"Too much information," I retorted.
She apologized: "I guess you don't want to know what time it is."
Me: "Now you get it".
Sadie on the front porch of 907 White Street
We flopped into plastic Adirondack chairs close to the pier in the Key West marina to consider our strategy. We were sun burnt and brain dead after three hours of dolphin watching and snorkeling in the Gulf of Mexico. We went to Waterfront Market and marveled at all the exotic fish, spices and sounds. We got some salmon, rice and strawberries and headed back to 907 White Street, our home away from home.
And what a delightful home it is. We are renting a one bedroom apartment that takes up the whole first floor of a conch house. Tracey informed me a conch house has 1) a porch across the front. Check. 2) a tin roof. Check and 3) interior walls off exposed Dade County pine. Check. With wooden floors, granite counters in the kitchen and bath, lots of tile, high ceilings, and a private hot tub on the back porch, ours is pretty deluxe. A beautiful traveler's palm dominates the lush back yard. Geckos and lizards squiggle in the rustling trees.
Key West is sort of like Central America with better architecture and water you can drink. Roosters strut around the streets. Feral cats prowl for handouts. And the manana attitude is reversed here: the tourists are laid back and the people in the hospitality industry happily do their jobs correctly and on time. What a concept.
Tracey threatened to quit her job and move here. One of our many friendly cabbies told us she would then have to look for two jobs if she wanted to live here, and get a third if she wanted to leave.
Most tourists are enthusiastically embracing the Jimmy Buffett lifestyle. In fact, the original Margaritaville bar and merch is here. I brought Jimmy's "Volcano" to play in our conch house. Sounds just right here.
Tracey on the pedicab. Snake and macaw wranglers are common here.
We've been on the ocean twice. Sunday we were delighted to find that we were the only guests on a trip into the Gulf of Mexico led by captain Anna and her mate Bethany. In fact, at 9 AM, we even had the streets to ourselves. This was a good thing, because I left my wallet on a bench then stumbled away to take some photos. When I realized I was missing my wallet, I ran in a panic back to the bench where I'd left it and found it undisturbed next to some equally oblivious tourists.
The boat trip was a testosterone-free adventure. The snorkeling was okay. The advertisements for "The World's Third Longest Living Reef" are about 98% wrong. Pale fish darted around white coral graveyards. I only saw one giant brain coral with any color, a pale yellow. Not like my first snorkeling trip in Biscayne National Park in the mid '80s, which was worthy of a National Geographic photo shoot.
Dolphins came close to the boat.
Monday we had a more successful snorkeling cruise in the Atlantic. We were on a sailboat with about 18 other guests.
I have to give you my fish list. Black and white stoplight parrot fish, yellowtail damsel fish, four-eye butterfly fish, pork fish, blue striped grunt, yellow goat fish, rainbow parrot fish, great barracuda (about three feet long and slender; not at all scary looking), and comb jelly fish. I was pretty freaked out when I drifted into a school of those jelly fish. They looked like a cloud of clear, round plastic bags about three inches in diameter. I didn't know if they could sting, and I was surrounded by them before I saw them. With all the floundering I did to get away from them, if they could have stung me, they surely would have, but one of the crew said if they don't have tentacles, there's nothing to worry about.
I saw some purple sea fans waving on the coral, but not many. Also saw some southern sting rays, about three feet in diameter. The biggest surprise was a gigantic blue parrot fish, about two feet long. What a pucker-lipped beauty.
As we sailed back to the harbor, we drank sangria and watched the famous Key West sunset, which at least on that day offered no threat to a typical Tucson sunset.
We had two wonderful breakfasts at the famous Camille's restaurant. Both times I had a crab, asparagus and sun-dried tomato omelet. My M.O. has always been not to mess with perfection. Camille's is a sun-filled Caribbean-colored delight with quirky art work. We were especially intrigued by the extensive Barbie collection displayed in one window. Each Barbie was dressed in a variation on the S&M theme. One had a spiked collar, handcuffs and whip; another was wrapped in cellophane and suspended by chains from the window frame.
I have always liked the poetry and karma of Saint Francis of Assisi. I was startled to find this wooden plaque in the ladies' powder.
The first feline companion to adopt Steve and me was Shadow, a quietly dignified black gentlecat. Sunbeam is our current fiery red head, a flirty and talkative jokester. We certainly don't want to drive away the memory of our beloved Shadow, and our darling Sunbeam has not taken his place, but I was stunned and happy to see them both mentioned in the same sentence by this fellow animal lover.
Saint Paul's Episcopal Church is an impressive Gothic Revival structure elevated above Duval Street, dazzling white like cane sugar in the tropical sun. Built in 1912 with an open-timbered ceiling, it is the fourth church on the site. The original was built in 1834. A hurricane destroyed the 1909 church.
The Golden Cockerel Medallion window was installed in 1920 in memory of children of the Lumley family who died in 1907 and 1876. The Golden Cockerel symbolizes watchfulness and vigilance, and is also a reminder of Peter's three denials of Jesus. I just like it because it reminds me of the roosters who brazenly stroll around the sidewalks and plazas here.
Nothing is ordinary in Key West.
Notice that the gingerbread on the porch is actually gingerbread men!
Only in Key West. A sitar-playing Spiderman busking on Duval Street
