Struggling To Walk

I am a lucky man.  I am back to walking the dog even though I need a walker to walk and I can’t go far. Christmas Eve I walked eight blocks in the course of an hour, collected a bunch of pictures and made my dog happy.  Pretty slick I think. 

I love being home in the Keys and watching Rusty walk. For a while there I doubted it might happen. Lying in ICU flat on your back unable to move doesn’t encourage much speculation about future dog walks. I knew I would do it if it were possible but to be here just four months later feels exceptionally good. 

I walked eight blocks in The Meafows over the course of an hour. I’ve posted some of my pictures here and there are more to come, Classic Key West street scenes! It’s good to see them through the viewfinder again. Spanish moss which doesn’t occur naturally this far south:

My wife’s sister’s family is here for a few days so we have to be your guides and stuff. They live in Asheville the hippest city in Appalachia so Key West has a lot to live up to except of course this place doesn’t give a damn. Recycling, very hip,is ignored as is solar energy and alternative transportation, all things dear to Asheville. I’ve given up explaining Florida, a state outsiders like to trash yet which I find fascinating. 

Most people see beaches overdeveloped suburbs and lack of elevation when they envision Florida. I’ve seen extraordinary sunrises over fields filled with cows, pine forests dappled by a setting sun and white rail fencing worthy of Kentucky horse country.  Yes there are alligators in the fresh waters of the Everglades and mosquitoes year round but for someone allergic to frost and who knows how to live better through chemistry Florida does just fine. This for instance is a naturally occurring Christmas wreath around a storm drain:  

Which reminds me Florida is known for being full of con artists and people fleeing in disrepute from lives Up North. Less so nowadays when modern communications make it harder to disappear just because you are a long way away. The internet makes it hard to sell abandoned swamp land as prime buildable real estate! Not impossible; just hard.  I feel like a con artist struggling to walk among the physically able  public.  I’ve always loved walking and to see myself struggling to put one foot in front of the other feels like it’s happening to someone else. I put my walker in the trunk and shuffle to the driver’s door clinging to the roof of the car like a dying man who feels his legs giving out from under him. Sometimes I forget to sit first and try to stick my leg in first, under the steering wheel. Sudden profound agony!!!  Twisting my formerly broken leg will bring burning electric pain just like it did getting out of the hospital bed. 

I can’t wait to be walking on my cane alone but that’s a pleasure I can enjoy only a few steps at a time right now. With the cane I roll like a drunken sailor, pushing off from one leg,then the other balancing precariously on the metal stick. I crossed the bank parking lot Sunday night while my wife bought burritos and walked Rusty. Walking back to the car from my seat on a low wall wore me out. Then my wife snapped this picture of me rolling back into the apartment with Rusty: 

Layne says the next few months will be the worst for me as I am impatient. Perhaps. I want to end the regimen of pills, I want to get back on the Broga mat,I want to walk without feeling each step.  Yes I am an impatient lucky man. 

Rest Beach

There was another of these many cold fronts in the forecast so I wanted to give Rusty a long day outdoors. We started at a city park but I wanted to take some pictures and Rusty graciously agree to tag along. 

Rest Beach is a good spot to watch the waters roiled up by strong southerly winds so that's where we went. Rusty found traces of interesting things in the grass and the bushes. I saw people doing things. We were happy.

It's been enough for me to be able to go back out with Rusty and walk with him after weeks in hospitals and finding myself barely able to walk. For other people defying death with nylon and string is  needed to get the blood flowing.

 Luckily my Lumix camera has a pretty big telephoto because the waters off Rest Beach are shallow a long way out and he was bouncing through the waves well off the beach:

I watched for a while, fascinated as Rusty ignored the water and rooted around in eau de passing dog and scent of rooster alongside the bike path. California offers deep rough waters and powerful afternoon breezes daily, but Key West generally isn't like that so experienced capable surfers like this man and his kite took full advantage of the impending gales:

The reef south of the Keys has been a fantastic barrier to beat down hurricane created waves as storms march up from Cuba so waves are generally not that impressive. If they were, then the White Street Pier would have to have been  built considerably higher off the water:

In this case strong winds from the west were expected so the shrimping fleet took off and headed to the apparent security of Stock Island. Normally they anchor south of Key West when strong north winds are forecast but that would have done them no good in this case. Indeed had they tried anchoring it would have been rough and if they broke loose that same protective reef would have been a danger to them.

 Not everyone gets freaked out by wave size...

 This shrimp boat has a white hull, as does she:

I thought the bloke in this picture looked a bit like Rusty testing the breeze.  Behind him you can see the brick wall of the West Martello Tower which now houses the Garden Club (free admission and delightful).

 I posted this one on my Instagram account :

 And this one too, @michaelconchscooter

 It was a warm...t shirt weather....

...sternly breezy...

 ...actively sunny day:

 A good day to be on the prowl with a camera in Key West.

Christmas

For Christmas Day I collected a whole bunch of related photos and put them here. Enjoy.

To the Blog Reader and gentleman who held the door open for me at the Tropic Cinema loo yesterday: thank you.  Mary Queen of Scots was a long tedious soap opera of a movie and my bladder was full.  The seconds you saved me are still appreciated, as well as your kind words. Merry Christmas and thank you. 

From Miami these two displays at the Doubletree Hotel:

The original concept, on display at Poorhouse Lane.

Festivus for the rest of us...

Tropical snowmen abound.

Not always successfully:

The cat on the bench is a statue:

 From the holiday parade courtesy of my wife:

 Bayview Park:

From the police department's door decorating contest:

Winter Dog Walk

This is the time of year my Instagram account is all gummed up with pictures of things  Christmas.  

They post pictures of snow and sleighs, wreaths and eggnog and all that stuff. 

Me? I'm out in the sunshine and temperatures lately under 80/27 degrees, fresh cool breezes, sharp colors and dark shadows. Lovely. 

I was playing with some filter settings on my "big camera" at the Hawk Missile Farm, a relic of the Cuban confrontation of the 1960s. Time, as you can see has taken its toll rendering metal sheet as thin as lace. 

And then there is the sepia setting as well, always worth a picture or two to pass the time.

The great thing about these pictures is that they were taken while Rusty my companion was off sniffing here and there just like we used to in the good old days before I had to go to the hospital for three months. 

When he came to see me in bed in rehab I promised him I would be up and about once again, before he knew it and I have kept my word. Even if the photo below shows how it is I get around these days:

"Young and reckless." That was me once. I'm still trying to maintain that status. 

You can see the wind effects on the salt ponds shown below which separate the public Little Hamaca Park where I was from the secure airport runway shown below:

I have been reading about how a drone operator in Sussex, England shut down London/Gatwick airport for a couple of days wrecking travel plans for more than a hundred thousand would-be passengers. People are idiots and at last report I heard they made an arrest which leads me to hope they throw away the keys for the moron that did that. 

Our connection to the outside world, for those not driving:

I saw a nice representation of Yuletide red and green in seagrape leaves on Instagram and my best efforts to reproduce that brilliant idea are less than...brilliant!

Rusty, a micro dot resting in the former paintball field at the end of Government Road:

I wish all those struggling with dark gray skies, snow rain or ice the best of luck but I prefer this absence of seasons, thank you.