Keys Christmas Card

How could I not love Christmas in the Keys? Lying on the deck in shirtsleeves scratching Cheyenne's tummy, looking up at a cloudless sky?

Happy Christmas to you all.

For The Rest Of Us

I am one of those people who grew up in Christmas filled with tension. So when my wife told me she was Jewish I counted that as a plus. Knishes I learned about later and count them as a bonus for marrying a Jew, but Christmas is a holiday viewed from afar for me. That Christmas can be celebrated on palms and look absurd is a plus, so I there's more to like about Christmas in Key West.

My holidays I count Thanksgiving and Independence Day at the top of the list. The problem with Christmas is the expectations gap - it's a consumer holiday and if you fall short in consumption you feel like you are letting your family down with all the negative consequences. Christmas freaks me out.

Of course with my literal mindset I find it impossible to reconcile reality with myth. I slept through the Greek mythology classes, and I'm guessing most Americans did too as my wife expressed astonishment when she found out I knew the story of Prometheus and fire. But Christmas is not a discussion of facts about the Roman Census and history. It's a winter holiday (holy day).

It's the darkest time of year in the Northern Hemisphere so thinking of antipodeans enjoying an Australian beach on Christmas Day sounds crazy, so everyone yields to the King Wenceslaus image of cold and snow, Yule logs and all those pagan myths jumbled into the Nativity story in ways that make my autistic mind scream in confusion. Then I see everyone being stressed out at the happiest time of the year...

So what is Christmas? The way I figure it Christmas is whatever you want it to be. For me it's festive lights, friends round for dinner, a moment of no demands and no expectations.

The city looks prettier than usual and the wreaths on Truman, the lights here at Key West Bight they are all part if it. Good will would be nice but it seems in short supply when it's local equivalent -money - is scarce too. That's where the stress comes in.

I like a nice solid Christmas made up of absences: absence of gifts, absence of disagreements, absence of those people described so nicely in the Desiderata of our youth as "vexatious to the spirit." That's my Christmas and I wish you the same, in abundance.

I guess all that makes me a Festivus kind of guy. Happy Festivus everyone!

Posted with Blogsy

Lane Splitting For Motorcycles

From 2011 I have reproduced this essay from a  vacation my wife and I took in Italy to visit my family. We decided to spend three days seeing the sights in Rome and rented a three wheeled Piaggio scooter for the purpose. I wrote this essay on the joys of what Europeans call filtering, which is how two wheelers pick their way through traffic. To American eyes the practice is dangerous and unfair as it allows motorcycles to get in front of the sacrosanct line thus shriveling the manliness of the SUV drivers and their cup holders. In fact the California Highway patrol did a study which found that lane splitting as is permitted in California is safer for motorcyclists and keeps traffic moving safely. California permits motorcycles to share lanes with slow moving traffic, not exactly European filtering a shown below, but it is a practice that encourages traffic to keep moving and keeps motorcycles from being rear ended in stationary traffic by inattentive drivers - a bigger problem than you might think.

Meanwhile there is a move, following publication of the California report to allow lane sharing (not cross traffic filtering!) across the US. I of course signed the petition on the ADVrider.com forum and thought this view of chaos in Rome might be timely.  

Lane Splitting Or Death

"If you catch me sitting in a line of cars you need to pinch me" I called out to my wife. She was riding pillion on the 250cc Piaggio MP3 scooter we had rented for two days to explore Rome and it's suburbs, but I was not pulling my weight in the Roman traffic. Too much Florida was still coursing through my tropical veins and I was acting polite where Rome's car drivers expected me to cut and thrust my way through traffic. Showing cages mercy was just confusing them as they expect scooters to rip them to shreds in the congestion. No more sitting passively waiting for a green light dammit! We're not in Key West anymore. Check this street scene out, scooters and a car approaching a light:



Car slows for the traffic signal but the scooters move in and surround the hapless driver. I took this sequence of pictures from the top deck of a tour bus, by the way.


Then the light changes and the scooters swarm ahead.


What's interesting about this technique is that cars yield to scooters, they expect the mad rush and they defer to scooter riders in a way SUV toting Americans would never do. And the scooters actually treat the Rome traffic like it was an amusing obstacle course. Pedestrians and scooters dodge between the lines:


Over the lines into oncoming traffic :


Weaving between cars stopped at lights:


And between lanes of cars:


Traffic can be horrendous too so riding a scooter is a job for people who need to stay mobile, and not just scooting enthusiasts:


Our Mp3 rented for €65 or $100 a day is a great tool to slice and dice Rome traffic.


If only I can get used to being thoroughly rude on two wheels. That I can do, I just have to get back in the Italian riding groove of my youth and that takes a couple of days.

Working The Keys

Tonight will be my ninth straight night at work. Overtime is a great thing so the money is great to have but the mental fog of constant work seems perpetual. We have some trainees at work who are doing well, so I permit myself to hope the overtime will be reduced before too long. Usually I work two nights on and two off but with this punishing schedule at the moment I barely have the energy to read the newspaper, never mind go out and find blog stories. I was reading about the author of 92 in the Shade and pondering his residence on Ann Street for a story. I need time!

Cheyenne  seems to be slowing down a bit. her afternoon walks are more like outdoor naps after a short walk. I have a folding chair, a magazine or a Kindle and time to spend with my dog. This visitor from Virginia was being more energetic. The prospect of ocean swimming this time of year sounds appalling to me. Not invigorating just cold.

Cheyenne loves this spot in the fine talcum powder dust. Usually she enjoys the grass  when we go out, but here she takes her spot in the dusty gully. I actually worry that  one of the rare cars showing up here might not see her, so well is she camouflaged, that I park my blue chair next to her to run interference.

So it goes. Work, sleep, hang out with my dog, work, sleep etc.. Not the glamorous Margaritaville lifestyle the chamber of commerce celebrates. I am hoping we will have some new hire sin place in a few weeks and with relief in sight I feel I can manage anything for a while.

Keys Seascapes

These are not recent pictures of the waters alongside the Keys. I have been working what seems endlessly lately, eight or nine nights in a  row then one night off and then back at it, as we hope our two trainees get up to speed and ease the overtime burden. I have been looking at pictures as a way to take a small mental trip. These random seascapes remind me of good times past, more free time, because the past always looks easier than the present!

 There was a discussion in the paper recently about the cost to make the old Flagler railroad bridges safe for pedestrians. I miss walking this one across half of Niles Channel, alongside the modern 40 foot road bridge opened in 1982. Nowadays it's fenced off and closed. 

Cheyenne loves walking bridges and checking the really nasty crap anglers leave behind bless their hearts.

Oops, a cloudscape got in by ...accident.

The old bridge on the left, the new bridge with the water pipe on the right. Water was first piped to Key West from the mainland in 1942 to supply the expanded needs of the wartime military. 

Some days it really does look like this. And now the days start to get longer. About time.

Bow Channel Bridge Fishing

An early morning walk alone with my dog. 

 Looking for sun dried  fish bait. She loves that stuff abandoned by anglers.

 It's the season for people to come down and play in the Florida Keys.

 I overhear endless dreary conversations about snow Up North. I don't  miss snow.

 There is more about life here than the weather. The commute for instance. This is busy:

 Playing with camera settings allows me to move the dawn back a few minutes:

 Today is the shortest day. That doesn't mean it can't be sunny. In the Keys.

 So, the weather is good we've established, the commute is easy and we forgot the fishing.

 I think fishing is boring, but I like walking my dog, so my judgement is suspect.

 From what I gleaned there is  a plan when you bridge fish-  you need current and you plan for the fish to swim upstream and you thus drop your line on a particular side of the bridge. 

And then you wait. I had places to be and rays to soak up so we went home and left them to it.