Miami Fun

There was a time I could drive to Miami, see a doctor, do some shopping (all hail Trader Joe's! All hail Costco!) and then turn around drive home and carry out a  twelve hour shift at work. Not any more. We left home right after I finished my usual 8 hour shift and while Herself drove I slept and Rusty was with friends for the night.

It was a rainy day in Miami and while my wife had her broken finger inspected, the result of a kitchen slip, I stared out of the window at the rain clouds. The surgeon said no point in operating, it will heal itself and if not a fresh decision in a  month. Relief all round. I hear people bitching all the time about the quality of care in the Keys but with world class medical services available in Miami I don't really get the complaining. But some people are afraid of driving which makes life in the Keys rather restrictive.

 We went through Whole Foods for lunch which was an experience especially after I saw these chameleons strutting their stuff: 

I had bibimbap for lunch. The rice wasn't crisp whish is what I only know about from reading about this Korean dish but it tasted fine. I'd never eaten in the cafeteria  at Whole Foods but I would again, even with all the Amazon promotion plastered round the store. 

I bought gas and found a  bizarre smiling face at the pump. It turns out our sole statewide elected Democrat has put her face on our gas pumps. Technology strikes again!

Breakfast at the hotel had a massive view of downtown Miami and all it's construction as this is a city that never seems to run out of money. 

The University of Miami has developed a security system using more of that photo technology more or less successfully. Then you check in all by yourself which is also pretty weird at a computer screen which knows who you are from previous visits and charges your copay to a credit card and its all automated.  

Dr Quinnan likes to see me every  three months after my surgery and I was actually looking forward to showing him how I can balance and squat (a little bit) after he wired my pelvis back together last September. It was a positive meeting and my X-rays showed  good bone growth, the sort of thing that makes a surgeon happy. So we were all happy. Hooray until my next visit in August when I am keeping my fingers crossed that I shall be released to live and work 100%. They all told me it would take a year to recover and so it is turning out. 

 On our way back to the Keys we stopped in South Miami at Jackson South hospital to show off my walking prowess to the Intensive Care Staff that looked after me. Then we drove a further twenty minutes and stopped off at the rehab facility where I spent 58  days recovering the ability to function at least a little. I left in a  wheelchair promising I would return and show them my progress. They say very few patients do go back after leaving rehab and I wanted to be the exception because I am indeed grateful for the care they showed me.

I think that sentimental journey is my last. I can walk now and I have expressed my gratitude and shown them what I can do but as I got back in the car I felt I was closing the book on that part of my recovery and now it's time to move on. More exercise more work more learning to move again without continuing to look over my shoulder.

Around Town

There are several homes you'll find around Old Town with "Private Residence" pasted on the front  doors. In towns filled with tourists you can see why, I mean no one wants random visitors in their homes treating themselves to an authorized  tour. This one though looked heavily set up to repel intruders, with flower pots and all...

The famous figurehead hasn't featured on this page in a  while so here she is, illuminated buy the early morning sun:

Downstairs this useful reminder:

I love the old skylights in the tin roofs though I'm glad I don't have to live with them as heavy rain seeks out leaks in this climate.

I have been reading about late winter storms at the tail end of last month and I have tried to imagine a prolonged winter Up North. It just feels unfortunate hee.w here the seasons happily change very very little: 

Welcome and bugger off, from the mixed message department:

Bicycle as toilet roll holder at a bike shop:

Conch cottage:

Escape construction?

And no, I have no idea why he crossed the road:

This time of year it isn't so critical  when people stop in the road to chat. I was able to bide my time. 

Mind you slow drivers are endemic this spring on the highway. I commute at ten miles an hour under the speed limit which is not so very cool. Oh well. 

Sugarloaf Walk

Weird dog. I was in the mood he wasn't so fifty yards in he stopped. Another dog showed up all shaggy and youthful and happy to see him so he had to be happy back.

Rusty reminds me of me, much happier alone minding his own beeswax.

Signs of Irma recovery, clearing trails and moving downed trees from hurricane damage two years ago,

We turned back and walked the road for a while in accordance with his wishes.

A bright warm afternoon contrasting nicely with reports of snow and storms Up North.

One tends to forget it isn't always summer in other places.

Spiders:

Bees:

Spring may be said to have sprung I suppose.

Contentment:

A Friday Night

In  a  life  filled with much time allocated to physical exercise and a fair bit set aside for work each week the rest of my day is dedicated to sleep as my bones and muscles continue the tedious and lengthy process of healing. That  leaves some time set aside to do something other than paying attention to Rusty. If music be the food of love, play on, Michael Robinson. 

Learning to live in a new body filled with metal plates and held together with steel pins requires patience with oneself as stamina is much reduced. An evening nursing a glass of wine combined with a glass of beer with dinner, leaves a trauma survivor like myself ready to pass out by 9 pm...So a gentle evening at the Gardens Hotel listening to Michael thump the ivories is just the ticket. 

And the Gardens Hotel has the self service wine dispenser of many years standing and it still works very well. I had a glass of dry Greek white, evocatively labeled from the vineyards of Santorini. I had no idea that place had room enough for lands  dedicated to the vine.

Michael had set aside a table at the back of the room for us with a bird's eye view of the piano. He was alone last Friday, his partner Eric was away invigilating university stuff where he works I believe, and thus left Michael togo a little while. I usually play ballads the pianist mused with a wicked glint in his eye, and proceeded to knock a few more spirited tunes with the loud pedal fully deployed.

He did not hold back. I wasn't sure our friends were in the mood so I offered them an out by suggesting we cut out to dinner. I was quite delighted when they didn't leap at the suggestion and we sat firmly in our seats until it really was time to leave and eat Thai food.

The day was overcast yet the heat was enough to keep visitor around the pool and in it. The views of course are lush in a hotel by the name of The Gardens...An American in Paris came belting out of the machine and floated around the rafters.

The hotel is quiet and genteel and very comfortable and filled with knick knacks at every turn.

MisoHappy on Southard Street was pleasantly intimate: 

 Chuck and I work out at the Broga Studio and we end up talking about the wild conversations Sean our instructor enjoys, a man of no filters and many opinions and a provocative sense of humor, Wayne his partner (in the yellow) is sick of Broga and tired of hearing about it so he and my wife decided spontaneously to start a knitting club to offset the exercise oriented conversation.

 I rejected twigs in lieu of cutlery preferring to stick (pun intended ) to my European roots, a culture that has long since embraced the fork as the most sensible way to eat.  Asians in Asia use sticks very effectively but in their culture the bowl is brought to the mouth. In our effete Western idea of good manners the plate stays firmly on the table but the chopsticks are used to convey the food perilously across our chets some distance to our mouths. Makes no sense, combining the worst of both etiquettes...

 The whole fish was excellent though even when eaten using twigs.

A culture laden night out in Key West. Sleep was welcome after all this activity.

Conch Little League

I have never had a facility for games involving teams and balls. When I was at Hogwarts (Downside  School) team sports were a requirement, part of the curriculum for a young Catholic gentleman, but my ambitions were apparently elsewhere as I hated standing around in the rain and sleet waiting to get hit by a ball.

Not so the youngsters of the Southernmost City where baseball and its derivatives are considered the equivalent of a religion for young Conchs and their families. To be a Conch (a native of Key West, pronounced "konk") is to love team sports and they have the facilities to prove it.

I stopped by my favorite picnic table for a spot of al fresco lunch on a busy day recently and strolling around to digest my Cuban croquetas I noticed the names on the monument built to the glories of baseball past.

These names are not only a multi-ethnic mix of Cuban and Anglo in a  time  (the Fifties and Sixties) when the rest of the country was struggling to come to terms with national ethnicities and skin colors. Here there are names a resident of this island would recognize instantly and back then Key West was always a bit different managing to integrate ethnicities with less hassle than the rest of the South. 

Even earlier baseball fans will recognize Boog Powell a famous Conch of major league fame. It has long been my belief that what marks you for life is not where you are born, in this case Lakeland,  but where you went to high school and Boog graduated Key West. A Conch indeed, and he is claimed as a Conch despite the place of his birth..."Powell received the nickname “Boog” from his father. As Powell explained, “In the South they call little kids who are often getting into mischief buggers, and my dad shortened it to Boog.” All of which I think proves my point conclusively.

Looking at the plaque above you will recognize the owner of B.O.'s  food shack on Caroline Street.Talking to my Conch friends  other names leap out. Including I am told Mana Casas, not Mona.

I have always wanted to sit in the bleachers on a  classic night game in the summer heat of Key West and I have yet to fulfill that ambitions as so far it has been thwarted by indolence and a little shyness. A Conch friend of mine is having a baby boy soon. I'll talk to him in a decade about taking me to a game... 

This is all serious stuff and parents get quite passionate about their offspring's performance.

I like the symbolism, the lights the colors and the atmosphere of all the pent up emotion.

It doesn't matter that this is the Southernmost City and all that stuff the tourist brochures strut about Havana being closer than Walmart...This is where the heart of the Key West community beats. At the diamond.

It is also, incidentally where you will find me from time to time, devouring some All American Deli lunch from Publix  just down the street.