Cheyenne's Exercise Mat

I keep getting these pictures at work. My wife decides to exercise and pulls out her mat, plastic on one side and soft flannel on the other. No sooner said than done and Cheyenne parks herself on it before anyone else can use it. That look tells you it's actually her mat.

Even when it's wrong side up she stretches out on it, preventing any form of human exercise.

I have experimented with pulling out the mat when I am home alone with her but Cheyenne steadfastly ignores it.

When I am home, even with my wife she prefers to sleep on the tiled floor or sunbathing on the deck

I have no idea what goes through my dog's head most of the time. I know that her previous family preferred to tie her up and she lacked fur in some areas indicating to the vet she had to lie on hard ground, God knows why.

I am fine with her sleeping on the couch if she wanted to, and occasionally I try to induce her to come alongside me but my unsentimental Labrador is nothing if not stubborn and she knows what she wants. Which is to sleep on the floor at least three feet away from me.

When I'm not home this is how she sleeps:

I cannot help but think of the man who bound and beat his dog to death for the awful crime of snoring. He is supposed to go on trial soon in the Upper Keys. If snoring were a crime Cheyenne would be in a penal colony. Instead of on my wife's exercise mat.

 

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St Valentine, Bishop of Interamna

Traffic on the Overseas Highway is horrendous this winter. Some say it's the low cost of gas encouraging driving, others say Key West is too pricey for people to plan long hotel stays. Whatever the cause, perhaps just too much sunshine, the road has been packed.

I have not been keen to get into the intense traffic with my old Vespa, finding my more powerful motorcycle more suited to the cut and thrust of modern traffic.

But yesterday I said the hell with common sense: we needed flowers and dog food so off I went. And had a great ride.

Today is another Hallmark holiday so rather than repeat myself, let me repeat myself. My connection to

St Valentine.

 

 

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Scoots Across Key West

Scooters are, in my estimation the best way to get around town. But that may be because I have been riding for more than forty years and I still enjoy it. Having said that I have to accep that riding a motorized two wheeler, even one limited mechanically to 29 miles per hour us not to everyone's taste.

Indeed there is more than one way to enjoy getting around Key West, so why choose a scooter? Well, there are many rental outfits and they will give a helmet if you choose to take one. Please do, and learn how to wear it properly. You won't see many riders wearing helmets but you don't get the 911 calls when they go down and get flown to Miami ($30,000) to get their heads rebuilt at vast expense. Funerals are cheaper all round.

Scooters are useful, easy to park though not on sidewalks please as there is lots of free dedicated parking. You can ride a rental scooter, most of which are limited to 50cc engines on a car license which is actually a bit crazy but legal. You will be in the company of many like minded middle aged "non biker" tourists and residents who view scooters as useful, not as lifestyle accessories. Just try to remember these are vehicles on city streets and you are not in Disneyland, a fantasy place where adventure outcomes are certain and locals are paid to be polite. In Key West pay attention as you ride.

Yeah, you can try and squeeze extra performance out of your ride but 50ccs gives you a cylinder the size of a travel shampoo bottle so performance is not going to sparkle no matter what. Unless you spend money, and a lot of it, building a bigger illegal engine for more speed. The basic scooter is a automatic with electric start and as easy to ride as a bicycle. Easier perhaps.

Some people in Key West personalize their rides. You would never mistake this for a rental:

Scooters are practical, useful workhorses, especially in a town that's flat and only four miles long. Stock Island is usually out of bounds for rentals.

But they are also fun, and can bring out the kid in you. The responsible one we hope, but still a kid.

 

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Pedaling Key West

Cycling is a common pursuit in Key West, often advertised as the best way to get around the Southernmost City.

They pedal here and they pedal there, on machines not necessarily expensive or hip.

Baskets are important when your bike is your station wagon.

My problem with cycling is that riding a bicycle actually puts you on a vehicle in the traffic stream.

Even on something bizarre you are a vehicle, even when you are on the phone...

When walking you are a mere pedestrian, traveling slowly, on the sidewalk, able to stop at random, look around, take a picture...

A bicycle is a very smart conveyance and solves a lot of transportation problems, especially in a small flat over crowded town with too little parking for too many cars.

And they can look pretty:

But to see Key West, too look around,

I prefer to walk.

Sometimes when walking is too difficult you may be tempted to load up your crutches and ride. No argument there, even in the harrowing traffic of narrow Truman Avenue.

You might ride too fast to notice the assets at Bare Assets...

Or you might just ride to mind your own business while avoiding cars...

Sometimes you will spot something really weird as you whiz by, like a large yellow dog resting in a puddle by the sidewalk. That could be enough to distract your attention from your velocipede.

And some riders gently wend their homeward way on three wheels, easy does it.

 

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Conchscooter On Dawn Patrol

It has been a glorious weekend, three nights off in a row for the first time in probably nine months of endless continuous overtime. Mostly I slept. I spent Saturday and Sunday getting up and going to bed with a little light eating and dog walking inbetween. And then I slept some more.

Which also meant Cheyenne, now fully recovered from what appeared to be a snake bite, decided it was time for a pre-dawn walk. The Labrador commands and I obey.

Sometimes the  evocative nature of Key West streets  by night  gets over ridden by the weird decorating styles I come across. I am not certain why this Festivus pole was illuminated, or even why it was planted next to the leafy tree, but it was and it was brightly illuminated. 

Cheyenne's impatience with my photographic meandering also leads occasionally to some light and motion studies. It was cool and breezy and the elderly,  and the formerly almost deceased Labrador pulled a Lazarus on me and was dragging my by  the leash such was her hurry.

Aside from the occasional car  shooting past the intersections there was no sign of human activity anywhere. Someone asked on Facebook recently on one of those re-post things  what would you do upon discovering you were the last human left on Earth.

Breathe a sigh of relief and walk the last domesticated dogs in the silence, I replied. I do my best to recreate  those circumstances any  pre-dawn walk, with more or less success.

The first sign of life was the beach clean-up machine, the closest local kids will get to seeing an agricultural tractor in action. It tows a  trailer with a rake arrangement and sweeps up the dead seaweed and human trash and leaves the sand ribbed like a Japanese ornamental garden.

Higgs Beach parking lot collects  debris rather in the manner in which the beach collects dead seaweed, only this lot are van residents, and car campers who drift in to the city from a night spent who knows where and they sit in their cars like hermit crabs in their shells and stare at the beach through their windshields as though afraid of getting too close to Nature.

I imitate them by observing nature through the lense of my Android camera.

As the sun rises dogs appear and if you want to know how to avoid conversing with your fellow humans, try walking a dog. People are utterly terrified of letting their dogs get anywhere close to your dog. Some look mournfully at my dog and ask if she is friendly, to which I reply not really, at which they recoil before I manage to explain that Cheyenne is indifferent to canine contact for the most part. Not friendly, not aggressive, just uncaring. By then the worry warts are long gone.

Sometimes I say actually Cheyenne is a Navy reject military dog. They were training her alongside dolphin to kill and maim large swathes of people, and they laugh with me at my carefully disguised attack Lab, mooning around sniffing sidewalks and tree trunks.

Someone had a day off and decided to spend it putting coconuts in a large peace symbol on the beach. If pressed I dare say I'd have no idea how to spend my time more fruitfully. Walking around with a metal detector is not on my list of preferred hobbies. Besides I think to be good at that you'd want to go off the beaten path and seek out something more interesting than lost dentures and stray bottle caps in the sand. 

And here, in front of the fine Salute Restaurant we have a combination of birds, locals in white stepping with dignity and in silence. The two black incomers tear up dirt and spread it everywhere, they make noise and shout aggressively. 

I know which insect mauling birds I'd rather have poking around my front yard:

Done, finished and ready for breakfast.

The attack Lab in stealth mode, waiting for her prey, preferably baked fried or grilled.

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