Robert's on his way north from a few weeks in Key West -- click on the image to see where he was at 9:55.
(You gotta love FlightAware!)
I pick him up in Chattanooga this afternoon -- assuming Delta doesn't cancel the connection, again -- and it will be so good to see him.
Give me a few thousand dollars -- new camera, lenses, lights, an assitant -- and you would have seen these things in all their glory last night.
They're night-blooming cereuses -- I've written about them here -- and they are strictly one-shot wonders, though in this case there were dozens of wonders in one night.
But at any rate, thousands, or milions, couldn't have conveyed the scent. I think they perfume the night air for miles.
Robert, who's been in Key West for a few weeks, says our cereuses there (children of our main plant, which is at least 10 feet high), have been blooming profusely as well.
We spread fragrance where we can.
Our big KitchenAid mixer became my trusty tool more than two decades ago, when I started cooking in earnest, and we had to drive an hour into the western suburbs to pick up accessories at the Hobart factory office, because nobody else sold the damn things.
In the ensuing years, I've used it to mix, whip, beat, slice, grate, grind or otherwise process things thousands of times. (I hate to think how many loaves of bread our poor dough hook has turned out.) And bought pasta attachments, grinders (at three levels of coarseness), sausage-stuffers, juicers, even a buffer (which I threw out the other night because the bristles finally came loose after a couple decades).
But the accessory I've replaced three or four times has been the grater housing. Plastic, and prone to breakage at the point where it connects to the power take-off. And now you can buy them where you buy . . . oh, light bulbs.
Which was why, when I was at Ben and Ken's for dinner the other night, and they said they'd culled their cabinets for a garage sale, I whooped when I saw Ben's mother's vintage grater.
Most of you wouldn't understand this -- I'm not sure Ben and Ken did -- but to a longtime cook: This, in '50s aluminum, would never crack. A lifetime of grating, shredding and slicing!
They seemed puzzled by my reaction but insisted that I take it home, where I hand-polished it and then buffed it . . . which is when I threw the buffer out, because there were bristles all over the kitchen.
But that grater: Gratest!
When we first got to Tennessee, almost 15 years ago, and one of the neighbor farmers came over to cut our fields, the first thing I noticed was the scent. The second, after days of raking, drying and baling and the burping out of the rolled hay, was the random deposit of these big, beautiful sculptural masses across our pasture.
The baler moves and gathers and binds, and when it's full: blam. It falls where it falls.
Robert laughed when I called it "pasture art," but that's the term he's used since.
When Mom came out week before last, I loaded her into the Gator and we took a turn around the mowed paths bordering the pastures. She wanted to go through, but I've been there and warned her about thrashing out enough seed heads to make you feel like something that's been set aside for birds to peck on in winter.
So when our real-estate agent called Tuesday to tell us that someone wanted to look at the place, the first people I talked to were Ray and Brenda, to get them hopping on the house and gardens; the second was Keith, to get his guys mowing lawns; and third, I looked out to see the newmown hay being baled. . . .
At least the farm smelled like a farm, in the good way, when Charlie brought the guy out today.
Filled with art and all.
It's only fitting that I restart with something pink -- in this case, the bromeliad I got another shot of a few years back, although by now it's been split into, what?, four plants that have grown to the size of the original.
The blossom is almost a foot across, and this one, the mama plant, has six of 'em.
When pink hits my mind, I always think of alternate realities, odd perceptions, the myriad ways we have of dealing with what the world shows us, and what we see.
Diana Vreeland, remember, wrote with full confidence: "Pink is the navy blue of India."
We're back in Tennessee, of course, Mom and I.
Billy's memorial service was a thing of joy and beauty -- I went in a pink linen button-down over a very pink T-shirt (hey, it's Florida) that cousin Diana adeptly ID'd as roja mexicana -- Mexican pink, a shade just short of fuchsia. And when the Dixieland band struck up a New Orleans slow-march version of "Just a Closer Walk with Thee" I almost lost it.
But there was wonderful time with aunts -- Liz, Annabel and Nadine -- and cousins (Mark brought Annabel, Robert brought Nadine, and Richard flew in to stand up for Irenne), and Lynda and Diane and Rick and their spouses and their children. . . . .
And Fred. Billy's sweet husband Fred. I was their ringbearer at, what, 3 years old?
We all trashed dinner suggestions after the service and scoured up wine and sent out for pizzas, took over a hotel lobby and sat and ate, drank, talked, laughed and embraced, probably as close to a genuine wake as Protestants can get.
I got Mom back north the next day, and funked a bit but wrote it off to just plain grief.
Stuff around the place in Tennessee went on, and me with it, not worrying about posting to the blog or taking pictures. And I worked through lots of stuff.
I was about ready to write again. Then last week Mom's caregiver, B.J., drove her out with five big file boxes of Dad's papers.
Everything. Financials, work-related stuff, letters from me to him and copies of his to me, birthday cards, old clippings. Some things I stopped reading and shredded or set aside. Some about family history I filed to send off to cousins. (Diane has already sent me, as "first cousin," I guess, our grandparents' wedding certificate to hold.)
There were some clippings, in an envelope marked "save" about how to deal with a gay child, and others about church services I'd played organ for, and notes about his search for my birth mother. The bulk is in a burn bag (with thanks to Lou for an appropriate incantation), but not without taking it all in, and processing.
I was about done with last week's document dump when B.J. brought Mom out today with one big box of correspondence between my parents, and some between their lawyers, and I think the rest of the letters each of Dad's siblings had sent him over 70 years, and all their letters and postcards to me when I was little.
One to Mom and Dad took me so far back to Billy:
"Freddy and I have been getting along very well. I'll bring him home for Christmas so you can meet him -- know you will think him as wonderful as I do. It was great to get your letter and hear how Johnny was coming along. Gee, it seems unbelievable that the little rascal has been here two years. . . ."
And then Billy to me: "Dear Johnny: It was such a nice surprise to see this package for Linda. The little dress is just darling. . . . . We think you have such excellent taste for little girls' clothes. [I did laugh; they knew first.] Linda can't say many words, but she remembers your visit and says 'Johnny' a lot."
And so I cried, and made piles: Those to burn now, and Mom and Dad's correspondence to burn later.
I'll write again in a bit.
I'm driving Mom down to Ft. Myers for Billy's memorial service this week, so the blog will be on hiatus for a while.
Lynda reminded us of Billy's frequent request -- "If I have to have a funeral, I want people to wear lots of pink and listen to 'The 12th Street Rag' " -- so of course we've packed the proper colors, and can't wait to hear the Dixieland band they've booked.
See you later.
My Aunt Billy -- Dad's youngest sibling (with Aunt Liz, who's her twin) -- had heart surgery yesterday in Ft. Myers, and things didn't go well.
It was touch and go last night, but at least my cousin Lynda is on the scene to support her mom and her dad, my incredibly sweet Uncle Fred.
Liz is there, too, of course, and worried sick.
As are we all, who can do nothing but send love.
Our friend Ben is finally back from a dream trip: first to Macchu Picchu, where he tried a "strangers with candy" trick with an alpaca (or was it a llama?; find out how to tell them apart here), and then to the Galápagos Islands.
Ben's a pretty phlegmatic soul, so when his reports back started including superlatives, we knew it had to be good. Hard to miss, when you get two Unesco World Heritage Sites on one swing.
But he says his peak moment was at sea in the islands, right around rise or set of the full moon, counting stars in the absolute black of the ocean night. My kinda view.
Truth, liberty, language and the occasional freakish buzz -- George Carlin always aimed high.
And talked low, brilliantly, and by doing so invigorated the language and the debate, and spurred a remarkable Supreme Court decision (yes, it's "unquestionably 'speech' within the meaning of the First Amendment") and gave me some of the heartiest laughs of my life.
Since he hated euphemism, I'll just say I'm sorry he's . . . he's . . .
E's not pinin'! 'E's passed on! This parrot is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! . . . .
That column on the right is less serene than it looks.
Barn swallows built a nest at the top a few weeks back, and Robert has kept me from attacking it until the fledglings fled. Unfortunately, it was unilateral. The swallows attacked me and everyone else who went by, buzzing like little dive-bombers and even scoring a few wing-taps.
But Saturday the five babies flew, and this morning I went into action with the high-pressure hose, erasing the nest (and the guano down the column and crusting the plinth) in one big, satisfying flood.
Buddleia's common name, butterfly bush, is accurate enough; they love it.
But so do hum- mingbirds, wasps, bees . . . especially bees this time of year, which makes deadheading a little dicey.
No sudden moves as they buzz around me and overfill their little yellow saddlebags with pollen, already swollen from the blooming key lime across the pool.
So a slow snip, drop to the pile, another careful snip, more on the pile -- and by the time the pile goes into the back of the Gator, it's a challenge to carry it in a slow tai-chi ballet while the bees bumble about it looking for that last sip. No stings so far, but only because it plays out in the slowest of motion.
It took 12 years, but Nancy's House finally had a great fundraiser in Athens Thursday night, a tapas-and- wines bash at the Arts Center.
When a bunch of us started the organization all those years ago, we had terrific support in Bradley County, but McMinn was a tougher nut to crack.
But there we were as the Blackberry snapped in the capacity crowd, and at our table were the first three board chairs: me, Carolyn (seated right) and Meredith (seated second from left).
Quite a festive night, and truly wonderful to see so many Athenians turn out for it.
That's Robert in the blue shirt, rafting Saturday on the mighty Ocoee -- the site of the '96 Olympic kayaking competition.
Intrepid, though he made sure I tested the knots on the twine he used to make sure his sunglasses didn't go overboard.
I was sorting through some images today and found this one from our friend Kathy Roh- senberger.
She buzzed us a while back and snapped as she went by. The sun is glinting off the slate roofs, but it gives you some perspective on the place.
That tan area behind the main house is the courtyard. The garage and office above -- where I'm typing this -- are to the right of the house. At the left end of the pool, there's the cabana, with the summer house tucked into the woods at the left edge of the courtyard. The cutting gardens are on the far left.
And that little white patch at the bottom of the picture is a stand of a grass we call silver sword, though I don't know its real name. Sprouts white, grows cornstalk-style variegated green and white, matures to full green with a giant plume taking it to 10 feet or so tall by fall. Lovely.
The drawback to the two giant plumerias we got from Cheryl and her mom a few years back -- they were so big the two of them couldn't wrestle them into the house for the winter anymore, and now they're at least 6 feet tall and just as wide -- is that big branches tend to break off.
But there's a fine upside, too: Branches on a plant that mature will root, leaf and bloom almost instantly after you stick 'em into some dirt.
Thus this offspring of Ethel (Lucy is the red one) is now blooming happily next to the elephant ears at the summer house.
The dell in the distance, for those of you who haven't been here, holds the bench at the south end of the shuffleboard court, under the sweet bays, and that spot of russet farther back is a dwarf Japanese maple outside the living room.
With the magnolias, sweet bays, gardenias and now plumerias putting on a show, I don't know who's happier: the bees or my nose.
I got a bunch of wish-you- were-here calls during last week's Pride cele- brations.
I missed a great party.
Here's one scene from Duval Street during the big parade. That's La Concha bedecked with the big flag. And the guy on the right, Joseph, used to be our regular teller at the bank.
Not dressed like that, of course, but even dressed as you see him here, he wouldn't have raised many eyebrows.
I don't think that would happen here. But there. . . .
Well, things are just different. It's less buttoned-down, to say the least, but I have not one whit less confidence in the institution. In fact, I may have more. Here's a shot of Phil, the bank's president, in their lobby last Halloween:
I think last time I tried to inventory holly varieties here, I gave up around two dozen -- and of course the hill part depends on which one you count. The top of the east pasture is a good candidate, as is the one across the lake, or best of all the high meadow behind the greenhouse.
At any rate, as I was plucking oak leaves out of this well-sculpted but spiky hedge next to the summer house over the weekend (reminder to self: next time, wear pants and a shirt), I was struck by how clean the storm had gotten them.
No more yellowish film of pollen, just a brilliant green gloss. I was out watering because after the rain, nada in terms of water except what comes from hoses and sprinklers.
I was doing some sprinkling of my own: the university station was playing a baritone (didn't catch who) singing Mahler's setting of the Rückert song "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen." I play Janet Baker's mezzo version in my head when I need a fix of pure, beautiful Viennese Weltschmertz, and honestly I don't think I've ever heard a man sing it before, and surely not in the summer sunshine, in the breeze and glossy green.
So there's a good chance you'll see some salt spots if you look closely.
I am lost to the world
with which I used to waste so much time,
It has heard nothing from me for so long
that it may well think me gone.
It is of no consequence to me
Whether it thinks me gone;
I cannot deny it,
for I really am lost to the world.
I am lost to the world's tumult,
And I rest in a quiet realm!
I live alone in my heaven,
In my love and in my song.
A few people have asked if we might have been hit by a tornado.
I'm better at reading trees than radar, and ours were sheared off in all directions, which tends to tell me there were some rotational winds. Then I pulled up a still image from that night's weather, and that purple crescent was all around us.
Where's Max Mayfield when you need him?
One big pine on the driveway was uprooted; another was snapped off 15 feet up or so. A big maple by the weeping cherries lost an 8-inch-thick limb (and took out part of a cedar). The water tank barely escaped disaster.
If they'd been sustained winds, it would have rated at least as a Category 2: I've never felt the house shake before.
The weeklong orgy of bridge was just finishing up -- with its attendant house- guests, breakfasts, lunches, dinners and disputes about who should have bid what (thank heaven I was in the kitchen) -- and I thought I could get back to posting when. . . .
We had a bit of a storm overnight, and this view just after dawn was just the start of the mess.
We had to call John Stepp to pull three trees off the drive so Paul could start his drive back to Sarasota, and I'll have more pictures after we get the key lime repotted; it's at the right end of the picture below, on its side, roots exposed, pot shattered.
Calloo, callay, and I choke up every time I think about it.
So I yield the floor to the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson, who is far more eloquent than I:
There will be plenty of time to chart Barack Obama's attempt to navigate a course between the exigencies of the old politics and the promise of the new, between yesterday and tomorrow, youth and experience, black and white. For now, take a moment to consider the mind-bending improbability of what just happened.
A young, black, first-term senator -- a man whose father was from Kenya, whose mother was from Kansas and whose name sounds as if it might have come from the roster of Guantanamo detainees -- has won a marathon of primaries and caucuses to become the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. To reach this point, he had to do more than outduel the party's most powerful and resourceful political machine. He also had to defy, and ultimately defeat, 389 years of history.
It was in 1619 that the first Africans were brought in chains to these shores, landing in Jamestown. That first shipment of "servants" did not include any of Obama's ancestors; it's impossible to say whether some distant progenitor of his wife, Michelle, might have been present at that moment of original sin. Ever since -- through the War of Independence, the abolitionist movement, the Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the great migration to Northern cities and the civil rights struggle -- race has been one of the great themes running through our nation's history.
I'm old enough to remember when Americans with skin the color of mine and Obama's had to fight -- and die -- for the right to participate as equals in the life of the nation we helped build. Watching Obama give his speech Tuesday night marking the end of the primary season and the beginning of the general election campaign, I thought back to a time when brave men and women, both black and white, put their lives on the line to ensure that African Americans had the right to vote, let alone run for office -- a time when Democrats in my home state of South Carolina were Dixiecrats, and when the notion that the Democratic Party would someday nominate a black man for president was utterly unimaginable.
Tiresome, isn't it? All this recounting of unpleasant history, I mean. Wouldn't it be great if we could all just move on? Bear with me, though, because this is how we get to the point where, as Obama's young supporters like to chant, "race doesn't matter." No one will be happier than I when we reach that promised land, and we've come so far that at times we can see it, just over the next hill. But we aren't there yet.
This is a passage from an e-mail I received in April from an Obama volunteer in Pennsylvania: "We've been called 'N-lovers,' Obama's been called the 'Anti-Christ,' our signs have been burned in the streets during a parade, our volunteers have been harassed physically, or with racial slurs -- it's been unreal."
Yet the amazing thing isn't that there were instances of overt, old-style racism during this campaign, it's that there were so few. The amazing thing is that so many Americans have been willing to accept -- or, indeed, reject -- Obama based on his qualifications and his ideas, not on his race. I'll never forget visiting Iowa in December and witnessing all-white crowds file into high school gymnasiums to take the measure of a black man -- and, ultimately, decide that he was someone who expressed their hopes and dreams.
When historians and political scientists write books about this extraordinary campaign season, surely they will seek to assess what impact Obama's race had on his prospects. But they will also devote volumes to exploring how he put together a fundraising apparatus that generated undreamed-of amounts of cash, and how his organization drew so many new voters into the process, and how his young supporters made use of social-networking Web sites such as Facebook and MySpace, and how his delegate-counting team managed to consistently outthink and outhustle everyone else. It will be written that Obama's nomination victory owes as much to adroit management as it does to stirring inspiration.
Will Americans take the final step and elect Obama as president? Should they? Is this first-term senator up to the job?
We'll find out soon enough. At the moment, to tell the truth, I don't care. Whether Obama wins or loses, history has been made this year. Maybe there's more to come, maybe not; but already -- after 389 long years -- it's safe to say that this nation will never be the same.
Take about 4 pounds of cooked and cubed chicken, lots of cheese, generous amounts of heavy cream and white wine, several handfuls of pine nuts, two boxes of noodles and a nice schmear of pesto.
That's enough for two big, heavy pans of lasagna al' bianca for the bunch Robert invited over for dinner Wednesday, on the eve of the big bridge tournament at Joe's. Add a big, colorful salad, and bracket with appetizers and desserts by his card partner, Carolyn, and it ought to keep their mouths busy with something other than bids.
We're also getting houseguests for a week -- there are a few days of play beyond the end of the match on Saturday.
Sometimes I feel like the Prince of Wales. No designs on Camilla, of course, just a kinship with the motto on his crest:
Ich Dien -- "I serve."
The flight was uneventful -- aside from meeting a fellow traveler with a dream job (he's a short-hop pilot around the islands in farthest Maine, and finally explained to me how helicopters work) and a soldier back from Iraq (I bought him a beer and he was glad to know I thought he ought to come home for good).
The fireworks started later, about two miles away.
It was 10:30 last night, and the power went out, the sky lit up and even inside the house it sounded as if someone had powered up Frankenstein's zapping, humming generator.
At first I thought a squirrel had self-immolated on our transformer. But there were no sparks in the woods, and the sky was flashing green, then blue, then red, all to that wild zapping hum -- and then lots of sirens.
No radio, no phone, no nothing -- and if it was the chemical plant down the road going up, I wanted to know about it and prepare to make tracks. So Robert and I pulled on some clothes, pried the gate and garage door open and went out to investigate. He was hoping it was a UFO.
We passed a carload of neighbors who told us U.S. 11 -- the old Cherokee Warpath -- was closed, so we turned around and went the back way to the little county road south of us.
Turned out a big substation two or three miles away had burned itself out spectacularly -- one of our local stations posted this cellphone picture sent in by a viewer -- and a sheriff on the way to the scene southbound had collided with a motorist escaping the fireworks northbound (just minor scrapes), so the highway was filled with fire trucks, ambulances, other cops.
The power came back about 3, with Robert still dreaming of ET.
I'll miss the grand opening of these ixora blossoms, of course, but I'll also miss:
My book-a-day time on the porch.
Fausto's.
Slow strolls to the water and back.
Seagulls.
My island.
I'm packing, flying north for a while.
See you later.
When I went into the kitchen to make coffee this morning, thinking of the things I had to do to batten down the house to get ready to head back to unreality, the early light was giving a particular glow to the angle at the fridge.
On the fridge itself are some Hiroshige print postcards from my dear Lou. The little extraneous moons are magnets.
But hanging on the wall are the hamsa she also sent, over one of Ferron's little 3-D versions of our house, over one of his more punniferous whimsies. (If you look closely, you can see a martini glass on the roof: Drinks are on the house.)
Odd and wonderful, I thought, that the blues in all of those pieces -- the Hiroshiges, the hamsa, the houses -- all match.
Sometimes karma just plain works.
This is my usual angle on the front gate -- right now, I'm reading Margaret Atwood's "The Robber Bride" on the porch -- and that burgundy plant you and I see is the dipladenia I put in to replace the cat's whiskers that was dead when I got here a few weeks back.
So far, so good, and it was a wild addition to our inside-the-gate garden, considering the bright-red hibiscus just out of the frame on the right, the orange-sherbet ixoras lolling over the walkway, the plumbagos invading through the fence, the big mauve mussaenda against the porch, the neon-purple and hot-pink bougainvillea at the end of the parking space. . . .
Just after I took the picture I hacked the plumbagos back into some semblance of submission until Robert gets back here sometime next month. And I tried yet again to remember the source of a quote. Bette Midler? Phyllis Diller?
"If you can't decide which color to wear, wear 'em all!"
The CD player in my head went right to Etta James when the dark clouds rolled in late today, the air turned cool(er), an artillery barrage of thunder opened to the west and big, fat, heavy drops of rain started falling.
Eventually it was more shower than rain, but even that was welcome after all these dry, hot days.
Our friend Ferron (click that link to see other places I've mentioned him) had been sitting with me on the porch -- he'd come to pick up the incredible book about Burning Man he'd dropped off ("Burning Book," the best graphically designed piece I've ever seen, ever, and I devoured it cover to cover in one sitting today, laughing here and crying there) and to drop off a wicker picnic basket he'd scrounged up somewhere and didn't have room for and thought we'd like, as well as a DVD about Wilma's effect on Fantasy Fest '05, and to recount the entire plot of "Apocalypto" during a tall glass of limeade, which led to a discussion about pre-Columbian people. . . .
When the big drops started, I used painter's tape to waterproof "Burning Book" in a big Key West Aloe bag, and Ferron pedaled off to his place near El Siboney.
So I watched the drops fall by myself, and when they were done the little peeper frogs chirped "happy" as I looked at the wet Rolling Stones tongues of mussaenda in after-storm light, the sky opal.
Last night, I was all shock, disgust and, finally anger.
Sen. Clinton's reference to the RFK assassination -- a chilling thing considering that the Secret Service was sufficiently troubled by the number of threats leveled against her opponent to start his protective detail more than a year ago -- was even more crass than I'd ever thought her capable of. And I thought she was capable of a lot. (I'm with Gail Collins of the New York Times on this, who months ago contrasted "The Audacity of Hope" with "The Audacity of Audacity.")
I slept on my rage. It had cooled enough that I gave a wry smile when I read David Rees' take on it: "She has a point: June is a great month for political assassinations. Why drop out of the race before all the assassins have had their say?" Indeed, let the process work itself out.
And then John Eskow's: "The Fat Lady has not only sung; she has showered, changed from her sequined gown into jeans, air-kissed the conductor, and already gone back to the hotel, where she's lying in a bathtub, drinking wine and daydreaming about her next gig."
Or Firedoglake: "She was signaling superdelegates and primary voters to pick her because she's less likely to get shot."
And maybe, just maybe, she actually heard the echo of the shot after she fired it. 
Here's how she looked when she issued what the Times called "one of those tedious non-apology apologies in which it sounds like the person who is being offended is somehow at fault: 'I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation, and particularly for the Kennedy family was in any way offensive.' If?"
What a graceless exit.
- - -
* Those of you who do not follow baseball so carefully may not remember Sen. Clinton's "60 Minutes" appearance in March, when she was asked about rumors among know-nothings that her opponent is a Muslim.
STEVE KROFT: You don't believe that Senator Obama's a Muslim?HILLARY CLINTON: Of course not. I mean that's, you know, that there is no basis for that. You know, I take him on the basis of what he says, and, you know, there isn't any reason to doubt that.
KROFT: You said you take Sen. Obama at his word that he's not a Muslim...
CLINTON: Right, right..
KROFT: …you don't believe that he's a Muslim.
CLINTON: No! No! Why would I? There's nothing to base that on. As far as I know.
The new Jewfish Creek Bridge -- a 65-foot-
high fixed span replacing the old drawbridge just north of Key Largo -- started taking traffic just in time for the Memorial Day weekend.
I say "started taking" because only two of its four lanes are open along its 7,500 feet, but you will notice that the one southbound lane is pretty full, which explains why our island is, too, for the holiday
I can't wait to drive over it and see what my part of the $93 million it cost has brought me, besides hot having to wait for those damned sailboats. Apparently the views of Barnes Sound, Key Largo and Florida Bay are spectacular. It just might be my new spot to spy the Keys-blue water and say, "Ah! I'm home."
