Making Do With Less

Last night I worked my first shift, six hours of overtime in our temporary digs while the upstairs floor at the police station gets remodeled. It was extremely difficult working with less than our full complement of electronics and as the shift sergeant said when he came by, we only now find out how dependent we are on technology. The next few weeks will take some getting used to, making do with less.

This experience seemed to me like a metaphor for the world at large. Making do with less seems to be the theme for most of us working stiffs. A friend recently bought a condo on the quiet side of town and when she laughingly pointed out it was worth three jobs she also noted that she had considered buying a small house but the cost of future upkeep worried her. Her parents are elderly and scraping by after a life of work and she is intently focused on securing her future now. Making do with less is front and center.

Walking Cheyenne this morning I passed by this array of air conditioning compressors. They were all cranking, but it wasn't the hotel they were cooling but the administrative offices. This was in the parking lot, and I'm guessing it wasn't the manager's ride to work:

Will we all feel deprived if one day our cars are replaced by electric tricycles? When I saw this guy pounding the sidewalk on Smathers Beach the 19th chapter of the Gospel according to St Matthew came to mind, verses 16-22. If we all did truly believe, we would be walking alongside him.

However he was alone, walking and muttering to himself, he who is numbered among what the Victorians used to call "God's Children" in the days when public piety was required of civic leaders. I saw a comment in the Citizen's Voice recently wanting to know why 'those people' aren't institutionalized. How short the collective memory is! The reason if you look back is because the sainted Ronald Reagan implemented nationally that which he tried as governor of California and closed public mental hospitals relying on the private sector and mythical community clinics to fill the welfare void. The spineless Democrats got on the bandwagon and now we have nothing for the least among us but the streets. Ronald Reagan and the Commitment of the Mentally Ill: Capital, Interest Groups, and the Eclipse of Social Policy

It's the collision of interests, promoting Paradise while reserving its benefits for the chosen, those that can pay. "Blessed are the poor" was not meant to be taken literally.

I was talking with an acquaintance when a friend of his came by and the subject if his heavily pregnant wife came up. It turns out her twins are growing and fast and doctors want then to be born a few days early, or some such weirdness. I am constantly freaked out by how childbirth these days is about as natural as scheduling your car for an oil change. It turns out the planned birth day was going to cause a conflict in the dude's life as that was the day his daughter was getting married. My God I blurted when we were alone again, he must make a fortune, my mind running immediately to this glaring illustration of the lifelong nature of the bills generated by children. And as I am far too lazy to work three jobs to buy a condo or heaven knows how many to operate two families the cost of these mid-life extravaganzas fills me with fear and dread. He does all right my friend said, but he will be doing it for a very long time. And there, as always is the exception to the rule, in this case making do, not with less but with more.

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Fix It Again Tony

This is not a low stress moment in my life. The island laid back lifestyle has been thrown out the window, mixing metaphors, like a baby with the bath water. Work has been turned on its head by some renovations which are closing offices and moving equipment all round the building. My part is minuscule in all that but how the bosses are keeping a twenty four hour operation going like this week after week boggles my mind.

At home my wife has been packing our lives into boxes and I have been flexing my muscles ready to haul them to the new place. Which should have been happening yesterday except the wife's car had got buggered up.

The 2004 Vespa has sixteen thousand miles and it runs like clockwork.

My 2007 Bonneville has 80,000 miles and likewise starts and runs as God, and Mr Bloor, intended.

The 2013 Fiat Cabriolet has six thousand miles on the clock and it developed a couple of quirks. The trunk lift gate wouldn't open and the roof controls lost their pre-set stops, so opening and closing the roof required holding the button. In these circumstances Google is my friend and the Fiat 500 a Forum appeared on my screen advising lift gate problems are not unknown and the computer needs to be "re-flashed." Which sounds very rude but in the event I made an appointment with the largest Fiat dealer in the United States (they say) and drove three hours to Weston on my Monday off to get flashed. Nice. The manager's special was a hardtop 500 for $21,000, five grand more than my wife paid for her convertible. Rick Case must be rolling in it.

The showroom isn't terribly large but Rick Case got the franchise for several brands in Ft Lauderdale and it felt like I was driving into Case's own Disneyland, the happiest place on Earth as long as you are ready to be ravaged by salesmen and get in hock to own a car. They do make it look good, buying a Fiat, check out the original 500:

Italian grammar is not their strong suit. "Signore" is the feminine plural ( for "ladies") of...

"Signora" which means a woman. "Signori" means "Men" but neither door was thusly labeled. So with my literal brain I had to pause for a long moment before I figured out which toilet was meant for me...

Once my bladder was relieved in the proper place (I think) I got my eyesight back and look what I found lurking in the Fiat showroom, an 8C Alfa Romeo!

The young salesman told me 2015 models of the eight cylinder and new four cylinder Alfas will be for sale later this year in a showroom next door that will soon be under construction. One more brand for the ubiquitous, indefatigable Rick Case.

My Fiat was reflashed in less time than it takes to write and the roof opened and closed properly...

...and the lift gate once again yielded as expected to the touch of the handle:

Then it was time to dive back into the mainland crowds...

I stopped at Florida Keys Fisheries in Marathon and ordered a couple of lunch sandwiches from a seriously pissed off cashier, whose grumpiness did not overwhelm the deliciousness of the fresh snapper, one fried, one blackened.

We shared the two sandwiches in my wife's office, and I left her the Fiat and took my Fusion home to a very grumpy dog.

I left home at eight and got back at three and I don't think Cheyenne would have enjoyed the interminable driving. She seemed to disagree until I scratched her tummy for a good long while.

It was a tedious drive all right despite the splendid views, but it's what you do when you live in the Fabulous Distant Florida Keys; but at least we can get to what we need on the mainland. Even if it takes all day.

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From The Archives, Key West & Santa Cruz

2011 doesn't seem so long ago but already three years have gone by...how many pairs of pink Crocs have I worn out since then? My half price do anything footwear that I first wore as a dare from my wife years ago and now I wear out regularly in pursuit of my dog on her walks...

The old Seven Mile Bridge is only open to pedestrians and bicycles today as the authorities plan a seventy seven million dollar make over for he one hundred year old bridge:

The bridge tender who died in a propane truck accident in 1981 as the new high span bridge was planned to replace it:

I was reminded of the Seven Mile Bridge history as I looked at pictures of a day out in Marathon, Chuck and I rode one day. His Harley was on Craigslist and now he has a classic Suzuki for his new life, not in Key West: It's Better in Bisbee | Living on the edge…

There we went overseas on the bridge. I cannot imagine living swapping turquoise water for parched desert hills...

The Florida beach life puts in an appearance in Spring in Key West:

Cheyenne likes life at the water's edge even if she doesn't swim:

And seeing sailors heading up our canal driving their catboat through a summer shower puts me in mind of the pleasures of sailing:

In Key West the supermarket downtown is a symbol of things that don't change. Fausto's Food Palace, the social gathering spot epitomizes my notion that despite gentrification and change Key West is still here for us.

It's Spring so chicks this year in 2014, as then in 2011 are being raised in the streets by their clucking broody mothers.

In the Spring of 2011 my wife and I returned to the home of our youth to help bury the woman who could have been my wife's grandmother, she had that kind of influence on us. I spoke a few words to remember Bernice Belton and the grinning face behind me in the picture below is that of the past and likely future Mayor of Santa Cruz, perennial activist, Mike Rotkin. The self described feminist-socialist would be a paragon of the so-called looney left most places in the US, but in The People's Republic of Santa Cruz he has come under suspicion for selling out to business interests on the right, in some of his city council votes... And he is a car-free avid motorcyclist, so on that basis alone he should get my vote!

Many people view the California coast with awe, the foaming surf on the jagged rocks, the cliffs falling into the waves, the low dark clouds, all the drama of a roiling ocean crashing onto an immutable coastline...

...and this part of the world has its own beauty, for sure. Monterey Bay is spectacular.

I met Tim in Dekray Beach in 1981 and we are still in touch. He has always had a hankering to be in the tropics but he loves Hawaii, not Florida. But his high tech work keeps him living on his boat in Sabta a Cruz, cold bad foggy, a life that got to me after twenty years.

Rick was my next door neighbor when I first moved into my boat in the Santa Cruz harbor. He taught me lots about living on a boat and he still does, part time. I met him in 1984.

Santa Cruz and Key West share some things, aside from both bring more or less snow free...homeless people throng to Santa Cruz where they debate, just as Key West debates what to do...

Downtown has no cruise ships in the California university town and they manage to make Pacific Avenue look pretty on a sunny Spring Day, rather prettier in my estimation than Duval Street.

But a summer day here that tops 80 degrees is considered an unsupportable heat wave and most home don't have sir conditioning though they do have heat. When I visit even in summer I find myself wearing socks to bed as fifty degree July mornings are not uncommon.

But under the palm trees socks are only worn for work.

Coconuts are a nuisance mot an exotic, as they produce tons of fronds that need cleaning up and the nuts fall and debt cars...and heads.

Key West, hot sunny and timeless.

I feel lucky to have lived on both coasts and enjoyed both and to have landed on this side for what seems likely to be the last leg of this momentary adventure we call Life.

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Walking And Planning

I have been preoccupied with impending changes at home but life for Cheyenne continues as normal. She used to get anxious when we packed bags but nowadays cardboard boxes filled with the debris of ten years of life and scattered round the house don't seem to bother her much at all. We walk as always when I get back from work in the morning.

She chases scents while I think about changes to come. We probably won't visit the Ramrod Pool as often but we are only moving a few miles up the road and Cheyenne does love this spot. During the day, especially in winter, people bring their dogs. So first thing in the morning there are lots of fresh smells for my favorite Labrador.

One of the sad things about this move is that we won't miss our neighbors at all. Even my gregarious wife has failed to find any redeeming qualities among residents of our street. To live on a street for a decade and to be glad to shot of your neighbors seems wrong somehow. We already have one person we know on our new street so I can only imagine how my wife will spread that around!

We had thought about moving to Key West, a move I faced with dread as I like living in the Lower Keys, away from the crunch of urban life in the city. However I had thought my wife might like the proximity to her social life but her friend recently moved into town and she said she doesn't find it does much for her access to their friends... So we both agreed to stay out in the suburbs as it were and I am glad.

You get more home for your money, parking isn't an issue and jets aren't flying over your house to land at the airport all day long. Homes tend to be better equipped with stuff like windows that close, central air, room to store your stuff and all those modern conveniences. I find people tend to put up with a lot to live in Key West, especially Old Town, in homes with no offsets, funky designs, poor construction and amazingly high prices to buy or rent. We get central air, parking, privacy, room to store our crap and a dock, a rather bigger nicer dock than we have at our old home. Our lifestyle won't change much...

Cheyenne seems to like the new place though as you can see the changes scheduled to take place over the next few weeks don't seem to phase her much. She is useless at packing boxes too, though I'm not much better so my wife packs and I carry, or I will when we get access to the new place.

We will be sad to say good bye to our cute treehouse; we still wish Wells Fargo would have modified our mortgage but I always tell my wife it was better that we had to go through this forced sale as not everyone is asadaptable and able to cope with change as we are. And Cheyenne is along for the ride, good girl.

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