Fluish

Just when I was getting back into the swing. . . .

I'll be back when I can.

Ray, meet Dean

I bid Ray farewell here in Tennessee on Saturday, and Robert welcomed him to Key West Sunday night.

(Robert flew back here on Tuesday!)

Ray is on Southernmost watch for a few weeks --with one side project. He took our big cast-iron rooster down for our front porch, after having welded a bolt-down plate on him so he won't "wander." Robert says it looks wonderful, and I'll post pictures when I can.

Just in case, I also gave Ray a hurricane re-entry pass, which lets you back on the island after a storm.

Of course, there hasn't been a storm yet this year . . . until this morning, when Dean popped up on the radar.

If the forecast track holds (an awfully dicey proposition this early in the game), the bad news is that it will be a Cat 3 by Monday. The good news is that it's likely to bounce against that great track-buffer to the South, Cuba.

In any case, Ray has that pass.

High as an elephant's . . . ear

I mentioned elephant ears the other day.

When the sun's just up, when it's in the middle 80s and direct heat is just reaching the summer house, the clumps stand well over 6 feet tall. (Those are banana trees behind them.)

They get lower as the temperature climbs -- but they always remind me of a morning in Kenya, standing in a Jeep while several hundred real elephant ears whooshed around us like a stream roaring around a rock.

Mothers, bulls, aunties, babies -- a rumbling gray herd, paying us no attention as they moved to new grazing ground, ears waving as if caught by a soft-pulsing wind.

Gray or green, I love them.

How the pool sees a banana tree

On blogging

Cyril Connolly, the British critic and intellectual (that used to be a job description, sigh), died in 1974, so he'd have no idea of blogging. But I happened across one of his epigrams Saturday, and it pinged against my head, and the echo ends up here -- and about this:

"Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self."

Tropical Japan

Which bromeliad, where?, one of you asked.

We have a few at the summer house, but I meant the one in the foreground, just to the east of the torii gate we built six years ago this month for an engagement party in honor of cousins Amanda and Aon.

Time does fly.

The gate, 16 high and 16 wide, spans the break in the boxwoods between the courtyard and the summer house lawn, with raked gravel on both sides, and then a moss-floored bower of impatiens, ferns, elephant ears, caladiums, plumbago and that big, happy bromeliad on the side nearer the pool.

Only one hitch: Given the heat, the moss has taken the summer off.

Hot pink

Hot as in a heat index well over 100. Pink as in the bromeliads going crazy by the shuffle- board court.

Bromeliads don't wilt -- these "petals" may look precious, but they're cactusy -- and these temperatures give everything else the fantods.

So instead of the alternate-day watering we usually do in midsummer, I've had to drench daily.

Steamy work.

Still foggy, but it's dawn

Shirley died four weeks ago today, and it's time to pick myself up and dust myself off.

It's not as if we haven't been doing anything. There was a wonderful funeral (who would have expected those two words together -- but with Shirley, who could have expected otherwise?).

There were heartwarming times with Ray, and the kids and granddaughters -- even laughter and splashes in the pool.

There were daily reminders of the hole she left in our lives, and of the whole she made them.

Sunset, sunrise.

Robert went down to Key West to show Harry -- his bridge buddy and our CPA -- around town, welcome Sharon and the boys for a few days around their camp-out in the Dry Tortugas and get ready for Ray to go down next week.

He and Shirley had planned the trip down for months, and Ray and his son Jeff will go instead. I hope it will be a little solace in paradise.

And maybe some cool weather: Here in Tennessee, the car thermometer read 102 today when I took Mom to lunch at Cafe Roma, ran into Ann McCoin (who's handling Shirley's estate; she also did my dad's and John Gray's) and had some terrific vermicelli with pancetta.

And the other news is . . . the windows.

Monday must have been slow in Key West, because Mandy Bolen called to ask where our case stood. Ain't heard nothin', I told her -- which was at the top of Page One Tuesday.

Then: The Building Department called Tuesday afternoon to say our permanent, final Certificate of Occupancy was ready. Robert picked it up Wednesday, and we are now legal, even with outlaw windows. Clerks have blessed the paperwork to refund our substantial performance bond and, as the saying goes, the check is in the mail.

I don't know how, or why. The city still hasn't told me what gives, and whether our victory before the special magistrate sets a precedent for the rest of Old Town.

When I find out, I'll let you know. I'm back.

To every flower, a season

Shirley's sister Karen called us just before dawn Wednesday to say that Shirley had awakened about an hour before, told Ray she felt ill, was sick for a little while, went back to bed with Ray and then died. Apparently she had a massive heart attack, and despite CPR from Ray and the paramedics, there was no getting her heartbeat back by the time they got her to the hospital. She was 63.

There's no way to tell those of you who don't know us well what Shirley meant to us. Those of you who do know us, also know that Shirley kept Holly Hill blooming, running and gleaming, the hardest-working, most direct, most intensely practical person we've known. The original WYSIWYG.

She made the draperies and beddings for Key West. She brought comfort food for my Dad's funeral and laughed with my aunts and flirted with the men. She doted on my Mom, who doted back, and kept both Mom's checkbook and garden in balance. She laughed with us, cursed with us, celebrated and grieved with us and invaded a large and special corner of our hearts.

When I was going over the obit information with Ray and Karen, I thought of two words she might have been proudest of: "Navy wife." While her beloved Ray was serving his country on Navy submarines around the world, Shirley was rotated through military housing around the country, raising three terrific kids -- she was proudest that they had all grown into productive, independent adults -- and working an array of jobs to make ends meet, all the while cooking, sewing, canning, crafting and making flowers do their thing.

Of course, she could also wield a hammer, paintbrush or tractor as well as most men I know, if not better.

I think it actually pained her to throw something away if you could clean it up, pretty it up and make it something useful and beautiful. Which is what she made her life, and ours: Useful and beautiful.

She said that one of her great honors was being able to wash her Dad's body for burial. One of mine was being able to write her obit for Ray, and in keeping with her style I gave it only one frill:

"She often said, 'You have to blossom where you are,' and Shirley flowered in abundance."

In praise of freedom

I bought this 3-D basswood carving, by Georgia artist Ned Cartledge, way back in the '90s, and it's hung in a place of honor ever since.

"Mooning Jesse," done in response to Jesse Helms, is subtitled, "(Inviting censorship.) Censorship inhibits free expression. This is not funded by the NEA."

Of course, those were the halcyon days when one could laugh about such things, before habeas corpus was suspended, before citizens could be detained without charges or warrants and while a certain man was ramping up to become the governor of Texas who signed 152 death warrants.

Apparently he's been studying hard since, and has finally gotten up to "commutation" in the dictionary.

(Remember Sister Helen Prejean? The one Susan Sarandon played in "Dead Man Walking"? Here's something Prejean wrote two years ago: "As governor, Bush certainly did not stand apart in his routine refusal to deny clemency to death row petitioners, but what does set him apart is the sheer number of executions over which he has presided. Callous indifference to human suffering may also set Bush apart. He may be the only government official to mock a condemned person's plea for mercy, then lie about it afterward, claiming humane feelings he never felt.")

If Ned were alive today, what would he carve?

Two moons

No ocean here, so the lake will have to do.

The city speaks

Aren't the azaleas pretty this year?

Less lovely is the 10-page document that arrived from the Key West city attorney's office this afternoon: "Motion for Rehearing of Appellate Order and Motion to Strike Language of the Order."

Robert was insulted by some of its language -- but hey, they're lawyers, and painting our actions in the worst possible shades is their job. Our tax dollars at work.

What fascinates me is that it's not an appeal of the special magistrate's decision to Circuit Court (which I'd expected), but simply a request to the magistrate to reopen our case and reverse his ruling on the wind codes' precedence over Historic Commission guidelines.

Perhaps I am grasping an infinitesimal reed (if I were still South, it would be sawgrass), but the motion specifically requests that Judge Overby "strike that part of his Order" that deals with wind codes.

It does not ask that Overby rule against our windows on any other grounds we cited in our other arguments on appeal -- particularly, that HARC ruled precisely the opposite way in a similar case last December, and that a helping of equal justice would be nice.

I may be back on the island sooner than I'd expected.

Migration season

During the days I've been away, I've learned (or rediscovered):

-- That the city is likely to appeal our windows victory to the Circuit Court. The city attorney resolutely avoided returning my calls about the windows decision, but a little bird in City Hall reminded me that the the city -- indeed, any "aggrieved" party, which would include a lot of termite-huggers -- has 30 days to ponder dragging me into court. Which means I'll have to hire a lawyer, start the meter running and re-stock my Maalox supply. This has not improved my mood.

-- The drive from Key West to Tennessee is not improved by the (eternal) road projects in South Georgia. Still, we piled into the car on Saturday morning, and arrived without incident on Sunday afternoon. Tiring.

-- I have not forgotten how to make tiramisu, but I had forgotten just how inaccurate "serves 12" can be, given the audience.

-- My mom is in great shape, for 87, though I now know far more than I care to about her card-playing friends.

-- Driving 15 miles to the grocery is a whole lot less fun than walking 3 blocks, and whizzing by fields is a lot less fun than walking by plumerias.

-- Computers (at least Windows-based computers) that have been turned off for 16 months require about two full days to download software updates.

-- Birds that fly north for a season still have their compasses resolutely pointed south.

Flips, flops

And by these I don't mean the Crocs by the door, next to the conch shell we dug up in the yard last year, though there is symbolism in both of those to spare.

The flips by the door usually mean the owner is home, so ring the bell. The conch at the door is a petition for good fortune (legend here has it that a shell inside the house invites disaster).

No, the flips and flops I mean now are the little whupp sensations that panic brings from time to time, and the fastfast heartbeats in my neck and ears when I put my head on my pillow. I haven't written about it until now because I just didn't know what to say.

When I called to ask about our permanent Certificate of Occupancy, given the ruling in our favor by the Special Master hearing the case, I was referred to the city attorney. The licensing department wouldn't take my call. The Historic Commission wouldn't, either. Talk to the city attorney, they said.

He's been out of town for a family funeral, so perhaps I shouldn't read awful things into the silence (although he has several deputies, and one of them faced me before the magistrate).

But what I fear is that Judge Overby's ruling in our case has raised such a red flag against strict preservationists that the question may not be settled for months, at least.

I did some research into the Municipal Code and found that any person -- or group, or board, or anyone -- who is "aggrieved", may appeal a decision of the Special Master to Circuit Court. Which, I think, will entail us more time, energy and money than I am right now eager to commit. I have appeared on my own behalf until now, but I am reluctant beyond belief to go into court without a lawyer. Start the meter running, with the city pulling the flag.

Thus these few days of silence. Thus my sadness, here on the first day of summer. I just want the damn thing over with. And please let me live in my house.

Small blossom, big show

Ferron, the artist who seems to live like flotsam, pulled his bike into our gate, struggled up to the porch, shot the breeze a bit and finally asked if we could give him a coffee for refreshment.

I felt ashamed for not offering it to him earlier, but we had been talking about his VA clinic experiences, and the like.

He finally looked over the porch railing and noticed the pink mussaenda. I told him the big pink "petals" were actually bracts, and the little yellow things were in fact the flowers.

"Hm," he said.

Like poinsettias and bougainvillea, I said.

"Yes, like that," he said. And he went along on his bicycle.

Bustin' out

This hibiscus pretty much echoed my mood on Friday.

(It's one of two just inside our front fence; the other is on the other side of the gate, and both have been sneaking random disembodied blooms toward the street between the pickets.)

Ronnie, our mailman, slipped the city's letter into our mailbox just before lunch, and I goggled as I read the judge's ruling.

I figured Judge Overby would have ruled in our favor only because the Historic Commission had made it possible with a similar case late last year.

But no. It was bigger than that.

There was me, appellant, v. City of Key West, Florida, a municipal corporation, appellee, and a citation of HARC's action, and then:

"IT IS ADJUDGED: the HARC decision in Case H07-02-02-145 is REVERSED. The application of the Historic Architectural Guidelines adopted by Ordinance by the City of Key West is superseded by the Florida Building Codes Chapter 24, Section 2411, High-Velocity Hurricane Zones. SO ORDERED. . . ."

Holy crap. Of course I'm no lawyer, but that sounds as if HARC has to allow wind-safe windows everywhere, not just on our house -- which, if true, will really bring out the preservationists who rose to whack me down at HARC's April workshop.

One of them -- an architect who used to head HARC -- cited another chapter of the code that stands in full opposition to the section the judge cited. So, will the city be forced to press for resolution from a higher court?

The Citizen wants to interview me -- but I think my first call will be to Carolyn in the Building Department to see if I can get a full, unqualified Certificate of Occupancy in my hot little hands first. Not to mention the 8 grand we posted for a performance bond.

V I C T O R Y !

"This is Debbie from Code Compliance," the voice on the phone said.

Not the city department one usually relishes hearing from, but I said a warm hello, and asked her how she was. I'd only met her once, at my windows appeals hearing before the special magistrate, but she seemed pleasant and helpful.

"Oh, I'm great, thanks," she said, "but you're going to be even better: I wanted to let you know as soon as I could that Judge Overby ruled in your favor."

It took a few seconds to sink in. Do you mean . . . ?

"You won. He overturned HARC's ruling. Your windows are legal. Done. Finished. For good. I'm notifying HARC, the city manager and the city attorney. You'll get the ruling in the mail."

Debbie, I said, it's a good thing I'm not there, because I'd be hugging, kissing and dancing around the room with you.

She giggled, and it isn't often that you can hear somebody blush -- but this was a loud blush. "Oh, it wasn't me; it was Judge Overby."

Then he's lucky I'm not there, too.

Carnivorous intent

I've been testing recipes in the last few days, getting ready for Robert's return from his bridge orgy in Tennessee.

One of them involved duck confit, available cryo-packed at Fausto's. Tough job, but somebody has to eat it.

I ran into Jimmy, the former mayor whose grandfather founded the store, and he noticed the leg/thighs in my basket and sidled into a Q-and-A about broiling, doneness. . . .

He'd never cooked one, though he's sold mant hundreds. I told him about the classic method of getting them ready to store -- slow cook bathed in duck fat, then stored in a basement in the fat for months (it's a great old way to save a season's harvest), and finally crisped under a broiling fire.

On a good day in France, I told him, I wanted to kill a duck a day for livers, breasts, legs, thighs. . . .

Tonight's, I made with fresh garlic cloves (again, thanks, Jimmy), and only four people stopped at the gate to ask what made those wonderful smells.

Marvin's chair

"He was out there every afternoon," said Dennis, from around the corner.

(As opposed to Dennis from up the street, Dennis the electrician, Dennis the tile guy or Dennis the architect.)

He was talking about Marvin, who owned the house before us, and whose chair I've occupied for countless hours on the porch during construction.

"When the sun hit the porch, he'd take it across the street, and sit admiring his house, with a six-pack on the ground next to him."

I expect this is the chair Marvin was sitting in all those times we walked by the house and waved. Blanche, who cleans across the street, mentioned Marvin in his chair more than once, as has Martin, who does ditto.

"Yeah, that thing was here the day we started demolition," said Nate, who dropped in this afternoon to share his gold-toothed smile.

I've always called him Nate, and he's finally transcended his nickname from youth: "Bowleg," because his right leg had a 30-degree bend. I could never bring myself to use that name, as he sweated along with every other worker on the place, grimacing but seldom complaining.

He'd had a half-dozen surgeries on it, from teen years to the recent present, but doctors finally took the bones out and installed rods. He's still recovering on crutches -- but he's also still smiling, and still humbling me whenever I think I have a problem.

It was great to see him again and to show him what his work had gone toward as we went around the house. I was going to ask him to rest his leg on Marvin's chair of honor, to sit out front for a bit and survey the street's reaction to the house, but the sun was on the porch -- and we didn't feel like going across the street to admire the house -- so we settled on a long, cool conversation around the dining-room table.

"This place has some great vibes," Nate said.

I know, I told him. It reflects every bit of the skill, sweat and courage that every worker invested in it.

Spectral island

Remember those light effects from the late-day sun and the chandelier?

One of them added a bit of color to Christine Black's septych this evening.

You suppose there's a pot of gold out there somehow?

Another day in paradise

Things I did yesterday that made me think again that this place is different:

-- I checked out the Pride Festival booths in Duval Street (it was closed from Olivia to Angela) but didn't find much interesting, beyond the big bandstand/float Ferron had helped paint.

-- Dodged a few raindrops, and thought again that this place resembles a sauna with an angry old codger in the corner, splashing water on the hot rocks every time you think you can't stand anything hotter.

-- Thought about taking in a movie at the Tropic, but didn't feel like reading subtitles, and the features were in Danish, French and Hebrew.

-- Picked up a tree saw at Home Depot and spent a while trimming blossom spikes from our new Christmas palms in front, and some browning fronds from our foxtails (in the picture). Learned that botanists discovered foxtails (Wodyetia bifurcata) only in 1983, and named them after Wodyeti, an aboriginal Bushman who led them to the groves.

-- Offered a chair and a glass of wine to a locked-out tourist at the guest cottage across the street. She spied the highboy and studied it closely while I poured the wine. She knew a lot about furniture.

-- Met her traveling buds -- all are friends since college -- and found out that one of them was an architecture writer for the Herald in Miami. We had friends in common, and swapped war stories until we heard the parade starting to pass by.

-- Got my ancient Pride t-shirt out and wandered over to watch the party pass.

-- Came home and sizzled up a duck leg confit, with salad, before falling asleep on the sofa, watching a digital stream of Gandhi.

Not a bad day.

Brimming

It's breaking my heart to let water out of the pool -- we're in a drought and all, and the water we've put in it sure ain't free -- but I don't have much choice when it's ready to breach the banks.

Yesterday, the weather radio went off a dozen times (I counted 'em).

Most of the stuff barely missed us, but the Pride weekend street fair still got doused.

We'll see if Saturday's parade, with one ribbon of rainbow stretching the length of Duval Street, dodges wet bullets.

Fettucine alla Todd

One of the moments in Sweeney Todd that makes the hairs on my arms stand up comes when "the demon barber of Fleet Street," back in London after unjust years in exile, ferrets out his razor case and, brandishing his deadly-glinting blade overhead, exults:

"My arm is whole again!"

I feel that way about my kitchen. With almost a year and a half living with a wet bar and a microwave, and 30 years without a gas cooktop, I wondered whether I still had chops.

I started out with oil in a pan, finding heat levels by toasting stale Cole's Peace ciabatta and making it into garlic rounds.

And tonight, though my edges are far less sharp than Sweeney's, there were garlic cloves, pancetta, fresh sage, heavy cream, Asiago cheese, maybe a glass of Chianti to get the nerve up. . . .

Dice the pancetta, heat the saute pan on medium and let it render without burning. Add minced garlic once the fat has come loose. Reduce heat.

Once the garlic is soft and starting to brown gently at the edges, add plenty of heavy cream, scrape all the beautiful brown spots off the pan and into the liquid, and reduce it by about half over ever-decreasing heat, stirring every so often. The heat should make it form bubbles that don't break, and the reduction should take 20 or 30 or 40 minutes.

Boil water for the fettucine. About a minute before the noodles are done, whisk in two handfuls of good grated cheese (asiago, parmesan, romano -- you choose), some fresh ground pepper, a cup or so of fresh green peas, a few drops of balsamic vinegar and a tablespoon-plus of fresh chopped sage leaves to the reduced cream. Grate some fresh nutmeg on top of all, and stir in.

(Shopping at Fausto's helps at every stage of this process.)

Drain the fettucine, drop into the sauce, toss. Plate and sprinkle with extra ground cheese. Serve with the rest of the chianti.

Richness. Complexity. Depth. Smoothness.

Good to be back.

Gray light

A couple of you asked for a better view of the chandelier -- you probably didn't remember it from our Chicago days -- so here goes.

But neither it nor much else was catching a great deal of light Wednesday. The rain started coming down hard about 5 a.m., was near gale level around noon and tapered into drizzle for the rest of the day.

I'm not sure how much we got, but I do know two things: One, I'm about to let some water out of the pool; and two, the plants are happy.

Sweetness in the spice

Sit on the porch for a minute at dusk and the first thing you notice is the air, heavy as a fat hand in a hot, wet glove, squeezing your body.

The second is much more pleasant: Scents of spice and sweetness, even though our jasmines haven't started to bloom yet.

The piquancy, I think, comes from the Bahama firebush, which gives an Old Spice note. The sweet is . . . well, so sweet. Almost iris, and with no "common" name, hard to remember as Stemmadenia litoralis.

The place it holds had been assigned to a triple palm in the plan by Craig, our landscape architect. But like all architects, he neglected to note the plumbing lines and roots and other artifacts in the real world; so Jon, our landscaper, brought in the Stemma, all 7 feet or so of it. Craug called it a gardenia on steroids -- but gardenias are fleshy, and this is far from.

It's qualified as a rarity, and its only drawback is that it blooms so much that the ground under it is littered with spent flowers. The blossoms themselves have petals delicate as the membranes you peel from Easter eggs. And the buds are too phallic for description.

I'm not sending it back.

Birds in the yard

One great thing about the plants Jon put in for us: If there was a chance they could go in blooming, or about to bloom, he went for it.

Case in point: Both of the birds of paradise next to the parking area, flanking the pink oleander (also in full bloom), have blossoms.

I'll get some better pictures of the full front of the house once the landscapers pick up the last of their haul-away. So far they've taken two tons of fill out of here, plus their own leftover containers, etc.

You gotta make room for the plants somehow.

A thousand points of light

After all the time, energy and money spent on fixtures, what's the most spectacular light in the place?

These days, it's the late-day spectrum show in the dining room: The sun has moved far enough north that the setting rays catch the crystals on the chandelier and spray rainbows everywhere.

They're hard to photograph -- this is the effect on one of the Chinese screen sections, a closet door and the start of the stairwell (right to left), but I think you'll see the effect if you click on the picture to enlarge it.

And I thought the Crystal Room was at LeTeDa.

The remains of the job

The electricians -- it rhymes with "magicians" -- were here early Saturday to close out their job.

They put up the track lighting, and the light on the sapodilla tree at the parking spot -- and then Matt tackled the chandelier, and Dennis played catcher for the weight of the crystal, and then Denny shortened the fan pole upstairs.

It took a couple of hours in all, and when it was done Matt gave me back my house key, the end of the job.

I shook hands with him and Dennis and Steve, their helper, and thanked them for helping to make our house a home.

They are the sort of people who could keep your house key forever, and you would be the luckier for it, bless them.

Right on time

June 1 marks the start of storm season -- and my first chance to learn exactly how noisy our tin roofs are.

Smiles on the street

"You've got some great neighbors," said Jon, the landscaper, whose guys were just finishing up the gravel paths and mulch.

Two old black ladies had just passed, pausing to compliment him on his work. I guess the pair of twinned Christmas palms had caught their attention -- or maybe it was the ground orchids inside the fence, on either side of the porch.

It happened all day as the drizzle came and went: The old Cuban guy on the bike, who waved and gave a big thumbs-up, Skip from Duval House, John from the guest house across the street, Steve from the laundromat, Barbara from a couple houses up across the street. . . .

Everyone had something nice to say about the house's new face.

Ferron, the guy who makes tiny Conch cottages, biked up late in the afternoon to sit and rest on the porch, talk about the weather and tell me about the show he had hanging at the Key West Art Center, near Mallory. "This is a true Key West porch," he said, watching the lazy traffic.

"Nice trees," he said in his understated way, and I took it as a huge compliment.