatre but I did want a bit more confrontation when deep dark secrets are revealed about a character of whom we know too little but chocolate repairs all human heartache and what the Red Barn lacked the chocolate shop had in spades. I skipped the candy apples though I could see why Nelly could have difficulty erasing them from her mind once tasted. A modern day Eve is my colleague...I resisted the temptation.

I went with a six and a half dollar Twinkie, which considering you can buy 20 normal Twinkies for the same price (I checked online) must make this a pretty damn pricey Twinkie in normal commerce. I know that Twinkies nearly disappeared recently when faced with a drive to wreck a few more working class benefits and idiots everywhere were prepared to pay silly money for the things. That fiasco left me cold, as I have no nostalgia for Twinkies and the few Hostess cakes I have entertained have been bland and generally flavor free, but the loss of decent union jobs however does leave me steamed. I watched people bid on the "last" Twinkies with amazement, sure that corporate America had a back door union busting plan in place. My cynicism was justified of course and a few saps were left holding monstrously expensive flavor-free cakes. I on the other hand had a delicious Kilwin's Twinkie yesterday. Astonishing but true. And they give a local's discount though the clerk actually did check my wife's ID so don't you try it on.

My wife decided to get two pieces of cheaper candy to my one and we left the store spending one third what we spent for lunch. It really is bloody difficult to explain value for money, but I left this place feeling okay about the absurd price. Human nature is just one more reason I would make a terrible businessman; it baffles me, even in myself does human nature.

We strolled Duval Street like tourists, side stepping the shuffling crowds on the sidewalk. It felt as though winter must be cold Up North seeing all these people Down Here trailing their flip flopped feet as they ride rental scooters.

I grew up enjoying pasta and olive oil and garlic on vacations at my mother's home in Italy, flavors that we consider sophisticated these days when pasta in a can is no longer acceptable. Yet in England in school I learned to like the peculiar foods of my boarding school youth including Marmite and sticky pudding and sponge cakes, custards and the particular sweet milk chocolate only the English know how to make. It turns out a Kilwin's Twinkie makes a very passable milk chocolate sponge cake hitting two of the essential food groups. I woofed the thing before we got to St Paul's. Embarrassing.

It was fun playing tourist on Duval and let me say we checked the traffic and the lights before we crossed the side streets. Locals like to boast that they never go to Duval Street, but people come from all over the world to see this place so I figure I can do no less from time to time. Besides I'm getting low on cheap pink Crocs in men's size 12.

The Croc shop had nothing on sale so we went back to the car empty handed - the Kilwin's was long gone!

All kinds of wildness you will see on Duval Street. Even Harley riders wearing all the gear. Bloody tourists. I was one for a bit and it was fun. You're the loser if you don't stroll Duval from time to time.

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Mind Altering Key West

Key West's blue laws have been repealed me so nowadays you can buy alcohol seven mornings a week at seven o'clock if you want to. The ban on Sunday morning sales was lifted after sustained protests that it was anachronistic to ban alcohol only for people lacking the means to drive five miles to buy a bottle on Stock Island. That such desperate behavior might be construed as signals of a potential problem went without saying. The problem was not being able to buy alcohol in a city dedicated to that proposition.

There is but a short time now before winter sets in Up North, and out of the snow drifts and iced in airports will come crowds of frozen people. It's another season like red leaves or icicles and it wouldn't be Key West if there weren't crowds of them shuffling up and down sidewalks whenever the temperature drops below 70.

My strategy is to adapt to circumstances, downtown when it's empty and hot in summer and in the back country when it's cool and pleasant in winter. Fall is the time to stock up on Cuban coffee without having to stand in line at the coffee shop as one does in winter. People think my job answering phones at the police department is tough, but I can't imagine standing all day selling strangers cups of coffee, but luckily some people think it is a fine way to earn a living doing it and they aren't allowed to behave as though they don't like people.

Cuban Coffee Queen has made a go of it and I find it surprising honestly, they have almost no seating, shoved to one side of a large empty lot on a town overflowing with coffee shops. I have absolutely no idea what makes a business work or not. Location and low overhead maybe, but lack of amenity has nothing to do with whether or not a business succeeds.

They make a decent sandwich at Cuban a Coffee Queen, though for me the difference between a Key West breakfast and a mainland breakfast might be fish versus meat. I like fish for breakfast but it's hard to find a nice plate of eggs and fish to start the day. What Cheyenne found in the picture below, doesn't bear thinking about but it was very very interesting to my dog. I hate seeing people drag their dogs away from interesting smells, it's like tearing the book out of your hand before you've finished the story. I think Cheyenne goes home more relaxed when she sets the pace for the walk, and has time to read all the interesting stories along the way.

I was reflecting on my meeting with Bohemian George and I wonder how he wil cope this winter in Prague, snowed in in Bohemia. I imagine wood lined beer cellars brightly lighted and everyone drinking tall mugs of golden Budweiser, which as I recall from my visit to Czech some 15 years ago tasted as beer should, not like the gnat's piss sold by the Belgians in the US. Then I imagine George stepping out into a Kafka stereotype world of shadows and snow and cold piercing wind, and I wonder why he does it when he has a perfectly nice house in Old Town.

Petronia Street is an interesting stretch of road through Bahama Village. It's narrow and lacks parking and all amenity for visitors. Yet it boasts several successful restaurants, some well known, the crepe place and Blue Heaven as well as a newly relocated Salsa Loca eatery. And others less well known, but a mean omelette place nevertheless:

Are you ready? Checking the billboard I wonder why these people feel they have to inspire fear all the time. I wish St Paul had left a few letters that inspired perhaps a little less misogyny and a little less fear. Fear of the dark makes people act very odd.

Then of course there are the day to day irritations of being human. I wonder if the hereafter is silent? Is that possible?

This mural inspired thoughts of eternity in me, which goes to show how off kilter my mind is. The living parrots in full color and the shadows as shades. One always seem to revert to the idea that any after life most likely has a nasty component to it. Are you ready? Me? Not bloody likely, there's plenty to worry about in this life never mind the next.

I took this next picture of Ashe Street at Olivia just because I liked how it looked. No deep thoughts.

And I keep bumping into these things. This one was getting worked about about pruning?

Key West is great place to sit and think. Sometimes just to sit.

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Getting Around Key West

I was driving into Key West one morning when I saw this vehicle in front of me and it was clear to me that winter is upon us. Seasons are hard to see in Key West when you are used to obvious stuff like snow ice and leaves changing color and dropping off trees. Nothing like that happens around here, though temperatures do dip from tIme to time before they get back to the normal range of comfortably warm. So when winter hits Up North down here we know by virtue of all the out of state tags that start to clutter our streets.

I saw the clutter in the van and I figured its about time the Higgs Beach campers came back too, I suppose. It's not just the idle rich and hard saving vacationers that visit the Florida Keys in winter. Anyway that van was the seed that grew into this essay, a consideration of what makes for suitable wheels in a Key West. A Vespa sidecar perhaps?

It's not my cup of tea, a 150cc Vespa with a solo top speed around 55 on a good day, now with a hack reducing that to 45mph and awkward parking. Cute but no cigar.

An MP3 scooter perhaps? No longer imported they are built by the people that build Vespas. I rented a 250 version in Rome, where it was excellent for coping with cobbles and streetcar tracks. It had a top speed around 75 but aside from the initial expense it apparently eats brake pads thanks to its weight and is a very complicated and clever piece of machinery. Not good value for money in streetcar-free Key West.

I saw this venerable six volt VW Van, similar to one I owned for a few years in cool damp California, down to the Grateful Dead sticker. It was horrid in winter as cold and damp made starting it an iffy business unless you had a hill to roll down. The interior was great for camping and I took it more than once to Mexico and all round California, until I got tired of the starting issues. For Florida the lack of air conditioning and a cruising speed of maybe 55 would make it terrible for Key West as go-to-mainland car, and awkward to drive around town. No good, but cute and terribly nostalgic.

This orange thing is idiotic but people love their high gas consumption, noisy knobby tires and leaky cloth roofs. Ungainly for Key West's narrow lanes and thus not worth it.

I'd like to think this huge Nissan van came to town loaded with holidaymakers who promptly parked it and rented bicycles to get around town. It's about as big as a conch cottage, and less mobile.

In Key West it's best not to drive an exotic, and the list of "exotics" is pretty long. There are Nissan, GM, Ford, Toyota and Kia dealers. The nearest Honda shop is in Key Largo and all those high powered German machines go to Miami for work though I have heard some local mechanics can do some work on them. I stick close to home with my Ford...I liked this Cadillac, symbol of capitalist excess (I want the new CTS) sporting an illegal Communist souvenir from the Forbidden Isle. Florida only requires a license plate in the back making the front tag holder, if you have one, a good place for self expression.

Ah yes, the ultimate in Key West wheels, a bicycle, pedaled powerfully.

A thousand cc Kawasaki might do quite well, like this one parked at Key Line Square, if you can stand the modern squared off styling. However you could run most of your errands in first gear and pass most vehicles on the road. It's over powered, consumes too much, and around here where roads are flat and straight, it would be overkill. It might pull women, though, there is that.

A moped is good and sensible though one should lose the beer can before riding. Drinking and riding is not good nor sensible. It was probably dropped off by some intoxicated passerby, who mistook a scooter for a recycling bin.

Guest houses and hotels offer guests the use of free bikes, attesting to the popularity of pedaling in Key a West.

This woman who looks like a bush was painting her bicycle to make her machine distinctive. I wished I had stopped to talk to her, wondering if she knew of the late Captain Outrageous.

I am falling in love again with Three-in-One oil a simple true lubricant, easily applied and effective. WD 40 is not a true lubricant as it is designed to displace water, hence it's name. This bike could use some penetrating lubrication.

This one could dump the candelabra until next year's zombie bike ride. On the other hand just yesterday I saw a cyclist riding with a bloody stump of a foot strapped to the handlebars. It takes time for some people to dismantle their decorations.

Occasionally I get to see some two wheeled exotica in this town devoted to useful practical wheels. This Spanish Derbi scooter looks truly odd but goes like the clappers I'm told.

Check out the dude below on Duval Street. This is why some people argue cycling is the way to get around Key West.

Tourists on scooters have fun but their weaving antics and incessant horn tooting can get old for passersby.

Locals ride too, I barely caught these three young tear ways enjoying their home town on bikes. A great way to grow up in the 21st century. Parents in this town give their kids more freedom than most in fear filled America. To see them loose on their bikes reminds me of the best part of my youth, being free to roam.

A well organized bike can transport your worldly chattels at speed.

The body language in this next picture tells me they aren't intimate friends. And he seems...nervous? Poor boy.

Notice the freedom inherent in the lack of "safety" gear. Passive safety is not high on the list of local priorities.

In

It makes riding easy and convenient so more people ride. This behavior also is not approved on the mainland. It's the same rebellion that fills recycling bins with trash. Oh well, sigh!

Not locals, but very safe, they think.

Check these two safety equipped cyclists riding in traffic even though safety and good sense dictate riding on the ample...

... and smooth bike path that runs along Smathers Beach. These people are enjoying the best way of all to get around if you have the time to walk:

And a ninety minute tour isn't such a bad idea if you want to learn about this lovely little city and it's wheeled residents.

By the way, check out Cigar City Reflections and add Dennis to your daily list of Florida places to visit. I am waiting patiently for his first political entry.

 

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