Glorious Key West

I too would like to see the wires put underground but that won't ever happen. I'd like to see modern traffic lights in Key West, the ones that change rapidly in response to the weight of the traffic, so you aren't parked at a red light forever. They've done a brilliant job on North Roosevelt so I know it's possible. 

Other than those minor inconveniences Key West has been lovely lately after one set of storms and before the next. This is one of those times when you wake up an wonder who painted the world in primary colors for you. Of course there are tons of other issues going on right now. The school district has embarrassed itself with another financial scandal losing $20,000 which went -poof!- into thin air. The leaders of the district thrashed around ineffectually wringing their hands and wondering what to do before they brushed the mess under the nearest carpet. 

There is much talk of Cuba in the news as everyone waits for Congress to repeal the embargo which they won't do as Our Man in the White House has been making strides in that department without them. Everyone wants a ferry from Stock Island, from Truman Waterfront and now I'm hearing Miami is thinking about getting involved in a ferry plan.

When I took these pictures Up North was getting hosed by epic blankets of snow. Very pretty and all but I was happy to be out of it. Apparently I'm not alone as the Keys are packed with winter visitors even though it's been mostly cold and gray. I love the bright colors of winter sunshine, and I don't photoshop my pictures.

In the  housing wars city voters get to choose in a couple of months how to dispose of Peary Court. The city wants to buy the property and turn the former Navy housing into affordable housing whatever that means. Voters get to offer their opinions in March. I wonder how affordable the housing will be.

Key West - the struggle continues.

Dog Walking

Just because she's old Cheyenne hasn't changed much. She's stubborn, independent, solitary and she still likes to see the world. I walked to the car and she struggled to her feet and pottered to her place at the back door.

Sometimes Labradors want a walk. So I took her to Key West and after I'd finished the morning's business we went for a walk on Wiliam Street.

She didn't walk one block before she needed a rest, but she is as curious as ever. Her scabby skin is healing slowly after an intense course of antibiotics, she is lumpy with tumors but her eyes sparkle and she is still keen to sniff everything.

An old Captain Outrageous bike pressed into daily duty didn't interest her but she paused while I took a picture. Old habits don't change, she's been stopping for my picture taking since December 2009. She has always been patient with me.

It's my turn to be patient with her while she pauses to catch her breath.

A bit further on another pause on the other side of the Old Harris School listed I believe for a preposterous $17,000,000. It's an empty shell unused for years. Recently tented for termites.

Carsten Lane looking lovely as always in the sun. My dog not looking bad at all.

And home for a nap or two.

Long may she last.

Posted with Blogsy

911Buddy In App Store

We have  got Apple's approval and our national 911 service is now for sale in the Apple iTunes Store.

With this app on your iPhone you can now reach any 911 center anywhere in the US, from the Virgin Islands to Alaska.

With 911Buddy™ you CAN:

• Speak to a 911 operator anywhere in the U.S.
• Be on the line with the operator and your loved one at the same time
• Give any 911 operator accurate location information including gate codes
• Give any 911 operator up-to-date medical information about your loved one
• Ask the operator to check on a family member who hasn’t been heard from recently.

 It took us two goes to get it approved and frankly we balls up the first application by omitting paperwork Apple asked for! Duh. This time around we had our paperwork together, we answered their queries and they took us seriously. I was really anxious about the whole process but I'm really proud of this creation. It works and it will save lives.

We have a lovely design in my opinion and you will see color schemes I use on this very blog- coincidence? Hardly..! But beyond the aesthetics of the app we have worked very thoughtfully to integrate the functions with iPhone functions so if you can use an iPhone you will find 911Buddy easy to use. 

There it is, ready to go. If I haven't bored you enough already with this app you can go to our website  with all the answers I hope to your queries. http://911buddy.com/ 

Thanks for all your support in this process.

Fleming And Duval

Pardon my rant but this used to be motorcycle (and scooter) parking. Now it isn't. Boo hiss. And even though the silver car, and the white one in front seemed to think it is now car parking.

But it isn't. It's a yellow line and I suspect the nannies that removed motorcycle parking did it so vehicles turning off Duval Street will now be able to do so much tighter, perhaps jumping the curb and thus killing pedestrians instead of motorcycles. Some clouds have silver linings I suppose.

The 24 hour CVS has been there long enough I suspect that not many people think of Fast Buck Freddie's anymore, more's the pity, but this is a transient town of course so memories are short.

But for those that do remember Fast Buck's superb  window displays by the redoubtable Ann, CVS is not completely turning its back on the tradition, which I really quite liked.

Looking in the main window at CVS I saw a banner that rather neatly summed up my feelings about Duval Street's drive to trivialize shopping with chain stores...The thing is shopping by mail is taking over the banal things we shop for and it seems brick and mortar stores are going to end being the ones where we buy luxuries and things we have to touch and try on and feel. But I am not any kind of shopping futurist so I am likely to be entirely wrong and corner stores will return with a vengeance in a few years. Maybe. That would be nice. 

I think I am pretty good about looking up as I wander around but sometimes I surprise myself and see people enjoying an aerial view of downtown.  You never know around Key West,a city filled with balconies, open windows, porches, verandas and so forth.

 Yes and I'm still pissed off about them taking the motorcycle parking.

Posted with Blogsy

Cheyenne The Wonder Dog

A few pictures of Cheyenne in her new daily life as a dog with a second wind. Actually she is just being a dog and enjoying life. I think she is also prone to taking advantage of me, pretending to be weak when it suits her and getting lifts up and down the stairs when she feels like a ride. When she thinks I'm not looking I see her taking the stairs on her own, but when she stands their looking piteous I don't mind lifting her 110 pounds up 15 stairs. She usually wags her tail when we get to the top.

 A couple of weeks ago I was wondering how long she would last but the vet prescribed a medication for her that recently apparently went generic and is thus affordable, and for the transformation I've seen in her a buck a pill is very worthwhile.

In order to help her get around on the tile floors we have taken to laying down rather ugly plastic mats that give her weak hind legs better grip. What we do for this dog! That and keeping the air cool enough that she doesn't pant. Sometimes I felt like we live in Antarctica.

Her walks are shorter of course barely a block or two but she is enjoying life on four legs. 

And she is back to her puddle antics again. Her hind legs get very weak when I call her to come to shore. She can barely hear me let alone get up. So I have to go wading to "help" her to her feet. Bloody dog.

 All this exercise wears a girl out.

Dr Edie the vet told us the drug works miracles for some dogs and it sure has for Cheyenne.

 Carprofen (marketed as Vetprofen,^[1] Rimadyl,^[2] Imadyl, quellin, Novox, Imafenand Rovera) is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug that veterinarians prescribe as a supportive treatment for various conditions. It provides day-to-day treatment for pain and inflammation from arthritis in geriatric dogs, joint pain, osteoarthritis, hip dysplasia, and other forms of joint deterioration.

She will break my heart when hers eventually stops.

On Forks And Pasta

I have been reading a rather startling book discussing life, food, politics and history in Sicily. I have a feeling that anyone not having some meager amount of knowledge of Italy in the latter half of the 20th century would get lost in a  torrent of names places, political parties and bizarre rituals, alongside the more traditional murder and violence of the period and place. 

However there are a few tidbits in this fascinating book that have gripped my imagination and won't let go. First it turns out the most plausible explnanation for the derivation of the term mafia is that it refers to an Arab term for  a powerful graceful young man - the sort of young fresh blood needed by ossified organizations like The Mob to carry out the leaders' bidding. 

Then there is the matter of the fork which is mentioned even in the formal review of the book that I have reproduced below. The Australian Peter Robb gets the low down on the origins of pasta and forks in Western Society and his explanation as given to him by a Sicilian with some studies under his belt, is fascinating.

Robb suggests that the popular myth that Marco Polo brought pasta back from China be supplanted by a  new and better theory. He suggests fresh pasta has long been made in Sicily but the durum wheat pasta that can be dried packaged and shipped was developed by Arab merchants for transport around the Mediterranean. Plus he says the first recorded mention of someone eating with a fork was that of a Turkish Princess due to be married to a Venetian Prince. However plague struck and they both died. The Christian leaders of the time argued they were killed as a manifestation of God's disapproval of the fork, a Muslim invention and the Holy Roman Church outlawed the use of forks for centuries, leaving the faithful to eat pasta in the manner shown above. Not terribly appetizing.

By the way Marco Polo it is said discovered sago and camphor in Indonesia not pasta. So there, and I have read elsewhere that Polo probably did not exist and was an amalgamation of traveler's tales told variously to a Venetian scribe who created a coherent narrative we are pleased to call the Travels of Marco Polo. So there!

Talking about Sicily Cosa Nostra ("Our Thing") ends up becoming an object of some heavy discussion and as a resident of Italy in those years I find it fascinating how he ties together all the threads of Mafia, Politicans, The Vatican, Bankers and extraordianry acts of brutality by the the mob's killers- egged on it seems by the US after World War Two as a buttress against Italy's powerful Communist Party. The Fascists suppressed the Mafia in Sicily before the war and they fled to the US to escape so upon their return with the conquering army they set up again on the island and fought the Communists who wanted to rearrange Sicily for the peasants.

You have to give the Mafia credit for their utter lack of restraint and brutality. One preferred method of instilling terror, aside form gunning people down or hanging them and disappearing their bodies was sending messages like the form of torture called being "goat tied." The photo below is a representation by an artist, to not rupture your delicate sensibilities but you can find lots of pictures of bloated faces and protruding tongues of victims of this ghastly way to die. Essentially the victim strangled himself as his legs cramped and straightened out, thus choking himself to death. Nice folks.

From Kirkus Review this discussion of the book. Frankly I found the book engrossing and I would have to say it left me with a sense of wonder and finally some sort of explanation for the bizarre public years of my young life in Italy. Things happened and we never seemed to get a clear explanation for them. Now at last I do!

If it's true, as the Sicilian writer Leonardo Sciascia once said, that Sicily is a metaphor for the modern world, then author Robb has plumbed the depths of the world. Midnight in Sicily is a work from another age and era. Perhaps only in the 18th and 19th centuries would a foreigner have attempted to write about art, food, history, travel, and the Mafia together. But it soon becomes apparent that in the hands of Robb the landscape of Sicily becomes a metaphor for its history; history is inextricably tied to food; food is inseparable from art. Again, it takes a foreigner to see Italy and Sicily in clearer terms than the Sicilians and Italians themselves. The heart of darkness in this tale is Giulio Andreotti, the most powerful politician in postwar Italy: seven-time prime minister and once hailed as the greatest political mind since Bismarck. Ironically, Andreotti is a Roman who sold his soul in Sicily in a Faustian bargain to secure a political power base from which to rule Italy practically undisturbed for decades. Robb, who has written for the Times Literary Supplement and the London Review of Books, masterfully recreates scenes as benevolent as friends enjoying a meal or as diabolical as Andreotti's meeting with the most brutal crime boss in all of Italy. There are shrewd insights (``Beyond a certain threshold, power erases embarrassment''); telling phrases (Andreotti, leader of the Christian Democrats, is called a ``sacristy rat''); and deep political/historical revelations (such as Cosa Nostra's permanent aim of eliminating the historic memory built up by those few who've understood that Cosa Nostra was a state within a state). A barbecue becomes an occasion for a learned excursus on the history of the fork. This narrative is itself an eclectic and sumptuous meal that- -through no fault of the author's--leaves the diner with a bitter taste in the mouth.

While it's true there is an astonishing trail of death and corruption in this book I have to say the historical asides, the discussion of the book The Leopard a historical novel about Sicily high on my list of most enjoyed books, all add up to to an engrossing read.

 I can't recommend this arcane story about a province off most people's radar but I was prompted to bring it up because of our modern obsession with demonizing Islam. I have enjoyed thinking about what we would look like were we to get rid of three great inventions from the much maligned part of the world about which we know next to nothing: Pasta and forks, numbers and the decimal point and astronomy as we know it today.