Street View, Key West

I sat on the Courtyard Deli bench and watched the people wandering in and around and across the sidewalk in front of the Green Parrot Bar.

 A sip of coffee, a page from my novel and a couple of photos.

Whitehead Street connects  Mallory Square to the Southernmost Point by way of the Hemingway House so its a main tourist thoroughfare. 

Nekkid?  The beach is a straight shot from here down Southard Street to Fort Zachary Taylor. 

This weird guy was telling all the women who walked by that he loved them and he included a few of the men too.  Clearly he was harmless and offended no one but it was the kind of Key West encounter that gives the city "character" or grossness depending on your point of view.

 He liked this protoypical blonde and made his opinion audible from across the street.

Yeah, this is the place you want to be looking for people to look at.

 I have to say that when I got up and walked past him to my Vespa he had not a word for me, not one word of love.

Was it my manly demeanor or my pink Crocs and pink iPhone? We'll never know.

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Alternative Irish

I have been  feeling bitter about the closure of my favorite place, Finnegan's Wake, and I have not been feeling any too enamored of the process of seeking out a replacement. But with the arrival in town of George who shared my approval of Finnegan's I figured it was time to do the work. 

 I first suggested The Cafe on Southard but upon mature reflection I figured I had to try something new, and I wasn't  going to try Backspace the rather dreary sandwich shop with a dreary literary theme which had replaced Finnegan's. Backspace has been getting some rather bad word of mouth  after some rather peculiar choices when it came to trying to bring along the devoted Finnegan's clientele and then changing plans half way. Their decision to unceremoniously change their minds about keeping the genius who designed and built Finnegan's menu killed their credibility with Finnegan's followers.  

McConnell's had music and lots of it but after the live signer quit the speakers were at a tolerable level playing folk-ish Irish music much liked by Irish Americans, leaving George and I able to talk and listen without strain.

The seating is not as snug or intimate as Finnegan's but I could sit and not face a television and that I liked a lot. We had wings which were really quite good, so even though we weren't up for food it promises well in that department and merits a return visit.

The atmosphere is pleasantly wooden and dark, though perhaps let's say not as absolutely dark as the camera shows! I could read the menu without artificial lighting at any rate.

There is an outdoor patio which could have looked inviting in the right sort of weather but we took our Smithwick's indoors with air conditioning. 

McConnel's link for  menu and drinks list etc...

Our waitress presented the check and George's eyes lit up. The quiet and reserved woman came back and George asked her where she was from, "San Francisco," she replied, adroitly turning the unwelcome questioner away from the source of her Slavic accent. I admired her swift reply as I use the same technique myself when strangers pry and want to know "where I'm from." 

George wasn't having any and addressed her in Czech which brought a sparkle to her eyes. He told me afterwards: "I saw her name was Sharka, which is Czech for Sarah," he said.

I imagine the conversation was the usual sort of thing, establishing identity and roots and connection and because I wasn't the linguist in this instance I enjoyed being on the sidelines for once. George has been in Prague for the best part of 25 years, making a career and a marriage in that famously beautiful city. And apparently he has mastered the language for they talked with  ease.

Yes, I think I like McConnell's despite a  couple of shortcomings perhaps.

 I suppose we could try the 801. On second thought perhaps not.

I wear pink Crocs and I ride a Vespa with joy and elan, but gay I'm not. Not yet.

After The Storm

A strange week of weather these past few days. Winds blowing from the wrong direction, west not east, north not south, bringing cooler air and heavy rain. 

Key West looked bedraggled if you could see past the bright splashes of color:

Puddles breed mosquitoes and being in the back country after heavy rain is an invitation to be eaten alive.

A briskly walking man brought a splash of color to a gray  morning.

The tree commission in Key West is a lightning rod of disaffection . Arguments rage in the newspaper over decisions made to cut down trees with both sides sounding a  warning of imminent disaster should they lose the debate over the next tree to be offered up for removal. This one, from Wong Song Alley, lost:

A  scooter with one mirror coming and one going, clearly a well-loved and well-tended machine:

Rain accumulated at Higgs Park:

I posted this picture on Facebook  wondering why this dog walker thought she was exempt from the stricture imposed by the sign:

The bocce courts were full of water too; they put me in mind of chicken swimming pools.

Free range chickens (and roosters) seem to be multiplying. I am not a great fan of these noisy messy birds but they are a tourist attraction.

The newspaper reported five inches of rain and major downtown flooding, as usual. No word of massive flooding on North Roosevelkt Bouelvard so I have high hopes the reconstruction did its job.

As an aside the paper also reports there is more alcohol consumed in Monroe County than in any of Florida's 67 counties. Big news, that, and I hope they spent a lot of money figuring that out.

Wet At Last

Heavy clouds, dark skies, sudden cool winds blasting down the street: it all adds up to summer.

In winter, rain comes rarely and lightly, usually with a  cold front but in summer its heavy and prolonged and I like it. I waited for the rain to pass, the sun came out and the combination made for a nice ride. 

By the time the streets had dried it was hot and muggy again. My kind of weather. California can keep it's drought, thanks.

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Drinks In Key West

Downtown Key West is safe again for a while until schools get out and there is parking available with no lines in restaurants and the simple pleasure of an ice cream at dusk without elbows poking as you wait in an interminable line of people not used to being offered tropical fruit ice creams- cause for indecision. My wife is part of a cabal of teachers who miss Michael Robinson's skills in the administration at the School District but he is enjoying retirement. Much of his enjoyment in Key West he explained in my interview with him ((LINK) and the rest of his pleasure is on display at the piano in the Gardens Hotel on Angela Street.

It's an interesting venue, not only because they offer wine by the glass in a self pouring bar but also because you get the visitor's eye  view of life in Key West. I must say it does look quite decadent doesn't  it? 

The  wine bar concept is really quite smart, with a self service dispenser offering a quarter glass, a half glass or a full glass of wine from a  machine (I forgot to photograph!) that keeps the air out and allows partial pours without spoiling the contents. The hotel sells cards which you charge from your credit card and with glass in hand you help  yourself where and when you want.  This allows you to taste a variety of wines with a very small commitment. I think its brilliant.

My wife likes sushi, which fact is a burden for me as I am indifferent to the whole concept of paying large sums of money for raw fish. It's not that I don't like sashimi, its more that I don't like paying a lot for it. I suppose its petit bourgeois of me and a terrible thing but there it is. However in the spirit of compromise I figured my long suffering wife deserved Japanese to close her work week and she proposed we eat cooked food. Compromise indeed.  

People that know say Ambrosia is the best of its kind in Key West and it is quite charming as far as modern airy decor goes. The food is beautiful and of course it is nicely done. We selected appetizers and when you get duck presented like this all will be well:

For pudding we decamped to Flamingo Crossing and I realized as she chose something to share that I have fallen hard for that restaurant habit that Key West  seems to require of people. You go to one place and eat your favorite dish and never vary your choice and repetition becomes a way of life. I need to figure that there is quite possibly ice cream as good elsewhere and I should hunt it down. But I like my tropical fruit flavors...so I keep coming back.

The thing is, Flamingo Crossing at Virginia Street on Duval has easy parking if you have a car and more importantly for those of us who don't, is the view. I like sitting up on the porch looking at the passersby. It makes the ice cream taste better.

Then the ride up Duval in the  twilight. My wife riding pillion had not previously seen the transformation of Fast Buck Freddie's a particular local department store into one more national drugstore, bright, white and bland. Its what makes Key West special.  

The Tropic is the other movie theater in Key West, the one where real food and decent snacks are offered alongside beer and wine in the lobby, the theater where movies can have subtitles and where summer means fewer annoying old snowbirds explicating the plot to each at the tops of their voices. Of course  summer is the time when less money comes in...can't have it both ways. 

And then home to herself. Sleeping.

I ponder sometimes the value of living in the suburbs half an hour out of town when so many people prefer living within a few blocks of where they like to go for an evening out. It remains for me a question that is hard to resolve definitively but I like the peace and quiet and easy access to the water of suburban life. I don't mind the commute but sometimes the prospect of having to drive to town for entertainment kills the project, especially if I have to plan to go back for work later. Lots of people don't want to drive 20 miles for a  dinner party so that can create a one way friendship. But waking to a silent neighborhood, no fear of petty theft from the yard, my boat in the canal at my dock, and all the off street parking I need for half the rent of a similar homes in the city...it all adds up to my preference. And my wife's too apparently which slightly surprises me.

Cheyenne

Cheyenne hasn't been in many posts lately. Time to remedy that. Out walking, at home, I'm always looking round for my shadow. I think sometimes I annoy her with too much fussing. 

 It's summer so Cheyenne goes looking for water to cool off in. Mud will do.

She has two perfectly comfortable beds located strategically around the house, but she usually prefers the tile floor or at best the carpet. I suspect her life before her stint at the pound got her used to discomfort. I really need to stop fussing over her.