A Walk, A Read and A Loss

It was a hot morning in Key West and Cheyenne was ready to go home. She likes to end her walks with a little sit down, watching the world go by, getting her breath back and thinking those profound thoughts that only dogs know. I find less peace meditating on a public bench early in the morning when the street activity is such that I can even get bored observing nothing very much happening.

On the bench under the awning in front of Finnegan's Wake I happened to see a familiar face. For some unaccountable reason she had tried training in my office to be a dispatcher but hers is another path and she, a young Conch with talent it seems, got an internship in France learning fashion for her career in design. My rather pedestrian outlook requires me to think that a secure government job in an uncertain world is the better path, which is absurd for if that were everyone's path invention and accidental advancement would vanish from the Earth.

In this same world where everything is available online a paper magazine has to offer something that grabs your interest off the page and weekly magazines in Key West have passed their zenith with the passing of the age of easy money. They are for the most part vehicles to stroke large egos in a small town and to display advertising, they are not for the most part designed to display words or pictures that grab my interest. These days health "tips" and "lifestyle" advice and so forth substitute for wit and information and that interests me not one jot. I have novels on my pocket telephone, a tool that gives me access to the newspapers of the world, which is amazing to me. New York Times Review of Books or Konk Life while I wait for my dog to catch her breath?

On my blog pages I have a long list of Key West blogs that are still around but they come and go, mostly go, when it becomes obvious that in a world fed by fame and fortune blogs produce neither. The author of his column that caught my eye in the discarded weekly used to have a blog celebrating the stereotypical Key West "lifestyle" Bitchin' Paradise but as you can see it died a while back. But here it is in print., and it so happened the topic caught my eye. The corporate owner of La Concha wants to replace its iconic rooftop bar with a spa and salon and the bitch in paradise correctly thinks this is a bad idea. I like her vision of The Top as an indoor outdoor space, a comfortable space that might encourage people to gather to view the city by night rather than simply to get drunk on Duval. I has completed mourning the passing of The Top as when once money talks city planners walk and I don't expect anything to change that. The author apparently hopes public opinion can change corporate lust for money. Very quixotic!

The cause of all this fuss is Key West Diary: The Top. It's open at three pm while the bar opens at five. To get there take the elevator inside La Concha and hit the clearly labeled button. Do it while you can and meanwhile, keep smiling.

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Tim Egan New York Times Obamacare

A friend of mine has an adult child with cancer, a young man just old enough to be beyond the age of coverage under his parents’ health care plan. After nearly killing him, the dreaded Hodgkin’s lymphoma is in remission. But he’s still a pariah in the eyes of the insurance industry, which means they can deny him a policy that might save his life.

Not for long. In six months’ time, the heartless practice of refusing to let sick people buy affordable health insurance — private-sector death panels, the most odious kind of American exceptionalism — will be illegal from shore to shore.

“I can’t wait for Obamacare,” my friend gushed the other day. And she’s not alone. About one in 10 people with cancer in this country have been denied health coverage.

The cartoon version of the Affordable Care Act, that much-loathed government takeover of one-sixth of the economy, is now moving from Beltway gasbags and caricaturists into the hands of consumers. Its fate will be determined by the countless anecdotes of people who will apply the law to their lives.

The early indications are that most Americans will be pleasantly surprised. Millions of people, shopping and comparing prices on the exchanges set up by the states, are likely to get far better coverage for the same — or less — money than they pay now. The law, as honest conservatives predicted, before they orphaned their own idea, is injecting competition into a market dominated by a few big names.

What will happen if, in the end, Obamacare really works?

Brown And White Food

I have written about Flakowitz previously, a well hidden step mall deli off Boyntpn Beach Boulevard, close by the Turnpike's exit 86. It's a four hour drive from Key West but we tend o stop here when we pass by because my wife misses her Jewish roots from time to time.

Because I grew up in Italy, land of the colorful food I tend to joke with my wife that Jewish food is all brown and white, a suggestion she rejects pointing to the use of beets to make soup. Russian food I reply, as we load up with knishes and pastrami and challah. There's plenty to choose among at Flakowitz's:

Brown and white? You decide, but I see whitefish, meatloaf, mashed potatoes brown gravy etc...

Mac and cheese is yellow but is it Jewish?

All this and pastries and cookies and bizarre Jewish candy that come sin brown and white wavy blocks...

My wife likes to make soup so when I was coming home from Pennsylvania I stuck to the shopping list she sent, including chopped liver which I put firmly in the in edible category alongside whitefish in brine.

I am quite find of prune hamentashen which she ,ysteriously left off the list so I added a couple for me.

It ended up being a fifty dollar picnic which we spread over a weekend of proper Jewish food in the Keys.

I  am reminded of all this as today is the day I take my chompers to the dentist for a check up. Good teeth need good food.

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A Nursemaid's Holiday

I spent the weekend in my nursemaid's outfit helping my wife get over her bruising fall from grace at the gym Thursday. It was her back that did her in, not her limbs and I found myself stretched well beyond my comfort zone heating food and stirring sauces. I am not a cook by any means, I have no patience for stirring and mixing and studying how to time results and plate it all at once because I prefer to incinerate food, get on with it, get it done. Indeed I am far more drawn to cleaning as I go, losing myself in the pleasure of seeing a recently used saucepan come out of the sink shiny, instead of making sure the food from it isn't going black on the stove. As a result having my wife incapacitated makes home life a bit of a strain.

"I feel like something salty," said the voice from under the blanket on the couch. "What about you?"

"Well," I said, "there's shelves of potato chips not three quarters of a mile from here."

"You could take your Vespa," the evil temptress insisted.

"That would be difficult ," I temporized. "Seeing as how it's in Pennsylvania."

"You could take your wife's..."

Which was how I came to be on Middle Torch Key checking the horizon.

It was good to get out, there was no traffic on the Highway so I rode past the chips and made a half mile of progress before turning north onto the back road that leads eight miles to nowhere. Rain dripped out of a cear blue sky but it's been doing that a lot lately and the drizzle amounted to nothing more than a few blobs on the flyscreen. Water wasn't going to stop the ride.

Let's face it, speed limits tend to be a drag, designed to force distracted drivers to make like they're paying attention. Drive the limit and fiddle with your phone and no one will notice. But for me on my holiday ride the limit was perfect.

Perhaps even a little too fast as the speedometer on the ET4 reads five miles over according to the GPS in my phone.

I know the 150 cc scooter is technically a motorcycle capable of sixty miles an hour at least but I wasn't wearing anything remotely like gear unless a t-shirt and Crocs can be considered protective.

As always on these side roads there's nowhere to go except to the water's edge and I had to get back to my duties so I didn't go far down this longest of side roads, all eight miles of it.

It was enough to stop and watch the clouds scudding across the sky and the windflowers nodding in the breeze. Some days you'd like a mountain or a pasture or a winding bit of mountain lane. So would I. Those days you enjoy what you've got and not lament the absence of more.

This road will be eminently rideable with the wind in my hair and a t-shirt only on my chest come January and that's a lot for a cold weather wimp like me.

I found some jalapeño kettle chips as I perused the aisles of the Shell station pondering the meaning of life and the role of high fructose corn syrup. Check this out, remember all the kerfuffle about Twinkies disappearing (and good riddance!)? The competition just steps in. Ain't capitalism great?! Dreamies indeed.

Twinkies self immolation to destroy the labor union made news for a couple of cycles and then it was gone forever as the insatiable faux news machine marched on to feed enquiring minds another piece of pointless trivia. What chance does government spying have to penetrate our consciousness when starlets divorce and royalty wear hats? Hey everybody I found Twinkies! Actually my ten minute Vespa ride gave me the sugar high I needed, no corn syrup actually needed, even though those chips hit the spot...

 

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Ride To Work

I am not one of those people who gives much thought to social events built into calendars. I am indifferent to National 911 Dispatcher Week, or Mother's Day, or Breast Cancer Awareness. Is there anyone not aware of breast cancer? In a country with no health insurance coverage worth a damn we need Co-Pay Awareness Month (how much is 20% of any cripplingly expensive "proceedure"?) or National No Coverage Week for the 60 million Americans with no health care plan outside a Hope and a Prayer. With that sort of attitude you might think I am not likely to give much credence to Ride To Work Day. Alongside Andy Goldfine, the founder of this awareness campaign I believe everyone should ride to work, to save resources, support national energy independence, conservation, reduce traffic jams and chaos and make people at large happier (even me). Goldfine is the owner of Aerostich the motorcycle gear company and thus he has a vested interest in getting people to ride. But that is not really the point. Aerostich makes gear in Minnesota with local people getting paid real money to do real work so if anything we should praise him even more for trying to get people to ride and buy his stuff, if that were the point, but I don't think it is. I am a fan of Aerostich gear, it is of good quality and works as advertised. That Goldfine has a sense of humor and enjoys his passion is a bonus. That he wants to share it with the world at large is evidence of his joi de vivre.

 

To that end Goldfine has written this piece about why people should ride as a social good. I've cut it short but you can find it online Ride To Work 2013 , under the Resources For Advocates or in the Aerostich catalogue which in itself makes for fun reading, really, you would be surprised! Aerostich.

 

Andy Goldfine:

 

Part 1: The Missing Piece

 

Two pieces, actually…First, riding is a social good. Same as eating healthy, exercising and higher education. Everything we do that makes us stronger, clearer, smarter, and sharper means we can better help ourselves and our species.We become better husbands, wives, parents, and workers…better leaders and followers.

 

Riding motorcycles does all of this,…and it gets us from A to B with a smaller ‘footprint’, and saves us time, and reduces congestion and increasesavailable parking. Win, win, win. Win. So why isn’t everyone riding?

 

Because it is harder. Sitting on a comfortable couch eating junk food, watching TV, smoking cigarettes, drinking, and uh,…it’s all bad. As are cars, pizza and ice cream. But that stuff all feels soooo good…and I like every bit of it, too. The people selling us our cars, pizza and ice cream are not going to tell us those things are bad for us. And I’m keeping my car, pizza and ice cream. I’m already eating about as healthy, exercising as much, and riding as often as I can.

 

What’s missing?

 

Incentives! I want to be rewarded for doing the right thing. Because, (ahem…) this is America! Everyone here deserves this. There are only two meaningful incentives. (I already can easily ride in almost any weather to almost any destination—comfortably, efficiently and cost-effectively. Not enough.)

 

1. I also want to be able to save time filtering between all of the cars, just like riders in

California (…and the entire rest of the world). It’s statistically well-proven to be far safer for everyone, and it’s super-easy once you’ve done it a few times.

 

2. I’d also like some legal protection in case something goes wrong. Like a ‘vulnerable road user’ law for all us walkers, bicyclers, skaters, skateboarders and motorcyclers. For everyone who uses roads not surrounded by glass, metal and airbags. We all need the same level of legal protection highway workers in states like Michigan enjoy. “Kill a worker: $10,000 fine + a year in jail” roadside construction zone sign there read. We want that level of protection, too.

 

Those are the two missing pieces: Lane sharing (‘splitting’ or ‘filtering’) tolerance and Vulnerable Road User protection law.

 

It’s that simple…

 

Part 2: How do we get there?

 

Begin with “all politics is local”. There’s no reason any municipality cannot enact a law

to allow lane sharing and separately another to better protect vulnerable road users. Yes, such laws would be extremely tough to pass (of course!), and anything like that is certain to be court-challenged at state and federal levels. But this is where the pressures for reform and social change must begin.

It could happen.

—Andy Goldfine 2013

That's my favorite line from the Aerostich library of catchphrases, "Every day. No Excuses. Have fun." Of course in my neck of the woods it seems easy to ride every day. Of 13 dispatchers on staff (officers get to take their patrol cars home) only three of us ride to work, and the other two ride scooters less than a mile each. I ride in the rain and my colleagues, who already think I'm crazy to live 25 miles out of town, think I'm stupid for not using my air conditioned car. I've given up explaining the pleasure I get from riding and the self knowledge I get from riding in the cold, in high winds or in rain heavy or light. Its not much of a challenge to drive a modern car in rain even though judging by other dirvers tentativeness you'd think so because mere puddles cause tremendous traffic jams as though they were lakes. As to whether I will ride tomorrow, it depends if I'm on duty! Actually I'm off, but I look forward to my commute by Bonneville...every other day.

 

 

So I live in a relatively comfortable climate for commuting, even though there is but one road and it is flat and mostly straight...According to Aerostich if you have the proper gear you can ride more often than you think. Check it out:

 

 

The thing is, for me I just like to ride and I actually enjoy a commute on two wheels where driving a car is simply tedious. Its not all about speed, though that helps when traffic is moving slowly as it usually seems to these days on the Overseas Highway, its also about being out and doing something necessary (like getting to work!) but feeling alive while doing it. That a motorcycle or scooter does that is a rare feat in a world deadened where most sensations are deadened for us by second hand contact, usally through a window or across an electronic bridge. Our neighbors spend more time watching sports and less time doing sports.

 

As absurd as it may seem I see myself as above when I'm out riding (and it's just as unlikely on the Bonneville as the Vespa, I might add) but the sentiment is real. Cars are useful but they deaden sensation. I'm 55 and I am looking at the short end of my life so sensation is more important than ever. I don't buy gadgets much, least of all for my bike but I do try to make it more useful and comfortable to ride. I am not much interested in changing machines or "upgrading" as added complexity leads to more repairs and less riding. I just like to ride, and I like what I have.

 

And that is what tomorrow is about. Tomorrow and everyday thereafter: Go riding! No excuses!! Have fun!!!

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Running On Empty

I was riding into work this past Thursday evening and it occurred to me as I approached Key West my odometer on the Bonneville was reading 128 miles. I had a few minutes in hand after a relatively brisk ride into town behind some fast moving cages so I pulled into the Key Haven Shell station (shown below) to fill up. My Triumph has a four gallon (U.S.) tank and it tends to hit the reserve portion of the tank, the last  full gallon, close to 134 miles so I figured to fill up as I could make a quick stop and not be late for work.  I should never have bothered. The pump squeezed 0.15  of a gallon of unleaded into my gaping tank and then dried up. I looked at my watch  and figured if I was futzing around too long trying to get gas out of the pump I might end up late to work, and I'm too anal for that to happen so I got going and figured I could simply get gas on the way home in the morning. Then a weird thing happened.

Twenty minutes into my shift as I was  busy explaining how to dispatch rescue to an eager new trainee, my colleague Shannon (a former trainee of mine) called across the communications room to tell me my wife was on Admin Line 4. Grr I thought to myself doesn't she know I'm...."Help!" the feeble voice cried into the phone, " a weight machine broke at the gym and I got knocked to the ground. I'm covered in bruises that hurt. A lot." Well, that shut me up as I abandoned my post, left Nick in charge and told the trainee to study her manuals. Sooner than I would have expected I was back on the Bonneville riding out of town which was when I remembered I was still low on gas. I actually hit reserve at Mile marker 7, so then I was calculating that the gym is at Mile marker 21 so I had 14 miles to go which should be a piece of cake. Of course half the reserve fuel is stored in the wrong side of the  tank so effective range on reserve can be 30 miles or less. Once I ran out on my way home and had to lean the bike over to slosh fuel into the side of the tank that has the petcock...I pulled that trick for the first time on an Iron Butt ride when I was sucking down the gas far faster than expected at 80+ miles per hour.  And now I was absolutely certain the last thing I needed to do was run out of gas on my way to rescue my wife. Sigh, better stop for gas, I said to myself.

The Big Coppitt Shell is on the south side of the Overseas Highway at Mile Marker Ten making it a good stop on my way home for  a quick refill. I pulled into the forecourt and saw vehicles refueling at every pump except the far one, which became the one I aimed for immediately. I soon discovered why there was no car  at that pump: it was out of service as denoted by the sign and the big gray trash can upended in front of it with two orange cones. In the picture below it would be the pump nearest the camera. The 24 hour Big Coppitt Circle K convenience store is  major shopping center in this community and there is always a line for groceries and beer as well as gas so I figured this was not going to be a quick credit card stop and I had better press on. I wasn't really worried about running out of gas but to get this low was annoying, especially after two efforts to fill up.

I found my wife feeling rather sorry for herself at the gym, her ankle encased in ice and ready to go home. I figured a trip to the ER was in order, more for peace of mind than anything as she was able to hobble to the car, but her shoulder that had been operated on previously was unable to raise her arm very high at all. I immediately decided that to drive 15 minutes further was the better choice and I aimed my wife's car for Marathon, not Lower Keys Medical Center a dismal apology for a hospital on Stock Island. We've been to Fisherman's Hospital before and the Marathon staff are always helpful and cheerful and take you in immediately. We've sat in the waiting room at Lower keys for forty minutes the "receptionist" glowering at us like we were an intrusion and being completely unhelpful.

Certainly the receptionist at Marathon's Fishermen's Hospital was kind and made herself available immediately but the heat in the reception area was appalling. It took me embarrassingly long to realise that the front doors were open for a reason, and that reason was that on this stiflingly hot night the air conditioning system was broken. How the staff remained as cheerful as they did I don't know because summer has arrived with a vengeance and being inside that ER was like being underwater. I grew gills to keep breathing the hot humid air as my wife filled out the admission form. She had to hand over her insurance card and we haven't yet received the gruesome co-pay bill but the idea so far is the gym will kindly take care of out of pocket expenses. The sign on the wall was a reminder of the uncomfortable truth that our capitalist system is here to fleece us not to serve us, especially as it is the insurance companies making the money not the doctors and hospitals anymore:

I doubt there are any discounts for broken air conditioning. The evening went much as you might imagine, with an arrival well before dark and a departure around nine pm as I recall. My wife had an x-ray (ka-ching!) - nothing broken, and a the nurse installed a sling (ka-ching!)- and gave my wife a couple of pills to see us through the night (ka-ching!) and the doctor went over the various bruises and joints to make sure they worked and then we were off. And very glad to get back into a chilled car we were too. As is the way with the medical profession no costs were mnetioned at the time, billing is mysterious covert and unanswerable. Supposedly all that will change next year when the Affordable Care Act kicks in.

My wife spent a sleepless night next to her ever snoring husband, I'm not quite sure why she needed me at home instead of at work Thursday night. I sleep the sleep of the just and can hardly be roused from my slumbers, nevertheless on Friday I was pressed into service to walk Cheyenne and pick up her prescriptions for muscle relaxers and steroids. Those tickets cost less than six bucks between them, oddly enough. I figured they had misplaced a decimal point and the pharmacist agreed but I scuttled off with my loot before the error was noticed. I then tried to fill up the car at the Big Pine Key Shell (Shell is everywhere around here!) and would you believe the pump wouldn't dispense gas with a message about the pump battery being low and see the attendant inside. I was mad as a wet hen what with all these issues buying gas so I just left in a huff. Gas could wait! I try to keep my tank more than half full to avoid running dry though these gas stations were making it hard with all their issues.

By yesterday evening, thanks to better living through chemistry, my wife was well enough to sit up and have dinner with a friend while I got a ride back to my bike to ride on in to work.  I was heading toward Key West without a care in the world happy to be back on track and in my usual routine when it suddenly occurred to me...I was about to run out of gas! So I made a  quick u-turn, figuring I was at least 11 miles from gas on the direct route and only three miles from the Shell station on Summerland Key, pictured below, which was heading the wrong way, but oh well.

Of course wheh I arrived at Summerland Key, half way back to my house the gas station was packed with not only cars and a giant truck towing a huge boat bit with the crew of the boat scattered around filling a bunch of fuel jugs. I like this Shell station as they sell ethanol free fuel but I was about ready to give up and try the station up the road when I finally got to a pump, and it worked. Miracle of miracles!  I finally got my gas. What a saga, but at least  I got to work on time.

And to wrap up this extra long tale of gasoline woe I decided to add a gratuitous pretty flower picture. Just because.