Waiting For Irma

I have sat out perhaps a dozen hurricanes over the past dozen years. I was hired in 2004 right before one of the most intense years for hurricanes. 2005  followed with the worst storm in living memory, Wilma which flooded Key West a few weeks after New Orleans went underwater. Katrina that year raked the Keys after making an unexpected westward turn over Homestead and scraping the entire island chain with 60 mile per hour winds. And then we had peace and quiet for most years with an occasional distant miss or a minor scare. 

On my lunch break Friday night I walked out on the White Street pier, the place people come to if they want to see waves of any height pushed over the coral reef by the oncoming storm. It was a pleasant night with the breeze that has been a fixture this summer and a more or less half moon gave a bit of light between the clouds.

My stroll was tinged with some slight melancholy which surprised me but then I recalled that sensation as a  bundle of feelings I frequently get when I am contemplating change brought on by hurricanes.

It's not that I expect Irma to flatten Key West or anything even if it does come here, even if it is a Category Four - at this stage two big "IFs" - but simply because hurricanes have a habit of ushering in sudden change. A  friend of mine recently while lamenting the lack of housing suggested a strong hurricane might sweep the landscape clear and reset the housing situation.  

He spoke not meaning what he said but unfortunately I find massive weather disasters impact the poor and around here the loss of income, the damage and so forth send more workers to the mainland. The second home owners are barely affected by a  hurricane as they have insurance and their lives and  jobs aren't directly impacted.

The storm is a long way away and may be approaching Key West in a week if the huge high pressure over the Atlantic stays solid and pushes the hurricane into us. But there is now a lingering feeling of what if..? What if the hurricane does come this way....what if there is damage...what if Key West is a changed place in two weeks?

It's absurd really because  there's no certainty about anything and even if this wretched storm comes here there's unlikely to be total devastation but  the mind plays tricks on you.

So without realising it I was walking the beach pondering how much things could change for no reason at all. Luckily I had my iPhone to take a few pictures and  take my mind off disaster....

The beach behind the Martello Tower at Higgs Beach, home of the garden club, is  a nice little spot and it has a picnic table. I need to bear this in mind.

And Hurricane Irma will have to follow it's course wherever that goes...

Time to get back on the Vespa and get back to the 911 center...

Saturday In The Keys

Key West decorative touches:

 A coconut stand that has become decorative; the business plan seems to have got lost:

 Checking out Rusty far below:

 The Moose Lodge mural encompassing many Key West life styles:

 A nice large street number, helpful in case of emergencies:

 Newton Street in the Meadows neighborhood:

I had one of these years ago and seeing it on Fleming Street gave me sudden nostalgia for driving up and down the California coast and Mexico and even if it didn't start on wet winter mornings it was  a great camper in my youth, Grateful Dead stickers and all (and I was no Deadhead).

Boating And Iguanas

Rusty was busy in the bushes chasing iguanas, and not catching them which kept him really busy and I was stuck looking for shade while staring out at the ocean.

It so happens there is a rather convenient concrete slab in the shade of a gumbo limbo so while the bushes around me trembled with the movement of dog I played with my camera.

 There wasn't really much action but there were a few boats mucking about on the water.

The commercial boat at the top of this essay made a nice contrast to the crumbling old Bahia Honda railroad bridge as it went through a gap in the hundred year old cement columns:  

 It was a perfect hot summer day with low humidity, bright sunshine and a slight breeze off the water. 

Eventually I followed Rusty's slow path across the waterfront bush to bush as he shook up the resident iguana population, an invasive species that wrecks birds nests, vegetation and digs holes everywhere.

 The  new bridge built in 1982 forms the northern side of Bahia Honda (deep bay) bay in front of the park that everyone likes so much.

The lizard terrorist ran himself into exhaustion and he plunked himself down on a shady section of trail and heaved his ribs as he sucked in air.

There we were for a while and even as I listened to him rasping air it was still peaceful and sunny and serene and the iguanas could go back to sunbathing and minding their own destructive beeswax.

Montefalco

Umbria in Italy is filled with small mountains towns of inestimable charm and long history. 

And winding mountain roads too. This building carries a plaque indicating Our Lady appeared miraculously to a local kid encouraging him to be a good lad. Miracles happen apparently in the most unlikely spots.

But Montefalco ("falcon mountain") is a very likely spot. Of all the medieval towns in Umbria it is among my favorites alongside Orvieto and Narni and Gubbio, perhaps better known towns but this place I keep coming back to for reasons I shall explain. 

It is properly walled and you aren't allowed to drive in.

The sign tells you to stay out unless authorized or an emergency vehicle. We were neither, so we parked and walked up the hill, as you do.

 I caught a glimpse of a rather lovely late model Moto Guzzi 350 set up to ride. Nice bike and it set my nostalgia jangling.

The architecture is splendid of course as you would expect.

Sagrantino is the wine for which this town is famous and it is a red worth tasting. They are proud of it as they should be. It is in a sense Umbria's native wine like Chianti is to Tuscany. I am painting with a broad brush but one does in moments of enthusiasm. 

They have a rather fine museum too which incorporates a chapel. As I grow older I appreciate more the two dimensional art of medieval Italy.

 We wandered through, left to our own devices able to enjoy what we came across at our own pace.

 It was relaxing.

Because these were the middle ages and the papal states artists were rather obliged to paint allegorically and create Biblical scenes to portray human bodies and so forth. You couldn't just paint a nude in those days without facing dire consequences.

 Giovanni revels in his heritage.

 His wife Rossana is a walking guidebook.

 My wife is a wandering Jew and is thus less impressed by overwhelmingly Christian art.

I look at these faces and wonder what the model was thinking and where she went after the portrait session was over. And in this case how far did they travel to find a blonde in predominantly brunette Umbria?

 Real people...

 Grumpy old friar isn't he? Must have sucked a lemon.

Ooh and there's the devil, subject matter of nightmares always ready to tempt you away to perdition...

This face reminded me of a buddy of mine in Key West but Curtis is about my age so I doubt it was him.

 I look rather more austere than I felt. I probably needed a slug of Sagrantino.

 But instead we had Coke Zero in the main square as it was hot and we were thirsty.

The appetizers did not meet with universal approval. 

 That's why I like Montefalco.