Goombay 3

Fantasy Fest is the big draw this time of year and next promises plenty of skin and costumes and visitors bound t have a risqué good time on the streets of this little town. Friday was a pleasant little home town street fair, with the promise of...coconut milk? Not forgetting the naked hunk.


We have been suffering from the ravages of the first serious cold front of the winter. Temperatures plunged well below seventy at night and daytime highs couldn't get close to eighty. My wife found our sweatshirts as a precaution and winter clothing started to appear everywhere!


For all that I try to be mindful when I walk Key West I still find views that are new to me. I have probably seen this balconied white building a hundred times but I noticed it Friday evening.


Even though there seemed to be fewer people than in years past lines have never been a problem at Goombay.


Not everyone hauled out winter wear to cope with the extreme winter temperatures. Sandals and boots were the choice of extremes.


I am amused how protective people are of their dogs when they meet. My philosophy is let the dogs sort it out they are much smarter and tuned in than humans. I hate seeing dogs held back from having fun


The hula hoop lady had roped in a couple of youngsters to have a go and they were doing well.


We got our curried goat stew and the consensus was we needed pudding so we ordered funnel cake at the Blue Heaven stand.


Deep fried Americana.


Nice beads, I said. Shall I hold them up for you? She said. I kept quiet and took a picture.


Chuck and Wayne saw intimations of the state fairs of their youth Up North and ordered a second funnel cake.


I like that kids in Key West can run free. Parents tell me neighbors send home reports of all the youngsters activities before even the errant kids make it home...


Want to try a fried Oreo? I thought it sounded disgusting but I was out voted and it was free.


Er, no thanks.


I want spicy red meat grilled and sticky. Yum. The fried Oreo tasted like funnel cake with melted chocolate inside. Disgusting!


Meet, eat, talk, drink. Repeat.


I loved the curried goat, the curried chicken was excellent, the arepas hit the mark and the fruit popsicles were astonishing.


It was an under subscribed Goombay, but next year perhaps it will be better if I have lower expectations.



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Goombay 2

Goombay is the Bahamian street fair which is celebrated the weekend before the Fantasy Fest Bacchanalia gets serious. Goombay is food and music and a gentle stroll down a few blocks of Petronia Street through the heart of Bahama Village.The vendors sell food but also more or less alluring lines of patter.


We made a date to come by and get some curried goat stew when it was ready at the Blue Heaven stall.


I was going to work at six, for what turned out to be an incredibly hard night of dispatching. I was on the main police channel all night and I got my ass handed to me from 6pm till 5:45 in the morning. I went home shattered by endless calls for service and a night that seemed like it would never end. I should have had some cold beer to fortify me for the rigors ahead...


Goombay is about hanging out with friends...


...though I left my best friend at home as Cheyenne doesn't cope well with crowds.


I saw this guy having a tropical good time so I asked to take his picture. "Mais oui he said.


She wanted hers taken too. It turned out they were Frogs so I deferred to the Francophone Chuck.


He walked and talked and discovered Key West will soon be home to a new French café, to be called Frenchy's on United Street.


My wife met one of her pupils much to the student's surprise. Thats the joy of small town schooling. "Hi miss, meet my boyfriend!" Erk. It's not easy for me either as I have to struggle to remember not to say fuck or make some inappropriate joke about one of those many things adults think their iPhone toting offspring have never heard of.


Funnily enough we didn't meet other friends on our stroll. Perhaps that contributed to my sense of sparser attendance this year. Buffalo Bill from Up North was conspicuous by his absence but he had thought that might have been the case
When we met last year. Goldman Sachs has a lot to answer for, one way and another.


The tourist attractions were out to see and be seen, wild chickens chasing scraps and the extra loud Mr Chapman on his music box tricycle.


I could no more stand in the street with a hula hoop than I could ride a tricycle making loud noise. I prefer to hide behind my camera and pretend I am visiting from St Louis. "Gee," I overheard the genuine article say to his wife, "Key West is weird." Just keep tipping, would be my advice.


The goat stew wasn't ready yet. Soon...


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Goombay 1

The city closes Petronia Street from Duval for the Goomaby street fair.


This year the performance platform was set up in the soccer field beyond Fort Street instead it's usual location on Emma. Thus the festival, supposedly celebrating Bahamian culture was longer than usual, and with apparently fewer vendors, seemed rather sparsely attended compared to years past.


There was still plenty of food,


And the usual quota of straight people expressing eccentricity.


Petronia Street was dressed to represent the almost tropical Bahamas.


And we ate the food we came for. The round yellow pancakes are corn meal tortillas filled with melted white cheese, a slightly sweet dried food pula in Colombia, called arepa.


Alcohol is always on hand at Key West functions,


in one form or another.


Blue Heaven, at Thomas and Petronia, put on quite the spread. We ordered conch salad which came on a bed of green mango slices.


This is the restaurant that most represents Caribbean food in Key West.


The Conch salad was actually quite good, and I say that as one of those rare humans that prefer their seafood cooked, not raw.


Goombay is more than food, it's also companionship, nothing nicer than a sidewalk to sit on.


This wasn't the best Goombay ever but I'm glad I went.



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A Day Out

One part of going to Miami is to try something we don't usually eat on the Rock. The Asian place my wife was craving was closed, Vietno-Nipponese-Korean fusion I think it was but as usual she had a back up. I don't how she does it but she knew there was a French Café nearby.


The bread was crisp and the contents excellent. A Mediterranean Croque Monsieur with smoked ham and cheese warmed and half melted put us in France. I ordered a Salade Niçoise which came on lettuce which surprised me. I expected boiled eggs, asparagus and mayo. Luckily I'm always up for an adventure.


The pastries looked superb but my American wife wanted a peanut butter cookie from next door...I yielded with good grace and got a white chocolate cookie to assuage my battered Euro sensibilities.


No Babas and no Napoleons for me. Target was the usual. My wife and her friends are hoping Target comes to Rockland Key's planned new development. I could do without the blank stares and television worship these places induce.


It was cold yesterday. I soldiered on in shorts and sandals but some people found 75 degrees hard to take without protection.


We were a long way from the end of Highway One but we were connected somehow to home away from the chaos of the real world.


Besides, when you go to the Big City you never know what weird shit you may get stuck behind. This guy may know how to drive helicopters, but he was terrible at getting the truck round a corner.


"...and more!" I love that advertising slogan. So vague and all encompassing as to mean nothing. "Aerial support and kosher dogs!"


The drive home sucked oddly enough. There was tons of traffic in all directions. Half of them drove ten under the limit and drove the other half mad such that I got passed on any and all sides by some very angry people. One van took the biscuit, with a personalized tag AMANDA P which passed me on the median at Bahia Honda such that the car which was mad at Amanda tailgated me wildly until I found a spot to pull over and they went head to tail all through Big Pine. You almost wish the economy would keep getting worse (it will) just to see how crazy your neighbors will eventually get (they will-brrr!).


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Walk A Mile In Miami

With a temperature well below eighty degrees and no humidity it was easy walking even for my hairy yellow Labrador. I'm not sure what Cheyenne thinks of the big city, if she thinks of it at all, but she lumbers along much as she does in a Big Pine neighborhood or in Old Town's local intimacy.


I keep a tight leash, relatively, on her here as cars come from all directions and if I have to ponder how to cross the street I'm not sure how she would cope alone.


I was talking with a colleague last week, about his girlfriend's business aspirations which she thinks can only be satisfied by a move to a Big City. I can see the draw for young people if they have any ambition at all. Key West is not a town that can satisfy the needs of the ambitious. I frequently field questions about moving to Key West and my standard answer is to leave your ambition at home. The good jobs are taken, the ones that pay real money. Even doctors have to work like dogs to make it in Key West, unless they have a private income.


Despite the Republican mantra that "if you're poor blame yourself," I am glad I was at the back of then line when desire and ambition were being handed out. It let's me live where I want, as I want, a form of Consumer-Zen self abnegation. Not Miami, never Miami for anything more than a shopping expedition or two, consumer style.


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Mile Marker 87.9

Were you to find yourself out and about on what appeared to be a beautiful Spring morning, fresh crisp air, sunshine and white puffy clouds scudding overhead you might forget you were in the Fabulous Florida Keys.


However checking the address on the imposing and severe gate facing the old Overseas Highway you might be reminded of your actual surroundings. The street number is the giveaway.


89701 is how Mile Markers are expressed as addresses in the Keys. MM Zero is of course at Whitehead and Fleming Streets in front of the County Courthouse, which is one end of the Keys. Mile Marker 112 is in the Eighteen Mile Stretch and marks the boundary between Monroe and Dade Counties. These things are quite punctilious it turns out, as is the renter of this magnificent property, duly noted as licensed, no doubt a sensible way to keep mosey neighbors quiet.


Anyway this is Mile Marker 89.7 with each mile subdivide into hundredths. Thus the Summerland Key post office at overseas Highway 25,100 is at mile marker twenty five and so forth. It is a brilliantly simple and easy way to find one's destination along the Highway.


And having made that point, as an aside I was quite surprised to see how many trash cans of yard waste it takes to keep a McMansion looking tidy around here.

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