Chartreuseter

There is only so much time that you can spend watching your Conch Republic flag billowing in the breeze, wrapping itself lazily around the pole and wondering if it will unwrap itself, and magically it does, until you realize it might be a good day for errands, with Robert in Sarasota for a big bridge tournament, and there's a nice clear sky after the overnight storm, and it's in the low 80s.

So there was the driver's license office (renew the registration on the Keysmobile and get the new stickers for the plate, now two years at a clip, and get a new license that doesn't require that I wear glasses, thanks to the cararact fixes); then to KMart for some tumblers (after the Cleveland Quartet all wanted glass and left me with plastic, which I hate, Robert finally agreed that four in the cabinet didn't cut it); then to Publix for some staples; then to the library to turn two books in and take two out (with the clerk saying rather pointedly as she scanned my Grishams in, "Looks as if we finally need a break from literature, don't we?"); and to Fausto's for a precious little piece of veal and a bottle of marsala (quarter of a cup for the veal, and a half or so for the cook), a cold-case packet of gratinéed potatoes from Switzerland that have to be tasted to be believed, and some rainwater madeira for a rainy day (good lord, is malmsey next?), I was heading home when. . . .

Yes, that green-feathered rooster.

I have grown accustomed to some serious plumage here, including the speckled fella who gave flurrious challenge to our glorious orange-and-auburn George (in the right corner) to cock-of-the-walk space on our street a few days ago.

But: green?

Yes. A vigorous yes.

And this to answer sweet bam, my Chicago anchor, who asked in a comment the other day whether Hemingway's cats still roamed here. Or was it his roosters?

To set the record somewhat straight: His descendants say he had no cats, though his tourist-attraction house two blocks from us (which our architect rehabbed, by the way) has a collection of polydactyls that they trumpet as original -- and has brought them grief from animal activists, who have got them in trouble with the feds by claiming that they operate as a zoo. Give me a break.

And in the rooster roster, Papa was apparently a big fan of cockfights (which continue here in clandestine fashion to this day, according to my barber, Armando, whom I'm overdue in seeing). And our gypsy chickens, proliferating by leaps and bounds, blossom in colors I've not dreamed of, though obviously the Parisiennes did when they specified "coq" for its iridescent sheen.

A good day, though that's true of any day with a flapping flag and veal marsala with some Swiss potatoes.