Gleaming clean

Well, after a few minutes with a nice, clean towel, anyway. That's what it takes me to wipe the gradoo that our dishwasher leaves on everything it "cleans."

Maybe my mild case of OCD ought to be happy. I mean, I've always heavily rinsed things (OK, washed them pretty well) before I've put them in the dishwasher. But now, clap-hands fun, I get to pull out a fresh white flour-sack towel every time I open a "clean" load and buff out each of the bits of residue that our dishwasher leaves behind.

It is the one worst purchase we made -- the LG dishwasher, hungry as I was for a piece of European technology at a good price. Only the price was good. The dishwasher certainly wasn't.

Every time I open it and look at the crap sticking to everything or fogging over the finishes, I rocket back to my pathetic times at Scout camp, and the bark from Mr. Stout, our troop leader, when I held up an egg-crusted fork in disgust:

"It's been through the damn dishwasher. It's sterile. Use it."

Who knew they made LG's back then? And pity I hadn't packed extra towels in my rucksack.

Audacious hope

Earlier tonight, I put up an item reflecting how unhappy I was with Sen. Clinton's victory address in Kentucky. I deleted that item.

Because I've just listened to Sen. Obama's address in Iowa. And again I know: I don't have to be unhappy. Victory is on its way.

Just inhale

I wish this were Smell-a-Blog, so you could lean in, sniff deeply and know exactly what I'm talking about.

Our dwarf plumeria, where the driveway meets the front fence, for example, captures more than its share of sniffs when passers-by lean in for a closer picture of the blossoms and, nostrils flaring, bend down for the full impact.

I've lost count of the number of times in the last week I've been asked what they are.

But I've also lost count of the times, on the porch at night, when I've heard strollers pass and take in a particularly deep breath and say to a companion, "Did you smell that?"

That was certainly our night jasmines, which pack a pound of scent into every tiny half-inch trumpet.

Daytimes, you have to get your nose right into the plant to get the sweetness. At night, it fills the street.

Faya on the playa

It looked worse than it was -- 15 minutes to put out, not a lot to feed on -- but when the scrub vegetation on some dunes at Smathers Beach caught fire the other day, everyone felt even hotter, if that's possible.

Before people say "How are you," they're saying "Damn. Early summer!"

And if you've seen the Interstate closures in central Florida, or the smoke clouds over Miami from the giant Everglades blaze (which, not incidentally, threatens the already ridiculously rare Cape Sable seaside sparrow), you know that the mainland shares our drought.

The Weather Service says it's getting into the high 80s here daytime. Tell that to the two t-shirts I sweat through by 8 a.m. doing little garden stuff, or to the thermometer in the car, which is registering high 90s.

I know this carries huge risk in the "be careful what you ask for" department, especially in the tropics, and especially with The Season That Must Not Be Named approaching, but please:

Let it come down!

Flown the coop

I have been hesitant to write this, hoping beyond hope that this chicken would -- yes, wait for it -- come home to roost.

But no. George (seen here in a file photo) no longer provides our morning serenade, nor do any of gang from around the corner at Bobby's who used to challenge him in the occasional turf war.

I had heard some time ago from Don, who was watching our place and is the handy guy at Duval House, that some guests there were less than charmed by our gypsy fowl. He hinted darkly that he had humane traps we could use if we wanted to quiet the dawn patrol, and we said no, but thanks.

He's away on vacation now, so I don't have to ask him the difficult question.

And now just before the sun comes up, when I'm sitting on the porch with a good cuppa French Roast, I hear them off in the distance, most likely in Bahama Village, but not George's distinctive crow.

I miss him. But as with everything else, the tide rises; the tide falls. And one of these days there'll be a rooster renaissance here just as surely as chicken eggs hatch in 21 days.

Like the gentle rains

We all know Portia's heart-rending speech, which I thought about when planting (replanting, actually), a standard of Duranta repens by the side gate.

Robert put the original plant in months ago, and while we were gone the gremlins got at the watering system, so when I got back it was twigs.

So when I was out at SearsTown for a haircut (Armando is back in the chicken-catching business, and quite well, thanks), I stopped in and picked up another.

Its other names are golden dewdrop and pigeon flower, but I can never remember much beyond "that little indigo flower that falls in such pretty cascades," though this time I did notice the yellow mini-pop-beads that justify the "dewdrop" part. I guess I've always trimmed the flower stalks before they set their berries.

I was out on the porch looking at it between reading in the afternoon light today when I heard a huge crash at the corner. I ran there and saw a local's rental car, headed east on Olivia, impacted by a German tourists' rental car, north on Center, locked in fatal combat.

No one was hurt. Another neighbor called the cops. I gave the local my cell phone, so she could let her niece's daycare know that all pickup bets were off. I swept debris out of the intersection, brought out glasses of limeade in the hot sun and got traffic around the mess. (At least it was less clogging than the horrible day our mahogany hit the street.)

And after the cop arrived, took statements, called tow trucks and issued reports, I gave the Germans a ride to the airport so they could pick up a fresh car, throwing in a botanical tour along the way. (She was happy to know the Latin names of so many tropical plants; he was not so happy, with his first accident in 50 years of driving.)

They offered to take me out to dinner, but I thought of Portia, and the pure quality of mercy, and declined with many thanks, wished them a much better vacation from here out, shook hands, and went home to my duranta.

"The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppest like the gentle rains from heaven
upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. . . ."

Not to worry

I shouldn't have fretted so much about the mussaenda.

I was devastated when January's cold snap denuded it, and worried when I hard-pruned it later to encourage new blooms, according to all the garden-guide instructions . . . and still nothing.

That sweet little acrylic, which showed it tall and bushy but still bloom-free, wasn't exactly a vote of confidence.

But holy cow!

As she walked by the house yesterday our neighbor Frankie called out, "I never saw that one before! Beautiful! Beautiful!"

And, just as I thought two years ago when I saw it first on a walk in Truman Annex, my whole heart said yes.

▄

As the light was fading today and the night jasmine were doing their overpowering thing, a guy walked in front of the house and stopped in his tracks. He reached into a backpack and pulled out a huge camera, with an even bigger lens, and then noticed me sitting on the porch, reading.

"Please?", he said, pointing to the flowers by the street.

It sounded like a German accent, so I told him in what Göthe-era German I have that he could do as he wished, and it was my pleasure.

"Very old-style, very nice," he said, and grinned, and started taking what must have been three dozen pictures of our dwarf plumeria.

The curse of memory

I was listening to Sen. Clinton's speech Tuesday night, with its "we can still claim victory" theme, and suddenly the Wayback Machine kicked in. Oops, a vortex.

It was August of 1974, just days before the mawkish* final wave from Air Force One as that other lying, conniving, money-grubbing bastard, that other practitioner of the Southern Strategy, headed off to San Clemente, and the Guardian of Manchester proved again the wisdom of seeing ourselves through others' eyes.

Their classic Page One headline:

Nixon is dead — but
he won't lie down

* Mawkish originally meant "maggoty" (from Middle English mawke, maggot), hence squeamish, nauseating, hence tending to render squeamish or make nauseated, especially because of excessive sentimentality.

It's in the air

When the plane door opened Sunday afternoon, I took my hoodie off even before I got out of the seat.

The Keys air was rolling in, and I was ready to roll out.

My bag was maybe 12th off the carousel, and when I got outside I looked for the cabbie with the biggest smile. She was tall and lanky in denim, with long grayed hair and a huge grin. "Welcome home," she said.

"Does it show that much?", I asked.

"I've seen you around, and you look so happy to be back" she said, and hefted my bag into the trunk of the shell-pink cab. "The front seat has better A/C," she said, but opened the windows and we both took a deep breath.

We turned onto South Roosevelt and she said, "I've always known it from the air -- coming back, I mean. For me, it's when I cross Card Sound on my motorcycle. I can smell it."

And so could I, as we went by Smathers Beach and then past Higgs -- the hint of iodine, the salt tang, a gassy bit of mangrove.

And so I was home. Monday was trimming the palm pods, sawing off old fronds, cleaning the pool, pruning the salt-killed shoots dangling into it, sweeping up leaves, pulling the plumbago into some sort of disorderly order (I ran into Linda later at Fausto's, and she confessed she'd been snatching blossoms while we were gone -- good, I said!), cutting back the jasmine . . . and I'd soaked through a T-shirt by 8 a.m. Early summer.

When I talked to Robert, he said it was sweater weather again in Tennessee, in the 50s.

I decided to chill out on Tuesday, but only metaphorically.

Surprise!!

No pictures -- yet -- from the surprise (to Robert, anyway) bash Friday night to celebrate his and Ben's 60ths, so I'll use a place-holder from the little slide show we put together.

I got some shots from Ben's camera, but left mine at home, wary of tipping our hand.

Ken, you see, had set up drinks at the Museum Center and dinner at Ahmed's for a few dozen friends, but the pretext was a planned dinner at his and Ben's place, preceded by a spur-of-the-moment stop at the Museum to see some table decorations. . . .

If you know Robert at all, you know it was almost impossible to delay him to the proper time -- everything but nailing his feet to the floor to keep us from leaving early so he could get some cut peonies into water and arranged for the dinner he was expecting.

But finally there he was through the revolving door -- with noisemakers and "Surprise!" written all over his face. Ben, careful soul that he is, hates the unexpected, but was game for the evening if he knew what to expect.

What none of us expected was the de facto gay pride parade marching from the Museum's back door to Ahmed's front. Hilarious time, though Ro mock-grumbled that if he'd known everybody would be there, he'd have worn some proper jewelry.

I can never thank Ken, Ben, Ahmed and the rest enough for making it happen. And for being such great co-conspirators.

Calm in the storm

I bring you this serene image -- that's the majolica rooster in one of our kitchen windows -- in a vain attempt to take myself to the same mindset.

I should be more phlegmatic, with an emphasis on the "phlegm" part, given my cold. But yesterday the jackhammer was about the final touch.

Earlier in the day we'd opened the pool, taking the cover off after the long winter to find the usual collection of bleached leaves -- but also a heavy, grainy precipitate that I vacuumed out as best I could for a few hours.

Still, there's a residue in whorls on the pool floor that can't be dislodged, even with a brass brush. Turns out Ray has been adding the wrong kind of salt (softener pellets instead of plain rock salt), and I suspect the "improvements" in the chemistry are what's streaking the pool. We'll probably have to drain and acid-wash it.

Then there was the joy of navigating storm-tossed traffic to get paint for the apartment over the garage, which we're freshening up in anticipation of a full house for Robert's June bridge tournament, and supplies for my little jaunt to Key West to visit our real roosters, starting Sunday. Any time I'm tempted to complain about South Florida traffic, remind me about Tennessee. They may be rude in Miami, but at least they know how to drive.

Then the jackhammers. The red quarry tile in our breezeway was starting to buckle, so Jim-Bob Construction (I swear I am not making that up; and anyway, they're nice guys) started taking it out to put a fresh layer down, but discovered that the concrete substrate had to go and began excavating in earnest. So beyond the noise, there's the grit slowly migrating everywhere.

Maybe the Romans, with their aqueducts lasting millennia, knew something we don't, and that's why their concrete is still just ducky. Or maybe they were lucky not to have pneumatic paving-breakers around when they suspected they might have a flaw.

An eye for detail

Don -- the neighbor who works at Duval House -- called the other day. We like hearing from him: Besides being a nice guy, he walks past the house a half-dozen times a day, and keeps a good eye on it.

But his news was surprising: "There was a guy painting your place this morning." Roy back to touch up something he'd missed on the exterior? "I mean, he was across the street and doing a painting. He's good, and he said it was one of the prettiest places on the island.

"He said he'd give me a picture of the painting when it was done. I'll send it along to you."

And so he did, and here is the shot of Richard Matson's acrylic on board, 8 inches by 6.

Robert, of course, wants a whole-house portrait, and I'm sure there will be opportunities for that.

But I'm with Mies -- God is in the details -- and I like this one a lot.

Scentsless

You'll have about as much luck smelling the mint patch by the breezeway as I have this morning.

I got back to Tennessee with a sore throat, which morphed into sniffles after the big bash at the Museum Center Saturday night, which went to full-blown cold by Monday morning.

Thanks so much to the various sneezing tykes at Disney and on the plane.

Now I'm going to brew myself a nice, hot cup of mint-and-lemon tea and break open a fresh box of Puffs.

Daikon squared

After the tempura, we went out on the balcony of the big teahouse at the Japan pavilion -- a wonderful vantage point for Ken and Ben's introduction to Illuminations, Epcot's amazing show of fireworks, flames, lasers and music.

We saw it first at the millennium celebration, but it still gives us goosebumps.

The real entertainment

Besides this little snack excursion at Liberty Hall (where all of us noticed that you could tell the animatronic George Bush from the real thing by his eloquence and grace), we had:

"New American" (and way tee many martunis) at Boardwalk's Flying Fish, burgers at Pecos Bill's, shrimp and prosciutto pasta at Victoria and Albert's (she would not be amused, but we were), confit at Bistro de Paris, mahi at the Coral Reef, more than we could eat at Hollywood and Vine, carryout at the Tusker House, Cubans at the ABC Commissary, tempura at Tokyo Dining. . . .

And Rolaids as needed.

Not wet . . . yet

So there they were, Ken and Ben in front, Robert just behind, looking apprehensive (just click the shot to see their faces better) -- while I, being duller and somewhat acceleration-averse, stood at the foot of Splash Mountain waiting, waiting for their descent. . . .

Which resulted in a splash indeed, but that's not where you get wet on this ride at Disney. It's afterward, as you round a turn to the left and get pasted by the tsunami from the next descending group.

The photo below, by the way, is a little tech marvel that the Disney folks cobble together for riders on the Spaceship Earth exhibit over in Epcot. After your trip to the top of the big globe, with Helen Mirren narrating, you answer some questions about your environmental preferences, and face-recognition software pastes both occupants of the travel pod into a postcard you can email after your landing.

Like most of the things around this place, hokey but great fun.

So leaf, already

The danger of frost seems to have passed, it's only getting down into the low 60s overnight and I only needed one extra layer of fleece when I went out to the greenhouse to trim a winter's worth of old fronds, stumps and nastiness from the several dozen banana trees. Most of them have valiant little corkscrews at the top, signaling new leaves to come.

I have to get them to talk to the other trees around here. These, along our front road, are still looking pretty grim.

About as grim as I felt when I took a break from the hacking and pruning to take care of two phone calls.

One was from the dimwit HARC commissioner who also does freelance writing. If the subject hadn't been the woman who did our dinner set, I wouldn't have spoken to her. But Elizabeth, the potter, deserves as much good publicity as she can get, so I refrained from mentioning the stupidity of the Florida panther analogy the commissioner brought up to me when voting to make us tear out our windows just about a year ago, and instead waxed as eloquently as I could about our fantastic plates, bowls, platters and mugs.

The other was from the bank's brokerage company. As Florida residents, and as two single males, Robert and I have had to jump through some high hoops to minimize tax impacts when one of us dies, so we set up trusts and have put all our major assets in them -- except that brokerage account. Turns out the bank wants us to prove our bona fides by submitting both our trust documents, in full, though the details of the trusts are none of their damn business.

This is an institution, mind you, that has slashed its dividend because of lemon-loan losses. So they're pickier about their customers with assets than they've been about those with debits?

Well, I try

Instead of taking pretty pictures today, I did a little work for our charitable foundation, went to town, had lunch with Mom and her caretaker, got a haircut from a Kosovar refugee barber, pulled out estate papers to persuade the bank to get a laggard dividend check to my dad into Mom's account, got luggage for our upcoming trips to Disney and then to Bette Midler's Las Vegas show, paid a courtesy call at the Museum Center, got a cable Robert needs to make his laptop work with his old printer, hunted and gathered for dinner, picked up clay pots for the caladiums. . . .

And found out that when Miz Joe's annual bridge tournament happens in June, we'll have dinner for a bunch here (which means pulling out all the stops) and a non-bridge-playing houseguest I'll be expected to babysit.

Shoulda stayed in bed, but there wouldn't have been pictures about that, either.

Busy, busy

Our friend Ken asked a favor, and of course we accepted: His only niece is getting married in a few weeks, and she wanted to have some bridal portraits taken at our place.

So just before 7 Sunday morning, the photographer came through the gate, and I gave him a quick tour. Then came Ken, his sister and her daughter, the bride-to be.

She changed into her (lovely!) gown, and we set out around the house and grounds -- grass so dewy that Ken carried the train and I carried a sheet to spread out for shots, and then to tuck under the hem, around the towel I'd carried to wrap her cold, wet feet. These dogwoods at the flagpole made one nice backdrop.

Several hours later, with her back in plainclothes, the groom-to-be arrived with the bride's dad and Ken's partner, Ben, and the two dogs, for family portraits.

And around noon they left, and Robert swept in from the Gatlinburg bridge tournament, where his team had won and picked up a whopping 28 master points.

Soon after which I left for the grocery, to pick up supplies for Robert's regular Monday bridge group -- pepperoni appetizers, a chicken-sausage-wild rice casserole, salad, biscuits and a Key West dessert brought north: trés leches -- "three milks" -- a yellow cake soaked in cream, condensed milk and evaporated milk, left to steep overnight in the fridge into almost a pudding.

All of which I cooked up back home . . . and went to bed early.

It's that time

Our pink dogwoods -- Cherokee Chief is the variety, the best of the reds -- are taking my breath away this year.

They've had a tough time. The horrid drought across the whole Southeast last year put incredible stress on trees and bushes, and dogwoods were among the hardest hit. The tops of many of our trees are dead or dying.

But the problem starts at the top and works down, so I'm enjoying the view at eye level while I can.

Just don't tell me

When I post things here, and check the results to make sure there are no odd hyphenations, or maybe only a few, the Key West weather pops up in the right screen. I'm about to disable it, because it sends me into such a tailspin every time.

One ticked-off cardinal

He's been knocking at the kitchen window for the last few days, with his olive-drab mate sitting a little higher and farther back in the dogwood. They come to nibble, and stay to battle with the rivals they see in the glass.

So BANG goes the bill, and then BANG again.

I guess it comes with the territory -- as do the deer defoliating our little evergreens (I counted 15 at the buffet the other night as I went down to get the mail, sans camera of course), and the nesting geese on the lake (now down to one, fruitlessly honking for its mate; Ray thinks the turtles snagged the one that's MIA), the rabbits hunkered under the boxwoods, doubtlessly licking their chops in anticipation of the impatiens that are about to go in (looks as if we've had our last frost -- I hope). . . .

Not quite the same as pelicans and palm trees, but it'll do for a while.

Looking up

I mean my internet connect- ivity, of course, because this is looking through -- through the weeping cherries.

The satellite guy came late yesterday afternoon, and by dusk there was a dish in place, hidden back behind the garage wall, beaming up and down (quicker down) and providing about as fast a connection as our Key West DSL.

It's a little like escaping a vat of molasses -- though certainly cold molasses: This morning it's 40, and we're still waiting before bringing the bananas and other tender things out of the greenhouse.

Knuckles

PBS's "Antiques Roadshow" is coming to Chatta- nooga in July, and as usual they're sending out a request for local submissions of furniture they might consider dropping into their maelstrom.

For screenings, they don't do tall clocks, so our Simon Willard is out. And they don't do "smalls," so there go our daughters-of-Victoria portraits on their brass Christmas card, from 1858. Nor our Chinese cinnabar box from the 1500s. If we want any of those commented on by the Roadshow experts, we'll have to carry them into the cyclone at the convention center.

But "large furniture" . . . there's the ticket. They pack and ship it to the crowd scene. And there are several things of ours they might be interested in, including the settee from the entry hall, which we got at auction at Leslie Hindman's gallery in Chicago in the early '80s, as I recall the date.

Maybe the Roadshow folks will give us better dates all around.

And I look at those knuckles, and know they can knock their way anywhere they want to go.

Mine eyes look up

. . . And see tulip magnolias.

At least before last night's frost.

I think the high was 57 today. I went to mom's house, took her tax records for her files along with a big amaryllis from the greenhouse, ready to pop.

After that, and just before they closed for their own April 15 independence day, I got a pan of hot-from-the-oven brownies to the accountant's office with the check for mom's fee.

Let us give thanks to the Lord, for the day is good.

A patch of blue

Keith and his crew were giving the driveway its first mowing of the season yesterday -- actually the first mowing since last fall, when they spread a few tons of new dirt in the bald spots and reseeded -- and were kind enough to detour around me.

I was sprawled on my stomach, prime position for the manufacture of photographer tartare, at the edge of this patch of weeds: blossom heads about half an inch high, somewhere between clovers and salvia, and a color that instantly made me think of old Mr. Valdez' Conch Republic flag.

Yep. Still homesick, despite such a fair day and an afternoon in the 80s. And rueful that I didn't bring a new flag north, since the one under the stars and stripes on our flagpole is ragged from the winter wind.

Keith eventually left the patch standing, and it made me think: Wouldn't an acre or so of this stuff, in a rectangle interplanted with the right pattern of yellow and pink, look great in one of our meadows?

Claiming my island

When the process gets far enough in the way of the message, it's time to change the process, so I'm fighting every tightwad tendency I have and going ahead with satellite net service -- which at least I can turn off when not in Tennessee to save some cash and turn on again when here -- after waiting more than half an hour for this meager picture of the greenhouse to upload (and, as it turns out, another 15 minutes to edit).

When I prepped this photo for upload I was going to tell you how sweet it was to get into the greenhouse again, to smell its richness, to see the ferns and bananas and bromeliads flourishing afterwinter, even the bougainvillea doing its thing, when the outside is shivering. My mood was actually quite good.

The temperatures in there are what I've come to love: steamy, as opposed to the arthritis-taunting cold-damp outside, though in the last few days, we've had sun enough to make me love walking around this place again. And to get out to see some wonderful people, and beautiful things. Old friends in a good place.

But to sit here for a half-hour every time twiddling your thumbs on a dialup . . . .

No more. I don't care if they have to put the satellite dish in the middle of the courtyard and a nephew or two doesn't get his inheritance. It's on order.

Life is too short, and there are too many pretty things not to share -- right now.

Patience, patience

Perhaps it was fore- shadowing.

We were at least three- fourths of the way through the 18-Mile Stretch last week, the ribbon of road on Henry Flagler's old right-of-way connecting Key Largo to the mainland, when traffic stopped stock still about a mile shy of the last passing zone. And with nothing coming the opposite way, we figured the blockage was total.

Cars ahead of us and behind peeled off, heading back south (and dodging other U-turners) to take the alternate route via Card Sound Road. I figured the double-back, and then the alternate, would take an hour or more, and that being so close to Florida City, we might just as well wait.

And wait we did, as Robert wandered up the line to watch the rescue chopper from the trauma center in Miami swoop in to pick up the latest motorcyclist to wipe out in the mangroves. (They tend to get a little loony on the Stretch, and I'd feel more empathy for them if they didn't take so many non-motorcylists with them head-on as they attempt their suicide passes.)

So after about 45 minutes, we were on our way northbound again -- creeping carefully, watching out for southbounders who were still U-turning in their queue. It was a taste of things to come, I thought this morning as my dialup connection took 15 minutes to upload the helicopter picture, c r a w w w w l i n g along as random packets whizzed by along the Internets. . . .

Pre-green

Just a placeholder, really.

We've made it back to the Land that Time Forgot -- broadband forgot it, too, which is why you may not see many photos here for a bit. I've had a horrible time connecting.

Still, the redbuds are in bloom (mostly). Dogwoods are doing their thing. Other leaves -- well, it's still early spring in the hills, so the willows have started greening up but the woods are still brown.

I did see a bluebird yesterday. He was shivering: It's in the 50s, drizzling.

Not quite the tropics.