Dog Food

There are days I have to confess when I wished I had some more interesting rides to enjoy on two wheels. Sometimes the straight shot east (northbound) or west (southbound) on the Overseas Highway feels a bit inadequate to meet my needs, and I long for a winding twisting road in hill country somewhere. Mind you even if I were to ride up onto the mainland there are few surprises there, flat straight roads, many of which I know quite well...the nearest hills are a dozen hours away!

So instead I make do and perhaps take the long way round on Big Pine Key's back roads, or I wander down the side roads on Sugarloaf, or Summerland or I relax and enjoy the views and plan some future excursion. It's been hard though as I didn't get to go to Italy last year or this where roads are twisty and interesting, and I haven't been back to North Carolina in a while either so I am missing my motorcycle excursions. Cheyenne is aging and is less interested in leaving the house on the hot muggy September afternoons so a run to the supermarket on Big Pine could be done on the Bonneville instead of hauling a formerly  frisky  dog in the car.

The views were terrific of course, one can't complain about the mixture of clouds, smooth waters and mangroves, so I stopped on my way home and took some pictures. I hadn't planned on buying 25 pounds of dog food but there was a sale on at Winn Dixie in  Big Pine Key and I bought the big bag and left the small bag I had planned to take. "I'll get it on the Bonneville somehow" I told myself at the check out even though I had brought no bungee cords...And in fact my cargo net that usually holds my waterproofs was up to the task and the bag folded obediently under it. Cheyenne had food for a while though she was sleeping when I got home, six miles later, so I doubt she noticed the new bag of small bites that she like so much.  

It's the small things that add up I suppose and its these inconsequential rides that make up daily life. Indeed were it not for my two wheels I would feel like I was missing out on my favorite way to reduce my daily stress. Commuting to Key West before my shift helps, but going for groceries is no bad thing either.

Bridges and water may not be hills and mountains but they get the job done, somewhere to ride, something to see.

Breakfast For One

Breakfast out,  decidedly not normal for one who works night shift and goes straight home to sleep in the morning...And then consider I was at two restaurants in two days, that's also unusual for me but it was an unusual week one way and another. It was an accident of scheduling that I had several days off in a row...I dropped my wife off at the doctor's for a check up and while she was being prodded and inspected I went for breakfast.

From the outside Key Plaza is a common-or-garden shopping center, acres of asphalt and neon signs and all the trimmings of mainland USA. However inside the strip mall there lurks a rather nice  cafe, called Key Plaza Creperie where they make...crepes, among other things. Their buckwheat crepes they call gallettes but either way you call them they are very good. 

I immediately received a French Press with instructions to wait for the timer to go off before pressing the handle. I duly waited the five minutes, pressed the handle and poured myself a pleasantly strong cup of black coffee. Worth the upgrade from the usual house coffee. As I usually sleep during the early morning the coffee helped me overcome my natural inclination to pass out. 

Then my breakfast sandwich arrived, steak eggs and cheese with a side order of rosemary potatoes and it was quite delicious. I read my Kindle, sipped my coffee and waited for a call from the doctor's office recalling me to duty.

It wasn't a cheap breakfast, around twenty bucks plus tip for the special coffee and the very filling sandwich but I felt it was good value for money, especially in September, low season and a quiet nicely appointed cafe for a back ground to a slow contemplative breakfast. I could have waited in the doctor's office in an uncomfortable straight back chair and a loud blaring television or I could have been here. No contest.

When they did call to tell me the wife was ready for pick-up they added she wanted a bagel to break her overnight fast. It was the work of moments to drive round the corner to Goldman's, which was my back up breakfast plan, and get a bagel with cream cheese. Delivering the bagel to my woozy wife eased my conscience a little bit even though I think I got the far better breakfast deal.

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Burrito Night And A Movie

I had a few consecutive nights off this week and naturally I had to stay close to home as my life is split in two these days. When I'm not doing one job the other is on the front line, so the week was taken up with telephones and e-mails conducting business. But I di get to see a couple of proper movies in a movie theater, a place where the phone is turned off as the house lights are darkened and distractions are banished for a few hours.

The wife and I went to see the birth of television punditry captured in a documentary on the rivalry between Gore Vidal and William Buckley, two men hired by an ailing ABC News to offer commentary during the contentious, to put it mildly, party conventions in 1968 a time when it seemed the country was ready to blow up. The film gave us less of the erudite views of the two learned debaters and a lot more of them sniping at each other like ineffectual fops, while setting out the background national politics in an exposition of the madness of the times. I'd have liked more of the debates themselves but it was a fine, thought provoking film, and I came away surprised by how badly mauled the two men were, especially Buckley, by the immediacy of live television combined with strong rhetoric and high emotions. Buckley never forgave himself for some of the things he said and it was a sad business to see him taking to heart a careless insult that today would make no waves. Had Buckley called someone a "damned queer" last week it would be forgotten already. He never forgave himself for losing his cool with Vidal. Vidal himself retired to obscurity in Italy and settled into irrelevance. Best of Enemies is a fine movie and worth seeing.

We had a brief chat with a movie goer waiting for her ride. I was struck by her comment about how the issues of the day seem hardly to have changed, the China Threat, prevent war, create jobs and each political party sucks. She put it rather more elegantly but she had a point. Then her ride came and we left.

The industrious Tropic also secured a showing of a play filmed at the Globe Theater in London and shown in a three hour film. It was a one of and I was free to see The Duchess of Malfi a 17th century play in the style I dare say of Shakespeare and with a nasty throbbing plot as twisted and vile as any he could have dredged up. I enjoyed it far more than I expected to as I had never read the play though I knew of its reputation as "shocking" but I found it easy to follow and beautifully done. It really was like being present at the performance in the peculiar style of Elizabethan theater as shown below in a clip from the film. The film was a highlight of my time away from work.

We stopped by Badboy Burrito for a take out dinner as the food trucks we planned to patronize were closed. Badboy is an old favorite and I knew what I wanted as I always have my Gaucho Ernesto though I have to say we haven't eaten at Badboy since they moved up the street from their former digs on Simonton Street to a hole in the wall at the Bottlecap Bar. And now they are open till nine in the evening. Score! Or so we thought.

My wife likes duck so she ordered a quesadilla to share with my burrito and we took off for home, where Cheyenne was content and snoring on her bed doing an abysmal job as usual of being a guard dog. I am sorry to say the food was not what it used to be. Not only has the burrito gone up three bucks to $12, which of itself could be understood but the "phattie" they claim to roll at this counterculture shop was decidedly thin and limp. The quesadilla was okay but the two dishes came to $24 plus tip (you have to tip in Key West, even for take out; not to is cruel in this hopelessly underpaid economy). We split them in half and there is my twelve dollar dinner, not exactly bursting with goodness. There was a time when a Badboy Burrito was good for left overs. Perhaps that was why they have shrunk it so badly to a pocket of rice and minimal meat. So sad, but I'm not going back. Major bummer.

We weren't in the mood to eat out so we paused to pick up some beer for a meal we were looking forward to. The clerk at Conchtown Liquors on the Boulevard was watching - of all things- the food channel on TV. It's that time of year when you can pause and chat a bit as you run errands, as the pushy winter people are away and lines everywhere are pretty much none cistern. We talked about the food channel and the kids competing in a cooking show like adults. We don't have TV at home (Netflix and chill in Casa Conchscooter, as it were) but we do watch the food channel when we are on the road in La Quinta. Safe for work, non violent and plot-free; ideal for a budding entrepreneur go space out with. Or a liquor store clerk it turns out. She was funny and cheerful and the beer I bought I liked a lot more than the food.

I was sceptical when I first saw Guinness Blonde, an American Lager they call it. However I was feeling adventurous and skipped Newcastle Brown in favor of an experiment. How bad could it be? Very good it turned out, more full bodied than Yuengling, my runner up beer of choice, but not bitter or hoppy. I will buy it again.

So the net result of a rare night out, away from dispatching, 911buddy and Cheyenne was poor food, good beer and thumbs up for taking a risk, not for going with tried and true. Oh, and Key West isn't getting any cheaper! Oh well.

 

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Fleming Street After Dark

The oldest public library in Florida, and a damned fine one, dare I say it:

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Shabby Chic

The past week of rain limited the number of riders in the Poker Run from Miami so we can thank the weather gods for the lighter attendance of barely muffled motorcycles. I ride a lot but I do like factory quiet motorcycles, and I also like getting a move on. Getting stuck behind a bunch of Harley Davidsons going nowhere slowly and making a lot of noise doing it is not my idea of motorcycling. So I rode my Vespa and zipped silently among them enough to emasculate as many of them as I could. 

Rain made Duval Street look more dismal than usual. I was in a grumpy mood as the city's  newly hired Special Magistrate recently ruled that the carbuncle at 616 Eaton Street complies with historic code designations despite its monstrous size and flying walkways and general inability to fit in with Old Town residential architecture. Why the magistrate thought the thing is okay beats me. First very public outing, first fail. And Donald Yates was the back-up magistrate when his predecessor was unable to preside so its not like he hasn't had any practice.

As reported by Konk Life, the weekly paper city commissioners took advantage of a faux pas by one of their number to replace the previous magistrate, Jeff Overby who was a "bit rough" with petitioners ( people with money):

Overby had been reappointed to his position by Key West City Commissioners on March 17. However, the commissioner voted two weeks later to rescind that reappointment and start the application process over after Commissioner Teri Johnston inadvertently violated the city’s “cone of silence” ordinance when she contacted Overby by telephone before his commission interview on March 17. Johnston had called Overby asking for information on how many of his rulings had been appealed during his tenure as the city’s first-ever code compliance hearing judge. Under the cone of silence ordinance, no direct communication can take place between commissioners and a job applicant or contractor if the commissioners are the deciding body on whether to hire that person or business.... 

... there were indications that some of the commissioners wanted a new special magistrate even when Overby was reappointed by a close 4-3 vote on March 17. At that time, Commissioners Billy Wardlow, Tony Yaniz and Clayton Lopez voted to give the job to local attorney David Van Loon, who also reapplied in the second round. Although complimenting the job Overby has done over the past almost 17 years, Yaniz said he had heard comments that Overby was “a little rough around the edges” during code compliance hearings.

Mind  you Duval Street has its own overdue clean up recommended by another study paid for by the city. Soap and water applied with a stiff brush might be a start but some of the street frontage looks adapted from the Addams Family mansion:

This old sign to the happily defunct bar is still around and every time I pass it I find religion and offer up a  prayer of thanks for its demise. There never was any easy way to dispatch officers over the radio to quell a  disturbance at "BIG UNS" which can only refer to one thing, no matter what medium you are speaking on, even a police radio.

There are corners of the tourist district that I find evocative and that do sometimes get a lick of paint, like this brick building that shall remain nameless lest it shame it's neighbors:

Telegraph Lane got a fresh coat of asphalt not long ago which might seem surprising considering how many streets downtown are rippled and pot holed and uneven. However when you remember it provides the back entrance access to a city commissioner's bar, all is explained. And it still gets filled with puddles when it rains. 

Nice green corrugated plastic cover the band stand at the Cuban place at Mallory Square just ninety miles from Havana, a city that we are told struggles to find the money to maintain its shabby stock of extra chic mansions and palaces in the embargoed city. I'd like to think that AstroTurf and corrugated plastic would not blight their town but I am probably dreaming. 

But Key West has chickens and they rule the roost in this town:

Best to enjoy the motorcycles and not look too closely at the peeling paint and dusty storefronts. From last year:

Reflections

Starting a  new week, because weeks start on Mondays perforce. and here we are again. I am a little shocked how fast the year is sliding by, and I read that Up North summer is slipping away. Around here time goes by because the calendar says so and in a week it will be October. Fantasy Fest starts to loom already with all the mixed feelings that bacchanalia engenders, and a title like "All Hallows Intergalactic Freak Show" is enough to make you tremble.

I got my first call of inquiry at work last week. I don't know what people are thinking but they frequently call the police when they have tourist questions. In my orderly world you call the Chamber of Commerce when you have questions relating to...commerce. But no, we field questions from people asking how hotels, where to park, alligators, how long it takes to drive from Miami, you name it. Last week in the middle of Poker Run with a million loud motorcycles infesting the city a man called and asked if it was safe to visit Key West for Fantasy Fest. That one stumped me. So I said it depends. And he waited for my pearls of wisdom. I suggested he might not like it if naked people in the street offended him, but that didn't put him off, on the contrary I think he was envisioning his type of people stripping off to be viewed.

So I said, as to safety it depends. If you live in a small town in a quiet part of your state then Key West might seem, possibly, a tad intimidating. But if you live in New York City Key West has no crime at all, aside from drunkenness and the occasional fight. Oh yes, he replied enthusiastically, I do live in New York. I'm booking my tickets! And on such slender evidence we can expect to see one more New New Yorker gawping in the last week of October. The Chamber owes me one.

The no crime statement is a slight exaggeration most of the time. Key West has crime, it has to with 23,000 residents and millions of visitors, but most crime is not planned and spontaneous crime tends to be stupid, and violence is usually limited to people who know each other, be it ever so briefly. And yet, last week a woman got killed on South Roosevelt Boulevard. I was not working at the time and I make it a point not read reports about stuff that I have no work related reason to read so all I know comes from the paper which says the driver, who appeared to target the pedestrian, is being charged with vehicular manslaughter.

The worst part of small town living is the intertwined connections that you end up making with people who, in a more expansive community would remain total strangers, so the fact that I had a passing acquaintance with the victim is not really too surprising.  My connection was remote but she worked in the dentist's office where I am a patient, where the employees never leave, where every visit to have a tooth job is weirdly enough more of a party than an event to be feared. So to think this woman was run down by some crackpot in a car is just one more sign to me that life is random, the universe is meaningless and we are lucky for the time we get so lets make the most of it.

Decrepitude is the status quo of my generation.  I wrote a while back of a friend from my distant youth who has a brain tumor and today is back under the knife hoping for a little more time, hoping not to wake up a vegetable, always a possibility when lasers sear your brain cells. That she is 71 years of age is scant consolation as I face the start of my 58th year. Once upon a time 70, the Biblical span of a human life, seemed impossibly old. Now it seems so close that I expect to be seventy before I realize it. 

My 911buddy app is creeping along, still being built piece by small piece by engineers in Los Angeles, and the fact that it is taking VezTek this long makes me believe that building a national 911 application is indeed far harder than I ever thought. I was figuring implementation would be almost as easy as dreaming up the idea. Roll on Thanksgiving when the thing is supposed to be done.

See? Here I am wishing for time to fly by. What a jerk!