Key West: if it's so not-dressy, why is my suitcase so heavy?

Key West is a collection of little contradictions, the temperature's generally balmy, but it can suddenly turn cold and damp; the sunshine is beautiful, but it's rained every morning; when it's too hot for anything but a tank outside, the place you enter to grab a sandwich is so air conditioned that you can get whiplash from shivering. Add to that the need for hats to keep the rays from making my carefully faked lowlights disappear, plus which we'll be heading to Miami for another couple of days, then on Naples to see old friends, and suddenly you're talking covered wagon. Without the weapons and crockery.



and of course, with shoes. Not photographed: green jelly flip-flops.
so the KW part of the expedition required:

knee-length shorts, 1 white, 2 chino
jeans, 1 dark(-ish, they've been washed a lot), 1 white
tanks, bright, 5 (hot enough for a tank, hot enough to want a fresh one every day, and besides they don't take up any room)
short-sleeve tees, 4 (look, I did not come here to do laundry)
long-sleeve tees, 2
pale gray cotton sleeveless vest thing with hood (A/C, remember?)
dark gray cotton jacket (I believe it was called "foxtrot")
jean jacket, 1 dark
beige poncho-raincape thing, also with hood
ugly but practical dark green water-resistant rain hat
striped linen sweater
chambray beach cover-up
pj's
belts, leather, 1, braided white rope, 1
cotton scarves, 2
Add to that, one restaurant dress (Naples), one shawl (Naples), and one pair of silk-linen tweed pants (beige, Miami) with blue/gray/beige linen sweater...
and hats, cosmetics, mini flashlight, bandaids, hair dryer, hair stuff, chargers and small extension cord for same, and my coffepot, and Westward Ho! I mean, Southward!

KW cherishes its rugged individuality, possibly more than it cherishes its rugged individuals. There's a Hemingway look-alike contest every summer, so after Christmas the seasonally unemployed Santas start south to get to work on their perma-tans.



There's also a Hemingway write-alike contest, of which the least said the better, but in short declarative sentences. There are well-known deliberately shabby bars, where you can buy the same watery drinks your parents bought. Fancy cocktail mixing is making inroads here, but slowly and so far just where there are tablecloths. Every winter, the local government considers proposals to alleviate congestion, "deal with" the homeless, protect the environment, and make tourism more profitable without risking overcrowding. We used to see proposed regulations aimed at stopping the proliferation of tacky tee-shirt shops downtown, but the economy has solved that problem.

Another Hemingway-related activity is the tour of the great man's house. It's a terrific house, and worth seeing, especially if you're about to renovate a bathroom in your own home. That man liked his creature comforts, and he sure knew plumbing. It doesn't look like the home of a writer/journalist. Another guy who dropped his starter wife for an heiress...

In the course of the house tour, you will also learn about the Hemingway cats, who all descend from Ernest's original 3.


These cats all have 6 toes, well, 24 really, 6 to a paw. They have distinctive colorations of fur and eyes, and are colorblind. I don't know how the Hemingway House tour leaders know that, but they were most positive and seemed annoyed that I asked.

As to food in Key West, we eat excellent spicy conch chowder and fresh Florida pink shrimp at the Half Shell,

top-quality Mexican food and great sangria at Chico's Cantina,

Cuban sandwiches at El Siboney (sangria here tastes like diluted Hawaiian punch and is not recommended),

and that's about it.

Oh, right, the obligatory breakfast at Blue Heaven, which has gotten very civilized and expensive of late, but is still good.



We also still like the restaurant now known as Pisces, very high standard of cooking, but we go there as a treat rather than a casual meal.

Every so often people urge us to try something different, the last time was to go to Seven Fish for the meatloaf. Don't bother, is the kindest thing I can say. Someone should start a charitable foundation for Drunks Born Without Tastebuds, motto "oh please don't sit here!"

A marching band concert tonight, and on to Miami tomorrow. I hear there'll be snow in New York.