A continuous state of inelegance.

 August 7, 2023

A continuous state of inelegance.

This has been the hottest summer on record in Key West. Incredible heat, the kind of which is generally reserved for the months of August and September started in May this year and has not let up. We have had weeks on end of searing heat with temperature hovering in the 90s and heat indexes daily running into triple digits. Even the water is super-heated with a water temperature reading of 104 in Marathon recently and daily near-shore temps in the mid 90s. 

While it has been a year since I have actively posted on this blog, I figured it was well past time to get back into in, so rather than trying to recap the past year, I will just start back in and the heat has been the dominating factor of the past few months so I thought to begin there. We have been managing mostly by being away. Kathy and I drove up to the Northeast earlier this summer where I stayed for a couple of weeks and Kathy spent an additional couple of weeks slowly making her way South.

While she was still away, I stayed mostly inside as much as possible. Watching our friend’s dog Vinny and spending time going to the movies, and only rarely getting out much. I did head out one night to Comedy Key West with my friend Caitlin to see local comedians led by the hilarious newsperson/comedienne Gwen Filosa. Gwensday was the name given to the Wednesday night set of locals that was a welcome getaway from the house.

I also took a day trip to Miami to attend a reading by author Ana Menedez at Books and Books in Coral Gables. I try to get up there every so often to maintain my Miami Book Fair contacts and was able to see my friends Annalisa from the book fair and Mitchell who owns the bookstore. Writer Christina Garcia was also supposed to appear, but her purse had been snatched the previous evening in New York City. She is fine, but the loss of her id, made flying to South Florida impossible. I also stopped at my favorite fruit stand in Florida City, the wonderful Robert is Here, which has been around for years. Once located out in the boonies of the agricultural Redlands, encroaching development has almost completely overtaken the area and it makes me wonder if the place will survive much longer.

Kathy got home earlier this week and it was so great to see her and Clove after being separated for a couple of weeks. She had made her final stop to see our friends Dakota and Andy and their adorable daughters Sloane and Norah at their home in Southern Pines, North Carolina. It was Kathy’s first visit to their home since they moved from Clovis, New Mexico. I had stopped by in May on my way to the Indy 500, but Kathy had her chance to see their new place and check out the cool little town that is Southern Pines.

When Kathy got back to Key West, we were right back in the swing of things as far as keeping busy. Having not spent a lot of time with our local friends in the past few months, we quickly began to rectify that by accepting all sorts of fun invitations that living in Key Werst brings about on a regular basis.

It started with a fun invite to a birthday party to our good friend Nadene. It was a wonderful night with good friends, and thankfully a pool was involved and a delicious and delightful cake. We have known Nadene for many years and even as her birthdays come and go, she manages to somehow look almost the same as she has since we first met. Sadly, I know that I at least, am not so lucky.

We also had a couple of invites to go boating, which is something that we just don’t do often enough for a couple that lives on an island. First up was an amazing sunset sail with our friends Nan and Mark and Dave and Breanne. It was a spectacular sunset over the Key West harbor and a good time floating in the relatively coolish waters of the bay. The very next day, we went out with our friends Eric, Betsy and Rosie on one of their final boating excursions before they move to Pennsylvania where Rosie will be attending Penn State University this fall.

It was a perfect Key West summer day that started off with a manatee sighting in the marina before departing and culminated in a day-long picnic at a sandbar in the backcountry that was simply incredible. We are going to miss these guys, but are excited for them to begin a new chapter of their lives in chillier climes.