Facing sunset

They were here the better part of a week, and they left a week ago today, and I'm just now getting back to normal.

My mom (she's the one in the black) came down on the big hydrofoil from Fort Myers with my Aunt Liz (in maize, with her grandchildren Junita and Federico) and my Aunt Nadine (with her second son, Robert, a Baptist pastor from Orange County), and of course we had to go out to Higgs Beach to make long shadows in the winter sunset.

There was some dinner and dancing at La Te Da, brunch amid the chickens at Blue Heaven, slow walks along Old Town streets -- the usual tourist stuff. And it was great.

But three women in their 80s, used to independent living but having to interact under one roof. . . . Well, it wore me the hell out.

True love

I don't know Cynthia Edwards and Rick Boettger, who wrote a letter to the editor of the Citizen debunking an incorrect listing of a real-estate transaction on their house on Olivia; they were horrified their friends would think they were moving.

But I know quite well what they feel about this place. From their letter:

We love this place above all others. Mostly it's the people, and not just our friends. People we barely know, or even just see on the streets or at events, are the most complex and interesting we've found anywhere on earth. The mixture of Conchs, snowbirds, writer/artists, village folk, tourists, "guest workers," dancing ladies and wise old ecologists, spiritual seekers and grizzled fishermen is a pastiche of vivid humanity that puts Steinbeck's Cannery Row to shame and makes Hemingway's Parisian Moveable Feast seem downright Vegan.

We watch sunsets, chase angelfish, play tennis, and bike home through the balmy quiet back streets of Old Town. Impromptu concerts, small theater, drinks overlooking the Bight, rides on friends' boats, the Tropic Cinema, the ability to make a difference in local issues . . . no place else can compare.

Suffice it to say, no, 1402 Olivia St. No. 1 is not for sale. We're here to stay.

Tidying up

Mom arrives Thursday for the better part of a week, along with two aunts and a cousin, so naturally we're laying in supplies, doing a little cleaning (not made any easier by the total failure of the mechanical door to the laundry) and primping the house and gardens.

Busy time -- and perfect for posting a few leftover images from the Yucatan cruise. Here are three moments at sea that took my breath away -- evening, the moonlit night and dawn. Add your own music and lyrics ad lib:


[I'll add a Whitman lyric here, one set to music by Vaughan Williams:

Word over all, beautiful as the sky!
Beautiful that war, and all its deeds of carnage,
must in time be utterly lost;
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night,
incessantly softly
wash again, and ever again,
this soil'd world. . . .]

Fallen with the mercury

Casualties of the cold, wind-shriveled leaves from our pink mussaenda littered the garden floor before I raked 'em up in chilly fingers this morning.

Not surprising, I suppose, since the plant's minimum range north is Hardiness Zone 9B. (Our typical weather puts us in either 10 or 11, depending on who you ask.)

Still, worse things than leaves could have dropped. This morning's Keynoter said residents all through the Keys were picking up fallen iguanas, knocked out of their trees by the cold. A biologist said they weren't dead, just stunned for a good long while, and cautioned against bringing them indoors to revive, pointing out the harrowing tale of a woman in Marathon who'd pulled a comatose 5-footer into her house. It was not happy when it started stirring again.

The same biologist pointed out that since iguanas aren't native here -- they're invasive, in fact -- folks should feel free to euthanize them humanely: Pack 'em in a cooler with some dry ice, and let the carbon dioxide do its deadly work while they're still out . . . um, cold.

The things you learn in the tropics.

Separated at berth

A leftover from the trip, tied up at the end of a 6-mile-long pier in Progreso.

Sorry about the headline.

Blame it on my cold meds.

Revel, schmevel -- we want warmth

So, we'd just gotten back from the Yucatan when it was New Year's, and we watched the dachshund parade (no charity, no real organization, no purpose besides a good walk for a hundred or so weenies) over lunch at Willie T's, and then traveled the block to watch CNN whipping up the crowd for the drag-queen drop (I dare you to say "Sushi's shoe" fast three times).

Though I got jostled a lot -- what a surprise -- you can see her waving at the center of the picture if you squint.

But then we found out that we had to start dealing with what Malinda gave us at Christmas: really, really bad colds.

And then the really bad cold: It hit 45 degrees Wednesday night, with 35-m.p.h. gusts that took the wind chill down into the 30s. In other places in January, that's almost balmy, of course. But here, it's a record; and for those of us accustomed to 70s at the least, it calls for mufflers, sweaters, parkas and gloves.

(Robert had a brilliant insight five years ago, during the last bad snap, when we were in a drafty, unheated rental on Elizabeth Street: If you're at all aware of fashion history, you can tell when people got here -- or the cold-weather clothes they got at the thrift shop got here. Every hemline and silhouette has had its sell-by dates, but temperature trumps style in the islands.)

The shivers also call for hot, nourishing food, and since I didn't feel like chili I made a Cuban cousin, picadillo.

You can click on that link for a basic recipe -- and though every cook makes it differently, my version is a cumin-scented mix of ground beef, onion, peppers, capers, olives and raisins. It stands on its own or fills sandwiches or empanadas -- or, in our case, enchiladas.

It's just what the doctor ordered.