Veterans Park

I slept long and hard and when I awoke my dog was still snoring. When she finally deigned to get up we took off to enjoy a morning walk together. I still wasn't feeling terribly well so we went to Veterans Park which is small yet full of smells so Cheyenne could have fun and I wouldn't have to walk too much as I was still feeling quite weak. This cold has been an absolute bugger.

Colds are depressants so my thoughts have been quite gloomy, therefore it is better I think I post some pictures and leave the commentary for another day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From my sick bed I have been watching Season Three of The Wire and Proposition Joe showed up at the beach and pulled a guitar from his car. His tag was from someplace Up North, Tennessee I think and the water views seemed to enthrall him. From behind I thought he looked, with his lanky dreads, like a young version of Proposition Joe, a moment made poignant as Robert Chew who played him, died recently. It was a hell of a role and I am enjoying my second go round on the Netflix discs of the TV series.

And so home to the couch, Theraflu and sleep. Wot a life!

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Heat And A Fever

I got a dose of head cold from the kids at work. Sitting in a room for twelve hours spreads germs like you wouldn't believe and this bug has been going around, where you live no doubt as much as it is in the Southernmost City. We wipe the consoles with anti bacterial foul smelling wet rags and here I am, sitting on the couch where I sleep, eyes and nose streaming, feeling very sorry for myself. My wife gives me soup and sympathy but I am ready to be whole again, thank you.

My dog is heartless. I had to go to the homeopath for a refill of these weird Chinese pills that dry you up and the dog was bound and determined to get out of the house. One could hardly blame her, it was bright and fresh if a little warm and the colors of South Florida were extravagant. The sun was out at last yesterday and she was not going to be left behind. I never saw a Labrador that could twist an arm like Cheyenne.

It occurred to me as I tottered after my frisky hound that I had no pictures for my daily blog. So here they are. Thank you Cheyenne.

This isn't my first walk down Asturias but it's the first time I've been down here in January and not seen snowbirds in these homes. It's just my observation but I'm not seeing as many winter visitors in the suburbs as in years past. It's not to say there are none, but the clusters of little old ladies standing around discussing snowdrifts in Indiana just aren't here. It's good for me when I'm sleeping during the day but it can't be good for the tax base.

A neighbor stopped by to ask if I was the one who bought this place. Nope, just walking my dog. People come, people go.

Bananas are coming too. In countries where they are grown commercially they cover the growing fruit in plastic bags to help it along. Here the fruit is more ornamentation. My banana tree is too small for fruit but a friend of mine grows the sweetest bananas I've tasted. We get some local fruit down here.

Dates don't mature in the Keys. I'm told its because they need dry heat and around here it gets all rainy as they are about to mature and they go off. Bummer, but they look good.

My favorite tree is the pine; childhood memories I guess. No fruit or nuts though.

This is as close to countryside as I've seen around here. It was like a summer day up north, buzzing insects, a slight cool breeze, the smell of cut grass, it was lovely.

Summertime.

I went home worn out. Good dog, guarding my sick bed.

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Fiat 500 Cabriolet

I was walking Cheyenne and my phone rang. My wife's Sebring Convertible had stopped working and she was in Marathon where she teaches adults two days a week. We had little hope it was a jump start problem but I drove over and the car wouldn't start. I suspected the correct cause, a blown fuse, but I had no replacements even had I been able to check their status. AAA came promptly in the dark and towed the car to Stock Island.

"I have found a Fiat convertible at Carmax in Tampa," my wife announced over dinner the next evening.

"Ok," I replied cautiously because she hates wasting money on a new car. It was apparent to me that a road trip was coming up if she had decided, without any pushing from me, to make the move. So there we were, not too bright eyed, not too early on the road to Tampa seven hours away, in a car with some, perhaps minor, reliability issues.

I wasn't ready to cross the Everglades twice in two consecutive weekends but this had to be done whereas last week's trip was for fun. My wife put 80,000 miles on the 2004 Sebring since she bought it six years ago. The interior light didn't work, the roof was waterproof though the trim was shot, the heated seats didn't and the heavy trunk lid had to be held open with a special tool designed by yours truly: a stick.

The old Sebring is actually not a bad car though it has a few plastic parts that need replacing every 70,000 miles we discovered...shocks, a cam chain tensioner and so forth. The battery has had a habit of going flat so we suspected a failing electrical system. We drove and hoped for the best.

Cheyenne was not happy. The rear bench seat was uncomfortable and she was restless. We were anxious to arrive. It was not a completely happy crew under the canvas roof.

Carmax is fantastic. They don't haggle or bullshit, they let you test drive anything on the lot you fancy, they will buy your car independent of whether or not you buy another from them, and all paperwork, tags financing is in house. The entire process from test drive to shifting our crap to the Fiat took two and a half hours. Simple. Why anyone would not buy at Carmax I don't know. This is our fourth purchase from them, and as always no high powered selling or upgrading, no hassle, no bs. Lovely.

Cheyenne took a keen interest in the paperwork. I was worried the bench seat in the Fiat would make her crazy on the way home. They gave us twelve hundred bucks for the Sebring - yay!- which covered the tags and taxes for the $16,000 Fiat. Someone took a bath on that Lounge 500 which cost 25 grand brand new and which Carmax bought at auction in Delray Beach, sold it to us and made money with a nine grand discount...I wish I had business sense, but I am a wage slave by inclination.

Ever since my wife first saw the new 500 in Italy five or so years ago she has been unwavering in her desire to own one, perforce a convertible. She checked the Smart and the Mini and they didn't measure up. Her love of the 500 has been single minded. Weird too because she is no great lover of cars. But she's like my dog (in a good way) in that she knows what she wants. I drove the car home, she organized the stops, seen here on Tamiami Trail south of Naples on Sunday, food courtesy of Trader Joes.

We had hoped to get another year out of the Sebring but my wife has to travel for her teaching job and getting stranded is no fun so this change was inevitable. It's a pain in the ass having a $200 monthly bill but the car was an extraordinary deal, first purchased in December 2012 and since then driven 1116 miles. Carmax changed the oil and the thing is like brand new, just run in. My wife loves to drive with the roof down, though in the Fiat the cloth roof is more open than down. The roof slides open and closed with no latches or complicated lifting mechanisms and my wife loves the fact it can be opened or closed safely at speeds up to sixty miles an hour, perfect for Florida's squally weather, now sun, then rain and suddenly sun again.

The roof space inside is taller than the Mini and the interior is surprisingly spacious, even Cheyenne slept soundly on the dreaded rear seat. Even with the roof open. We opened only as far as would leave her in the shade but it didn't bother her at all. Driving home through the Keys at dusk with the dog snoring in the back gave us the promise of being able to take road trips in this little bumble bee. It's supposed to be good for 40mpg but holding eighty on the freeway drops that to about 29mpg...

The trunk is small but adequate, the 1.4 liter engine is reasonably peppy and you can manually shift the automatic six speed box, if you like, no clutch involved weirdly enough.

My sister still has her original Fiat 500, a twin cylinder air cooled 500 cc engine that offered 65mph on the flat if you were lucky. These cars were the workhorses of Italy equipped with trailers and roof racks they took families on vacation, husbands to work and they doubled as pick ups or SUVs of the time. Driving them took skill as first gear had no synchromesh so double de-clutching was a standard skill. The roof rolled back but the vinyl was kept in place by poppers when closed and rolled up in straps when open. The modern 500 reflects the quirks in an up to date package. I like it.

On Card Sound Road we kept it down to 55 long enough to slide the roof open and home we drove. I watched the mileage zoom up to 48mpg as I stuck to the mandated 45 speed limit (plus a couple). It's an odd position to be in, buying a car at a time like this. I am acutely conscious of the weird economy we are in, the effects of burning carbon, of a world generally in flux, resource battles, consumerism and Peak Oil. Despite all that daily life goes in and mobility is still expected of us no matter how gloomy the economic outlook. Besides I am battling a huge head cold I picked up from my infected colleagues at work and the feeling of unease you get from a fever permeates my days. Perhaps the economy is doing better than I think and my gloom just comes from my post-nasal drip.

I slept most of the night and woke in a coughing fit. Cheyenne and I went to Big Pine at four in the morning and I found myself pushing some shopping carts I found in some bushes. In my fevered state I wondered how the homeless among us cope with the rattling noise and awkwardness of these infernal carts. I imagined myself pushing my earthly belongings in one and I shuddered.

Everything happens for a reason the wide eyed optimists among us say with perfect sincerity. I'm buggered if I know what the reason is much of the time, especially when people die, but I know why we got the Fiat 500; my wife wanted it. Good for her. Good for me.

 

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Irredentist Stock Island

There have been noises in Key West about possibly annexing Stock Island to the city. It may be wishful thinking but I rather hope this idea will be the Nude Beach Issue of 2014, the flag that someone flew last year and that ultimately no one saluted. Stock Island got its name from the cows stored here for the use of residents in the nearby city who preferred to keep their manure out of town. The signage used here is a bit stronger in flavor than the mild, dreary no trespassing signs that uglify Old Town Key West. Shooting potential customers seems an odd way to do business to me. Making aggressive threats seems odd too but this is Stock Island. Grr...we be tough.

I wondered for a moment if these old beauties were waiting for the next boat to Havana where they recycle old cars like crazy. Because they have to.

What Stock Island lacks in physical attractions it makes up for in utility. This is the housing market that at some level, though overpriced as always, is a lot more affordable than Key West. Hotels would have no cleaning staff, restaurants would have no dish washers and and fast food chains would close.

Chickens as always continue to run free, just like Key West.

The thing is that the city annexed the north half of Stock Island years ago to make possible a city development of homes at the golf course. But adding the southern half of the island benefits no big developer as there is nothing there to sweep away and develop. Or is there?

There have been plans in the works ever since the boom years to redevelop Stock Island when the newspaper published a map of the island with a development overlay of all the parcels purchased and destined to be gentrified. No luck so far, perhaps someone has figured if they gentrify Stock Island Key West's underpaid tourist economy collapses.

For now there seems to be an uneasy coexistence on the water between the commercial fishing fleet displaced from Key West's Bight and the encroaching high end marinas and yacht clubs that are being redeveloped.

There isn't much here to attract tourists excepting a couple of nice restaurants, Hogfish and Roostica along with the Dolphin Deli and my favorite El Mocho are reason enough to visit. The boatyards, autobody shops and construction yards may be outside the zone of interest of people visiting town to drink and party but they are what keep things going.

My main reason for not wanting to annex Stock Island revolves purely around my work as doubling the size of the city would increase the emergency dispatch work load. Doubling because the the Irredentism movement also has its eyes on annexing neighboring Key Haven where the upper crust reside, imagine that property tax base.

Aside from my personal lack of enthusiasm about the idea, annexation it seems to me might be a bad idea from a sociological point of view. The city has quite a few persnickety rules that might not go down real well in communities where they are in the habit of abandoning vehicles and trailers on the streets.

The funny part is that people who live on any of the islands between Stock Island and Sugarloaf Key are in the habit of assuming they live in Key West. That's because they are served by the post office in Key West, so mail sent to Bay Point, Geiger Key, Shark Key or Big Coppitt among others is all labeled with a Key West address. But they are all residents of unincorporated Monroe County.

I love these "increased penalty" signs. They make lawmakers feel good because they are "tough on crime" and can thus bullshit the voters, a tactic that seems to work sadly, but I doubt addicts and their pushers are calculating the length of prison terms if they do their deals in Bernstein Park instead of around the corner. In my opinion the only thing that might tamp the activity down is more cops on the streets. You'll notice speeders ignore the "fines doubled if workers present" signs on the highways, but the brake lights come on as soon as they spot a marked car. But more cops cost money so it's considered more effective (ie: cheaper) to stick up a sign. At least the sign lets the rest of us be aware we are now in a high probability drug dealing zone...

Cheyenne on these walks is always blissfully unaware of my ruminations. Indeed she is unaware of the sleeping cat her presence frightened into a semblance of wakefulness.

Stock Island street scenes, some mud...

...always a boat...

...and the hope of a better life to come. Better that I suppose than wresting improvements here and now from an uncaring world.

The heart of Stock Island, the Tom Thumb.

If they did annex Stock Island, Key West would join the rest of the island chain in getting its own Tom Thumb inconvenience store. That's reason enough to call for a vote I guess.

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