Snowbirds

The Keys are hopping with activity lately. It is "season" and that means increased rates and occupancy at motel (yay!) and increased road traffic (boo!). It doesn't help that the ONLY remaining argument that H-bomb and I have after all of these years is over his driving. Well, I guess I cannot call it an argument when I do all the fussing and he just listens - while continuing to drive in his usual aggressive manner. I have never ridden with anyone who gets "flipped off", yelled at, and even have car drivers slam on their brakes in front of him in 55 MPH zones as much as him. In fact, I don't recall this happening with anyone else! I have actually witnessed on two separate occasions people stop their cars and get out to approach and yell at him. Whew. Yet somehow I have never been in any type of accident while he was driving. I suspect he is like a cartoon character, cruising along while happily chatting, weaving in and out of traffic, oblivious to cars crashing into each other in his wake.

Winter also brings many regular guests back to the hotel as well as new friends from all over the world. I have received wine and candy from regulars just this past week. I needed the wine after having to call police today for a "welfare" check on a young guest who deteriorated over the past week into what I would diagnose as a manic episode of bi-polar illness. During her stay here she acquired a puppy which meant she had to leave our property but she could not seem to get out of the room. She began to obsess over the keys to her room (#9) as being for the wrong room (#6) and no rational discussion of how the printing on the keys showed which direction to read the number would convince her otherwise. She kept attempting to open the room of the guests in #6 with her keys to prove her point. She is a lovely, intelligent young woman with a serious illness. The red flags went up for me early in her stay when she unfolded the most amazing and brilliantly concocted story of how she is actually in line for the British throne. It was an amazing tale full of details and convincing facts based on her belief that her grandmother served in WWII as a physician and fell in love with the father of Princess Diana and that actually Diana was her grandmother's love child - taken away from her by the evil Queen mother.

But, the harmless delusions began to go dark when she started accusing staff of stealing from her, sneaking into her room to put pornography on her laptop, and she began to use towels as backdrops for art with permanent markers. And then, the coup de grâce - the deliberate plot by staff to give her the wrong room keys. I tried to discuss medication history with her but that ended up with her turning on me also. So now I am the recipient of emails and photos of the evil room #9 keys. She finally moved to a nearby property who accepts pets and I will worry about her and hope that the police will keep an eye on her because she is a victim waiting to happen. We have given the next property a heads up.

Friends of Old Seven Kick-Off

I had a blast last weekend selling t-shirts at the Friends of Old Seven Kick-Off. It was a spectacularly beautiful sunny day, with a gentle breeze blowing off the water that surrounded the venue. We had the event at a restaurant with views of the bridge and both the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. With a tiki bar, DJ playing fun dance music (I felt like I was at a Bar Mitzvah in Cleveland when I heard YMCA by the Village People), food, a silent auction and poignant stories being told about the bridge, it was such a great time. We got our message out there and started our campaign with a bang raising money. My team of volunteers was outstanding and a fun group. We worked hard for over 6 hours. Missing is Sue Broker, my photographer. Thanks group! You are awesome!

Kids and Their Kids

I packed visits to both Ohio and New Mexico in one week to see five of our six grandchildren. First stop was to see Jack and Ruby for a pre-birthday boy visit. I cannot believe that Jack has turned seven. Now I sit and watch him conquer mysterious worlds on his Nintendo Wii instead of playing Thomas trains with him. And he has been reading for two years, although he still enjoys being read to. He is as cuddly as ever, fortunately. And just as loving. Ruby is an entertainment machine. Upon my arrival and after great whoops and hugs, she ran to put on her Darth Vader costume. After dinner we had a toy store shopping trip and her selection was a new Darth Vader backpack for preschool. The visit included an indoor water park with cousin Carmen (age one) and her family, and Grandma. Jack and Ruby take my breath away with there fearlessness on the big slides. A lively dinner with Megan's family concluded the visit. Just perfect.

One day at home and then on to see Jenavieve and Anastasia in Albuquerque. Grandson Daniel was in the States from Brazil and met us there. He had been in Disney World for spring break with his girlfriend's family. We had not seen him in two years. He is in architecture school in Rio and such a sweet, kind young man. His English is very good - much better than our Portuguese. The girls, ages 3 and almost 2, warmed up to us after a bit of time and we had a great time visiting the Children's Museum and a Children's play venue. We even got a babysitter and had a grown-ups dinner out. Jenavieve is a little peanut who hates to sit still and eat. I got her to eat a piece of broccoli - in and out - and she was so kind as to share it on my plate after she tried it. She is sweet and speaks in a very quiet voice. Ana was a little more shy and very "mommy" oriented at this point in time. She has fantastic fine motor skills and is amazingly focused on tasks. I came home and was exhausted. I just cannot jump in bouncy houses like I used to...

Open for Interpretation

POOL

FREE

INTERNET

The above words were posted on the marquis that is under our motel sign this past summer. If you read that, would you believe that the pool was free, or the Internet? Because, we had a family that kept showing up in the pool and we assumed they were guests. Until one of the kids thanked our manager for providing a free pool for the residents of the city to use.

Needless to say, we changed the wording.

Save Old Seven

Meet the Old Seven Mile Bridge in Marathon, Florida. Half-way between Key Largo and Key West, this 2.2 mile span is a remnant from Henry Flagler's Overseas Railroad that first carried passengers in 1912 from the mainland of Florida to Key West. The original 7 mile span was a construction feat. The newer bridge (on the right) was built to accommodate automobile traffic.

The bridge ends at Pigeon Key, which housed the workers who built the bridge and part of the railroad. It is now a historical site with museums and educational programs. Motorized traffic has been prohibited, so access to Pigeon Key is now by ferry only. Last year, "Old Seven" was closed to fishermen and is in danger of being closed to pedestrian and bike traffic due to structural problems.

The Florida Department of Transportation does not want to spend the money needed to repair the bridge. So a non-profit, called Friends of Old Seven, was organized this past year and has a mission to try and raise the money to not only save and repair the bridge but to create a recreational setting for residents and tourists. Hundreds of thousands of persons come to walk the bridge every year. Similar grassroots projects include the Kinzua Bridge in Pennsylvania (a favorite of my family who spent much time growing up in the Mountains at my father's hunting camp), the High Line in NYC and the Walkway Over the Hudson.

I have been involved with this group and am busy as the organization and its tasks grow. I have taken on the graphics end which I love. We have a rudimentary website that I manage but have hired a design group to do a snazzy site and I am in charge of that. We are doing fundraisers to get money to cover costs and the account is slowly growing. When we have our non-profit status, we will go after grants and the big donors. I designed the logo that they are using with an old postcard from the early 1900's as it's center. I found the postcard on eBay. The people involved are hard working and committed. This is a great cause to preserve a piece of history. Wish us luck!

Hiatus

After a few weeks of non-blogging, I am back. And, today my toenails are not green, like in my profile, but blue. Literally. Because last Friday our Wheaten Terrier, Guinness, died in a tragic drowning accident. And I felt blue, so had the toes painted to match.

We will never know what happened. All we do know is that Guinness was very old, getting deaf and blind and had a seizure disorder. After being let out at 4AM to go to the bathroom since he couldn't make it through the night anymore, he did not return. Most likely, he had a seizure and stumbled and fell down onto the dock and into the water of the canal. He never went near the canal in normal circumstances, but after a seizure he was temporarily blind and half conscious. And, so debilitated by age that he wouldn't have been able to swim very far, if at all. A neighbor spotted him far from our home in the main canal leading to the open ocean. Harry and some wonderful people in a boat rescued his body. Although we knew his "days were numbered, it was a very painful way to lose him.

News from Bizarreland

Got to work this morning at the motel a little before 8 AM. While standing in the office at the counter doing some paperwork, I noticed a very disheveled man looking around in our water heater closet out front where we store brochures, beach chairs and other such equipment. I went out to ask him what he was doing and he informed me that he had fallen asleep last night in the closet and where was he? Was he in Key West? I told him no, that he was 50 miles north of Key West. He wandered off into the sunrise. And here are photos of his glorious accommodations last night. Temperatures here were in the 50's, but hey, he had his own personal hot water bottle to hug.