Short Lived Vespa

I rode my restored Vespa to get a haircut in Big Pine Key and the scooter ran better than I have ever seen it run. It was strong and full of acceleration. Exciting!

I rode into Key West later in the day and the motor went ping! and seized solid. I was doing fifty miles an hour at the time coming in to Stock Island. I coasted to a stop and called a cab to get me to my destination.

I walked the last part to my destination and passed a few things of interest.

I was already missing my 1979 scooter so this 100cc four speed Pagsta looked pretty good, even half undressed like that:

Some people like their women paid for an undressed and this form of mobile advertising for the strip club on Duval Street annoys some people in town. They used to park where the cruise ship tourists came ashore blocking parking for other businesses and they caused outrage. 

You can rent naked women to dance with you (no sex please we are a no prostitution state which surprises some tourists in this place) or ou could spent far less money and rent wheels to get around town. Brightly colored wheels too:

Walking Rusty at Truman Waterfront we saw increasingly frenzied signs of construction:

But some things never change, at least not yet:

I drove the broken Vespa back to the shop, a 17 hour round trip. The mechanic was apologetic and promised a repair better than ever and likely to last longer than 25 miles. I feel jinxed by this Vespa.

I am ever the optimist. This time it will work. Guaranteed.

Frenchie's Cafe

They are closed for vacation and I am annoyed. Annoyed with myself inasmuch as I have never had this joint on my radar. My wife bought a coupon for Frenchie's Cafe at some charity auction and it was great because it pushed us to go. 

I really liked the atmosphere with a few indoor tables and a crowded cafe overlooking the narrow front room. There is a small patio in the rear but August and September aren't the months to try sitting outdoors with a  hot cup of coffee; you will melt.

 This drawing is on their WEBSITE and  it sums up the atmosphere of this cafe on United Street:

The waitress did  not find my rather feeble joke about the vast cups of coffee particularly funny -Is that all?  I asked in an aggrieved voice as she set  down a 55 gallon drum of coffee on the table.

 My wife and I ordered quiche, she had vegetables and I had the basic Lorraine. Which was funny as my wife wanted the salmon and I wanted the Idaho (with potato obviously) but as they were about to go on vacation they had already run out of the ingredients...so we took what was available. This place has a reputation for extraordinary quiches and it was just that. Soft creamy and full of egg and cheese it was perfect.

The fruit was crisp and cold and fresh, the coffee cups were huge and bottomless so we were happy. 

I used to like the Banana Cafe around the corner on Duval Street when it was a tight little place. Then it moved into larger premises and while the food remains good it's not atmospheric so when I saw the banana trees outside Frenchie's I was reminded of the past.

I am now left to look forward to them re-opening in a  few weeks because I'd like to come back and try some other stuff.

Life And Death

They  found a dead body floating off Mallory Square last weekend. According to the newspaper some poor bugger working on the barge spotted the man floating alongside his work site.  

I wasn't thinking about that when I walked Rusty through Mallory Square as I have had the weekend off work and I hadn't yet read the paper. I just liked the view and the eternally hopeful angler. No idea he was dropping his hook where the poor guy died.

It turns out the man who drowned was a well known street performer and he got a long obituary in the paper. And then this rather impromptu and touching memorial popped up on Duval Street:

All around life goes on and I couldn't help but think about the juxtaposition of the daily banal routine, including me wandering around with dog and camera while the life of someone who contributed so much to life here was suddenly extinguished.

But there are still plenty of people to look at on the street.

Rusty started pointing. Either a dog or a tricycle was coming...turned out it was something else he wasn't used to: a man on crutches. We had a laugh when the guy hopped up to the corner and started petting my startled dog.

Rusty got into the spirit of the walk when he found a squashed Kilwins ice cream cone. I rather envied him the delicious vanilla Kilwin but I wasn't tempted to fight him for it.

I posted this picture on Instagram and labeled it Key West dystopia - broken bicycle and zombie chickens.

And around the corner the Green Parrot was getting refreshed for another day.

The banality of the routine made me extra glad to be alive.

Rusty At Night

It was  really early in the morning when I was off. I slept soundly woke up suddenly and said let's go for a walk and my Carolina Dog was ready to go, so we went. 

The home depicted below, slightly eccentrically designed as happens in Key West, is stuck in my mind as Carolyn Gorton Fuller's  home even though the "Bottle Lady" as she was known died in 2010. She got the nickname from her artistic habit of building a wall out of bottles and later out of mirrors when the bottles got damaged.

Key West looks  great by night in my opinion. Then I look up and there's Dusty sitting in the street waiting patiently for me.

What these danglies are I don't know but they are dangling impressively outside the new  sexton's house at the cemetery.

No cars, no traffic on Passover Lane at 5:30 in the morning.

Bill Butler Park:

Approaching Elizabeth Street on one of my favorite alleyways in Old Town. This one is a cement walkway from Bill Butler Park:

Decorative motif:

Then when the day got light (Rusty likes to walk a lot) I saw a motorcycle in a scooter parking spot. Seems about right to me. I was surprised how specific the sign was.

And so home to bed.

Things I See

Rusty doesn't feature in these pictures because even though I was walking him of course my attention was distracted. First up: Imagine renting a house with a  yard filled with political signs.  I checked this one out on Eaton Street (noisy no view and too close to Duval Street) and it was lined with signs including one that said it was not just for rent but it was already rented. I guess the new tenant won't be muddled when it comes time to vote. Normal business practices don't apply in a town desperate for housing.

A new home will be going up on this mud pile.

I was quite surprised to see such optimism in a  town where the planning department and the Historic Architecture Review Commission conspire to derail many plans. Persistence and money will win the day I suppose.

This next one I loved, oh ironic bliss! It's the women's club on Duval Street in the three hundred block. Clearly it would be wrong to deface the historic fence with another trashy plastic sign but it's okay for the club to hang their own ugly plastic sign on the historic tree. Young women of substance in this town join Zonta, so I'm told,  to do Good Works for the Less Fortunate. The women's club used to feature prominently on the late Conch Color society gossip magazine before it's founder died.

I wanted to ask him how his staph infection was doing but he didn't seem to be in the mood to entertain small talk. Places to hobble, people to see.

Total man nudity was a popular choice for fashionable attire that morning on Duval Street. I was tempted to strip as well but Rusty counseled common sense.

And talking of construction The Bull was getting a  substantial upgrade. The balcony is a good place to watch the Fantasy Fest  Parading Around of Middle Aged Nudity at the end of October. It's never too early to plan..

Here you can apply for one of the three jobs you will need to sustain life in your Key West life.

Did  I say no pictures of Rusty? I lied here he is at La Quinta resting comfortably. I was playing around with a new iPhone app called Color Splurge. Silly free fun or advertising-free for 99 cents.

Growing Curry In Italy

My wife said I should call my sisters after the recent earthquake struck Amatrice and surrounding villages in Central Italy. I sighed. People always call when a hurricane hits Florida and I guess I shouldn't be impatient with the geographically challenged but Tampa isn't Key West and Amatrice isn't where my sisters live. So I compromised and called my childhood buddy and riding companion Giovanni instead. For the first time, he said, I was scared by the strength of the earthquake. It was a strong enough shake that he wondered if everything was going to collapse and Terni where he lives is an hour from the nearest damage in neighboring Norcia. Hum, I thought. Perhaps I'd better call my sisters.

The damage is truly spectacular and four years ago when Giovanni took my wife and I riding through the mountains in that area the earthquake damage from years before in L'Aquila wasn't anywhere close to being repaired. These poor bastards hope to get their homes back in two years but I think they are hopelessly optimistic. It's a horrid mess, but I knew my family was fine as my sister's kids, much more computer savvy, had said as much...on Facebook. So I called anyway and using a calling card it only costs me four cents a minute.

My conversation with my sister almost never got round to the earthquake as it happens. My sister was much more taken with village news, who died and how the kids are doing and all that. She extracted a promise that I would be visiting next July so by the time she mentioned the earthquake in passing it was apparent she had felt nothing. There we are then.

However it turns out their bed and breakfast is doing well all summer long. She and her husband of fifty years (below) have moved into a smaller apartment they built on their land and they rent out the farmhouse. Cerqueti Link The idea is that their sons are less keen on raising animals like their father and they are branching out into hospitality along with raising crops and making olive and all that more traditional stuff.

You can see why, as cows take daily maintenance morning and evening. When I'm on vacation I enjoy riding the tractor down to the stable and enjoying the company of cows for a while but as a twice daily chore...I emigrated to California when I faced that choice.

Life is pretty traditional in the countryside there as it is everywhere and like most places in the world younger people are moving away to the cities to make money and all the usual stuff. My memories of life in the country do not reflect modern life there at all now that the villages are depopulated and no one wants to stay down on the farm.

So when I asked my sister how the farming was going she said the boys have tried something new, they are growing coriander. Good lord I said do you even know what that is? Well no she said but its a very delicate crop. They have to harvest it very carefully because if any of it gets crushed it ruins he crop. What on earth possessed them to grow the main spice in Indian food I asked astonished. The whole bed and breakfast thing shocked me a couple of years ago and now the farming is branching out from traditional wheat and olives and beef.

Well my sister said wheat you can hardly give away and someone said coriander is very expensive but it turns out its really complicated to grow. Have you ever eaten it? I asked her. Not really she said. Italian food is delicious of course but my father only ate English meat and two veg and Italians when I was a kid ate delicious home made food so I never got to eat "ethnic" foods regularly until I got to California. Indian, Mexican, Chinese were all utterly unknown in my part of Italy. That was me fifty years ago helping to herd pigs:

So to hear my sister is growing coriander is rather similar to hearing the pope had a religious conversion. Change doesn't come easily in the Umbrian mountains, or perhaps I should say it never came fast enough when I was a kid. But as they also say "The past is another country, they do things differently there." Sure as hell do, so now I'm hoping maybe there will be Indian food on the menu next July. Fat chance and home cured pork will just have to do.