Sugar & Spice

August 6, 2010

Erika

Moana



Sugar & Spice

The range of activities that one can attend as a resident range from the sublime to the ridiculous and run the gamut from family fun to a much more sophisticated and certainly adult oriented form of entertainment. Kathy & I love that about the island and we love the ability to sometimes go from one to the other, often in the same day. Such was the case last weekend as the MARC House Ice Cream Social dominated the daylight prior to our attending the fun and frisky birthday party for Key West Burlesque stand-out Moana Amour at Point5 late night.

Angela, Cookie & Daisy

MARC House

The MARC House ice cream social is an annual fund-raising event for the Monroe Association for Remarcable Citizen’s, which serves adult clients with developmental difficulties such as mental retardation and cerebral palsy. The ice cream is provided by local merchants like Mattheessen’s and others who serve up make your own sundaes and other electable ice cream treats for the crowd.



It always brings out a great crowd who enjoy delicious ice cream, the wonderful setting of the MARC plant store and nice company from the local families who attend. I enjoyed a delicious sundae of my own creation before heading home to grab some rest, do some house cleaning and resting up for what was to be another very different sort of event altogether.



Beth, Carol & Shawna



Point5 is the hip upstairs bar from the popular Duval Street Tapas restaurant. Taking over weekend bartending and DJing duty from the departed Ian Rowan are none other than the founding couple from the wonderful Key West Burlesque, Marky & Christa. Thus it came as no surprise that to celebrate the birthday of one of our favorite burlesque performers Moana Amour, that Point5 was the perfect location.

Michael, Sheelman & Kathy





Carol & Judy

The celebration was about as different as it could be than the one we had attended earlier, but that is one of the joys of our island life, each was wonderful on its own and we had a really awesome day and night. I can assure you one thing, those burlesque people sure know how to throw down and throw a party.

Michael, Kathy & Joanna





Marky

Josie, Carol, Michael, & Kathy

Moana’s party included a few “special appearances” by some of her fellow burlesque performers, who gave much more personal yet entertaining and wonderful performances before a crowd packed with friends and well-wishers. The music was awesome, the drinks free-flowing and the crowd was in a really festive mood, which combined for another excellent night out on the town.



Erin & Margit

Goodbye, Again

August 1, 2010





The Young family

Goodbye, Again

One thing that I have learned living in Key West is not to get too attached to the people that you meet on the island, or perhaps it would be better to say not to get too attached to the thought that they will be here forever. This place has an ever changing population and we find ourselves having to say goodbye to friends on a fairly regular basis.



Abbie & Rosie



As sad as it is to say goodbye, we also appreciate that just by being here, we get to meet all sorts of wonderful, interesting, eccentric and friendly people who pass through, spending a portion of their lives here before moving on. Whether due to military service or a rambling spirit, job relocation or even economic factors, the reasons people depart are as myriad as the reasons that they arrive in the first place.

Charles & Kathleen

Eric

Randy



The good news is that often the pull of the island brings many of the people back eventually and even if they don’t return, we end up having friends spread across the globe, which in this ever shrinking digital world is not such a bad thing.





We said goodbye to another family this week as we attended the going away party for our friends Charles & Kathleen and their family who are leaving the island and moving far away to the much larger island of Australia. Ironically enough, they are the third family with children at the Co-op to move to Australia in the past couple of years. What Kathy does to their kids to make them relocate halfway around the world I do not know, but I do know that we will miss them and that Key West as a community will miss them as well.





Their going away party was held at Ft. Zachary Taylor state park during the evening up till the sunset closing of the park. It was a well attended, fun and bittersweet gathering full of happy kids playing and sad adults sharing their goodbyes. The sunset was beautiful as ever and we had an excellent time.

Max



Mags, Hal & Mark

Our next stop was conveniently located in nearby Truman Annex where we joined our friends visiting from the UK, Mags & David to help celebrate their son Max’s 10th birthday. It was a nice evening under a beautiful starry night sharing drinks and cake with friends. Happy Birthday Max!





The next day was a real treat as I got to join 8 girls for lunch at the Hurricane Hole, Kathy, Betsy and Jasmine and the five adorable kids with them; Annie, Rosie, Flo, Charlie and Georgia. It was a great lunch that included plenty of time to play on the huge pirate ship playland that is featured at the restaurant, The kids loved playing pirate and the adults loved enjoying a good meal while the kids occupied themselves.

Charlie

Annie

Rosie