I'd just loaded a propane refill in the car, and noticed a colorful character on the shoulder of the woman who'd parked next to me.
Mind if I get a picture?, I asked.
"Oh, you have no idea what a ham Paulie is," she said.
And as I got the camera out, he climbed down her arm, onto her hand, and gave me a profile and a squawk. And then another.
Just your average visit to Home Depot.
We got a new treasure the other day: The Coast Guard Cutter Ingham, the most decorated, longest-serving vessel in U.S. maritime history, and the floating memorial to the 912 U.S. Coast Guardsmen killed in Korea and Vietnam.
At 327 feet, she dwarfs the Mohawk, the 165-foot cutter that was the first ship in Memorial Park on the Truman Waterfront.
The Ingham was commissioned in 1936, and saw action in World War II, Korea, Vietnam -- even the Mariel boatlift -- fully functional until 1988, when she went to a Charleston maritime museum.
Both the Ingam and the Mohawk were based in Greenland for World War II, battling Nazi vessels to defend American convoys -- and the Ingham is credited with sinking at least one U-boat, while the Mohawk rescued hundreds of survivors of convoy-ship sinkings. Fitting that they're birthed together again.
Dwight was kind enough to invite us over for Thanks- giving dinner -- delicious, and with a charming couple from Atlanta in the mix -- but I still needed to calm my turkey-cooking jones.
So as soon as we got home, I started roasting up a breast, made dressing (cornbread, with a sighing nod to Robert, though I still laced it with sausage, apples, celery and onion), gravy, mashed sweets and the other usual suspects for us to have Friday. . . .
Which of course left us with leftovers, some of which became the basis for turkey potpie today, bound together with an herb-scented sauce soubise -- a béchamel that has been thorougly onionated.
And it tasted and smelled even better than it looked.
A year ago, Mark was onstage three nights a week at La Te Da, in Broadway Three-Ways (with Bobby Nesbitt and Randy Thompson). His partner, the other Mark, owned the joint, so it was a natural fit, given this Mark's talent.
Then they weren't partners, and then this Mark's act closed, and then that Mark died, and this Mark went underground for a while and when he emerged he didn't smile much at all.
We didn't see him for the longest time, and then he was behind the bar at Aqua, but still reserved. And then we were out at The Keys a few nights ago and who should be there but the man with that smile and those eyes. . . .
And that smile. Welcome home.
The old Banana Cafe, down Duval, had four great things going for it:
-- A clever chef (who also owned Mr. Z's, which survives, though Banana has peeled out.)
-- A great roof deck overlooking the street.
-- A good wine list cheap enough to drink.
-- Fantastic grilled meatloaf.
When I first saw it on the menu, I wondered why anyone would want to tamper with a classic. Then I tasted it and realized that refinement is not tampering: The grill adds those Maillard-reaction compounds that taste terrific but will probably contribute, along with so many other delectable things, to my premature demise.
So now I make meatloaf a day ahead, let it rest in the fridge and then slice and grill for more comfort than most food can muster. (And if you want the full Maillard, brush it with some barbecue sauce or ketchup or something else with sugar. It browns, baby.)
We have a friend who has flummoxed me for years by answering the routine social question, "How are you?" by saying, "Peaceful and Thankful." No "Fine, thanks" for him.
In recent months, it has gone to "Peaceful, Thankful and Magical."
I hate to think what happens when he discovers the other four New-Age Disney dwarfs and gives me the full roster.
We won for best team costume (it was either the lazy lizard with a drink or a fierce lizard eye, and we decided to intimidate them with our bowling, not our shirts), high team total score, high individual score (Michael), second high individual score (me, the superjock), third high individual score (Robert) and I don't know what else.
Martha came in at the last minute; we'd invited Gary, but he had to work through both Friday night practice at our house and Saturday play at the MCC, a benefit for their food pantry.
You can check out the shirts (and the first-round scores; I was the 215) if you click on the picture.
So much for the planned gardens, because now I think the credit should go less to Craig and more to Topsy.
Craig's forte is more greenscapes than blooms, so you might not blame him for some unfamiliarity with the way flowers work here. At least his plans looked really beautiful on paper.
This little heliconia variety, which makes me think of tongues of flame, went in place of the infected hibiscus on the south side of the gate. For height, we're letting the ixoras -- red and golden -- get as tall as they can (once we get the hibiscus mealybug under control).
She wears her toxic status as a red badge of contagion: The blood she's already drawn from someone else, which she mixes with a solvent to introduce in microscopic amounts to get your own blood flowing more freely.
She's an aedes aegyptii mosquito -- a daytime biter harder to manage than the garden-variety twilight-feeding culex our Mosquito Control District is so good at swatting. Aedes is also the one also responsible for yellow fever. But there's a vaccine for that, and none for dengue fever (nor is there any specific treatment). And recent tests here showed 99 positives for dengue among 240 people tested by the state and feds in Old Town. Eight were positive not just for antibodies, but for active or recent infection.
They aren't using words like "outbreak," considering we're a tourist town and nobody wants anybody scared off, but that's what it is. And this week's rains mean some nervous itches in a few weeks.
Of course, any time Robert feels peckish now, he starts wondering about dengue. I pooh-pooh that: It's much more likely to be H1N1.
Robert was thrilled -- me less so -- when we found this footlong iguana in the pygmy date
palm by the pool fountain.
They nosh pretty continuously, and have been known to defoliate gardens. This one has not missed many meals.
I also feel less connection with reptiles than I do with, say, the skinny tabby cat who has been hanging around, and even startled us by streaking through the den one quiet night. (It's that time of year, and our air-conditioning is now done by breezes through doors.)
If the iguana does start doing serious damage, I'll keep three words in mind -- words learned through experience:
Tastes like chicken.
The big clock in the sky says it's that time again, when turkey vultures form wheels within wheels, riding vortexes in flocks of hundreds, waiting for the right daytime wind to blow them to the Yucatán, or Cuba, or beyond, with one long cool breath.
It's not what Yeats had in mind when he wrote that line, which won't leave my mind, and has me in its spinning grip.
As long as we're on the front porch looking that way, we might as well check out the yellow elder, smack against the fence to the street.
It's taken center stage from the mussaenda, whose pink bracts have just about played out for the year.
So it's the elder that has passers-by stopping and asking their botanical questions about what we do to get it blooming so. Ironic, since this one grows like a weed.
The tiniest hummingbirds I've ever seen ask nothing like that. They just come every morning to buzz and whirr at their breakfast buffet.
. . . It must come down. Thus am I cursed with the memory of Johnny Cochran every time a frond needs trimming -- in this case, the Christmas palm just off the porch, which has been here for decades.
It has gouges and nicks in the trunk from construction, though Ref reserved some of his most colorful yelling for any of his sketchy temps who got near it.
And when we're primping, feeding and generally spoiling all our new palms (fishtails, ladies, licualas, foxtails . . . I lost count when we put them in, but I think there are 20 or so), I have to smile at myself, thinking of the year after year after year that the biggest one we have got no attention at all.
Still, the place wasn't quite as presentable then either.
I finally dragged Robert out to the Veterans Day parade -- I think my favorite of the dozens we have every year. Not as if it was a long trip: Our house is maybe 50 more yards on the diagonal beyond that pink building, Duval House.
Fortunately, he got it: The service members, scouts, bands, vets, auxiliaries, all passing to applause and shouts of thanks.
The Army Special Forces School, whose underwater unit is based here, says it was a coincidence, but their current class had its finals on Wednesday morning because of the high winds, big chop and low visibility: "awful" conditions that were perfect for high stress.
About two dozen trainees did a high-altitude drop into the ocean miles west of here, used stealth-propelled underwater vehicles and rebreathers to swarm toward land and "infiltrated" Key West at our old Civil War outpost, Ft. Zach.
Then they did their nine-mile run.
When we dug the old copper tray out of Amanda's basement, I had no idea what we'd do with it.
When we got here, I thought it would be fun to put up in the kitchen, with hooks we could turn to let it down so we could use it on a butler's stand on the deck.
When Ben brought home the cat-eye glasses three Fantasy Fests ago, they seemed right at home hooked onto it -- ditto the big round ones Robert found last year to fit over his prescription glasses, and the fighting roosters I found this year, perfect for brunch at Blue Heaven.
So yes, I did envision the tray holding glasses. Just not this kind.
We've got two lovely little dendrobiums blooming their hearts out on the left corner of the pool, as you're looking at the fountain.
Actually, the mostly-white one isn't so little: It's up and out a good two feet from the palm trunk. (The glossy leaves you see behind and around it are from the allspice bush -- which itself is doing well, too.)
We tied both of them up last year with fishing line, and after a few fall-offs and blow-overs, they started taking great responsibility for their own security.
And as a result, the web of roots you see in the closeup has wrapped the foxtail several times around.
The fantastic thing about orchids here: Last year we spritzed 'em regularly with liquefied worm poop and misted them religiously. This year, with absolutely no attention at all, they've taken off.
Perfect definition of benign neglect.
It's been solid overcast for two days and windy with tropical gusts well into the 30s.
Hurricane Ida is well southwest of us, and what we're feeling are feeder bands passing over. There's a worse conga line of storms along Cuba's northern coast, and the only impact forecast for us might be late in the week, if the storm boomerangs as it nears the Gulf coast and heads back south as a depression.
But it struck me: I came down last year for Fay, in August; it's already November and we're only up to Ida? (In '05, we'd hit Wilma by now, or rather she had hit us.) And storm season "closes" at the end of the month?
I wish this were a scratch-and-sniff picture, so you'd know what I'm talking about.
Because these pots' cool shines belie the heat beneath them, and within, and emerging. And you can't smell the arrabiata sauce simmering on the right, its acid and spice softened a bit by a roast pork reduction, or sense the steam from the pot on the left, ready for cappellini.
As often happens, Robert was on the porch asking me what the hell smelled so good. And it struck me that smell, like taste, relies on direct contact with the molecules of the object in question (a delicious thought when it's an enticing sauce, less so when it's something you've stepped in).
But unlike taste, it allows a distance, savoring from afar. Tonight it's the nose's promise to the tongue, getting ready to be kept, even disguised under stainless steel over blue flame.
Sic transit gloria quercuum.
You might think querci, like mundi; but no, the word for "oak" is fourth declension, with its peculiar genitive. . . .
But I digress. That big old oak by the summer house was indeed sic, split inside right down to the root, thus it has transited.
Both the flaw and the lack of ready funds have kiboshed our grand plan to make it a sculpture. So now it's just a grand memory.
So, about a week and a half after that picture of the bud, here's the finished product.
Each pod is about a foot and a half long -- and for once, they're not covered up by foliage.
You can barely see the goop that seeps from the base of the white plumes and makes ants and other little critters delirious with joy.
Catching up on leftover bits:
Jerry takes particular pride in his humility and spirituality, but dangle a piece of fancy liturgical vestment in front of him and the incense comes out of his ears in lust. Tunicle envy.
Our friend Gary -- he of the orchids and sweet nature -- is the de facto sacristan of the little church down the street. Handy, because one of his longstanding hobbies has been collecting antique vestments, sometimes rescuing them from thrift shops billing them as perfect material for cutting up into decorative pillows.
So when he went by with the All Souls' Day garb just before Jerry left (one of only two days in the church calendar when black is allowed)
. . . well, that born Southern Baptist just had to try 'em on.
1. If a drunken young woman comes toward you with a loopy smile and a fistful of glitter, avoid her at all costs or prepare for every flat surface in your house to glint at you for the next several months -- the carpets, the furniture, the shower floor. Glitter is the radioactive waste of merrymaking.
2. If a professional warns you that a headpiece may be too heavy, take the hint. I wasn't scowling in those pictures as much as having my scalp pressed toward my navel. I'll take Chris up on his offer to take off a few layers of fruit.
3. If stricken with a cold at the onset of Fest Week, smile wanly at notions of bed rest, remember that rum is not one of the fluids you must force down. In any event, get ready for a hammer to hit you after the fat lady sings on Sunday. Misery may be postponed; it may not be avoided.
4. Try not to glue your real lashes together -- or, worse, your eyelids together -- when putting on big, fat fake eyelashes. And learned second-hand: If wearing truly huge fake eyelashes, prepare to feel as if your lids have been fitted for canvas awnings.
5. Realize that Revlon's "Red Hot Tamale" nail varnish can be removed, but unless you've had the foresight to apply a clear base coat, your nails will be a telltale shade of pink for days.
6. Remember that a hot glue gun solves a million problems, but the glue it spews sticks to your fingers at a million degrees.
7. Two words: Comfortable shoes.
When we found out that the big theme was "Vixens, Villains and Vampires," and Gene found some denim on sale. . . .
Well, four lace-trimmed bustiers later, there we were: One very pouty drag queen, one I-Dream-of-Jeannie genie, one campy Carmen Miranda and one fairly jovial Denim Dominatrix. Click on the pictures for the large versions if you have the nerve.
Gene supplied his own off-the-rack skirt; Jerry had some gold lamé balloon pants whipped up; I took the bottom and sleeves from a Carmen costume -- and had Christopher make the fruit-basket headdress, of course; and Robert had a mini made out of the same denim. Our friend Gregory, on his first walk into the wild side, rounded out our table in a sequined flapper dress with lots of rhinestone accessories.
Gene wanted honest-to-God drag treatment, so Inga turned him into a work of art, down to the glitter on those pouty lips -- the sort of thing, Inga cautioned, that meant he had to drink out of a straw all night.
The rest of us were made fabulous by Robert's bridge friend Neil -- a Revlon trainer who ran to the rescue when the ditz we'd arranged to do makeup was a no-show. Neil is a saint, the ditz much less so. Jerry got a terrific boost from some fantastic stick-on eye thingies from a Duval Street booth.
The result brought us an entire parade of photo-ops on the short walk to our parade viewing position on the porch at 915. But beauty is not easy. Robert had a little pain from the surgical tape we used to create his cleavage, and the weight of the hat was boring two spots into the top of my head.
So, after a wobbly but showy hour or so, I retreated home and re-emerged in a much more comfortable wig -- 
the one that came with the yellow bicycle. But along the way, I was stopped for pictures with a teary-eyed Brazilian woman, touched beyond belief that someone would pay tribute to her beloved national icon.
