Vaccines. Done and done.

Both Patrick and I have now had both our vaccines. It is obviously a a big relief.  I'm still feeling, frustration and even guilt that Canada and Ireland are still behind in the vaccine game. Patrick's parents have both got their first shot, but no clear timeframe of when they will get their second.  My dad has just got his first one, and will get his second one around May 12th all going to plan. And hopefully my mam is in line to get hers first soon also.

For posterity, here is a photo of me getting my second shot. If you want to read about my first, click here.

 

Patrick sent me this photo after getting his second one, and I love him for it.  He is not a selfie taker at all, but he knew that I would like it.  I did slag him that it appears they did his in the broom closet and we had a good laugh about that.  

Another pic for posterity.  I don't think I've ever posted a photo of us in this blog of us wearing the face masks.  Well, maybe this blog will still exist, and be read by someone in 150 years time, this was life in 2020 and 2021.  I hope with these vaccines we are close to the end of face coverings.

Elvis: That's The Way It Is - Special Edition

 Just before covid19 hit and the cinemas closed one of the last films we saw in The Tropic cinema here in Key West was the Robbie Robertson documentary about The Band "Once Were Brothers".

The Tropic is (softly) reopened, and when I saw an ad on facebook for the re-release of "Elvis: That's the way it is", and that it was playing in the Tropic.....well I just hopped on it and bought two tickets.

It felt incredibly safe in the theatre....well there was only us and two other couples there! Great for us, but I do worry how the cinema will survive with that kind of attendance.

What was really cool is that the major of the film is clips of (full songs) of his Las Vegas concerts so, as Patrick said afterwards, in a bizarre pandemic kind of way it felt like we were at a live show. It is as near to a live concert you will get right now so we will take it I suppose!

Sorry :(
I can't rotate this pic

We both really enjoyed the gospel songs part of the show so went online and ordered a CD of them.  Best deal was to also get his number 1's also.  And then, I went the whole hog and ordered a cd of The Band also. Spent the afternoon today listening to them while swimming in the pool. Pretty good afternoon me thinks!

"Me and my Tree" The Christmas 2020 portrait series

 I've always loved old photos from the 1960's.  I love looking at the fashion, "the what people wore", the furniture and imagining "how people lived" based on their photos.  I particularly love Christmas ones.  People dressed up for parties, such glamour! And their cocktails!  The craft cocktails of our day can't hold a candle to the old classics of a Saturday night, in my opinion.

My friend Feliz came up with a great facebook idea for this Christmas:

"We need a little glamour in our lives right now.  This Christmas season 2020, let's put on our fanciest dresses, pour ourselves a martin, and pose in front of a tree.  Post those pictures! Extra credit if you have a silver tree, or those silver tinsel thingies".

So taking Feliz's idea I put this challenge out to my friends on facebook and the photos are coming in!  Photo of my album so far, plus of my pics.  I'm really loving this fun little project and I think it will be a nice little memory of this crazy coronavirus pandemic year.

If you're reading this blog and you want to be part of it that would be great! Just send me your pic :)

Yard chores and crab traps. Life is good!

Fall has arrived, and with it Stone Crab Season!  We have had the crab traps stored in our shed for a while now so we decided we needed to get on to things - and get the traps made up this weekend and then hopefully get them in the water next weekend coming.

            I think we all know how happy power tools make me!

How about that?! We are all set! I will update you once we have laid them next week.  

The plan is that with our fellow crab hunters, our friends Garrett and Katrina, we hope to catch enough over a month or so to have a big stone crab dinner for the four of us.  Each one of us will make a key lime mustard and we will eat the crabs and vote on whose mustard is best.  How much fun does that sound?!

We also borrowed a power washer from Garrett and cleaned the front and back of our garden.  And the 1953 clamshell storm shutters/window awnings. Hard work! But worth it.  Apparently you should do a power washing of your home once a year or so - we are going to buy our own power washer soon.

Ps.  29 days to the election here in the USA.  Right now the big story is about a man who has Covid 19 and who may or may not be a super spreader.  That's all I have to say on that matter, friends.  Good night, wear your mask, wash your hands, social distance, stay safe!

Art during Quarantine

During these crazy pandemic times I am turning to lots of things to help me through.  You know, important things like wine, vodka, key lime pie :)
And art.

I am seeing and hearing about lots of wonderful things people are doing here in Key West.  Even simple things like facemasks (we are all wearing them!), local artists are doing fantastically creative things with them.

How simply beautiful are these masks hand-painted by Rick Worth.

Back home in Ireland I am hearing about an AWESOME project in the works, by a woman, for women, in the Gaeltacht area of Connemara.  I can't say too much about it right now, but watch this space, as soon as I can share more with you I will!

And then of course there is my guy, Irish artist Pigsy.  

He just never stops.  He has just sold this amaaaazing large piece to a couple in Dublin who I am going to assume have a very big wall and house to showcase it.  It is large in size and large in expression.  "Phoenix Rising" it is called and I just adore it.

And then he also has been working on this fun little commission of a dinosaur head.  

Such a wonderful energy to his work...

"Rex the protector" is a work in progress and I am looking forward to seeing the final piece.

Support Art!

If you would like a piece from Pigsy in YOUR LIFE but your budget doesn't quite align with his :) Then how about a print?  They are available from designyard.ie aaaaaand during these pandemic times if you use the code "SupportArtists" you get 10% off.

And finally! If you have 10 minutes spare sit yourself down with the family and check out this thought invoking, yet feel good little film about Pigsy, some of his struggles in the past, and where he is now.

Featured at the London Irish, Bristol, Galway and Cork film festivals.
Click here to view this award winning documentary film.

Letter from Key West, May 24 2020

9.34pm on Sunday evening and my thoughts go to coffee shops and what the future looks like for them.  I sure don't want to sound selfish or self-absorbed, and definitely don't want to sound like I am not aware of, or don't care about all who have been really badly affected by Covid19.  But god damnit I sure do miss my Starbucks.

Not for the coffee!  I can get coffee anywhere.  I miss Starbucks, and independent coffee shops too, for what they provide more than just the coffee. Back when I lived in Dublin there was a wonderful big 24 hour Starbucks on Stephen's Green, just around the corner for me, where you would find me most Sunday evenings savouring the last bit of the Dublin weekend atmosphere while avoiding the temptation of the pub.
And when I spent the month in Chicago at the end of 2018 I spent many a happy time, whiling away an hour or three, in awesome coffee places with my laptop and big mug of caffeine.  My favourite  being The Wormhole.

This photo is of me actually in The Wormhole when I wrote this little retrospective blog post of 2018. Happy days.

Happy days indeed. So what now, in these days of love and covid, and social distancing?  Will hanging around our neighborhood coffee shops be frowned upon and discouraged?  Will people who use them as hotspots for their job have to find an alternative?  Will independent coffee shops make it through at all??

All I know it, it would be a tragically sad day to find myself in Wicker Park, on a cold snowy Chicago day and not be able to enjoy a Koopa-Troopa (iirc!), served up by a friendly barista, with a healthy dose of 80's nostalgia on the side....if you've been to The Wormhole you will know what I mean ;) Hell, come on like, they've got an actual scale size DeLorean DMC 12 in the store!!!!

Stay safe, stay well friends.

Just a perfect day....

Yesterday (Saturday) was a day, that will make my heart sing for many days and weeks to come

- We were on the boat at 9.15am and I ate a breakfast of English muffin and coffee on the water.  Is there anything better
- Patrick had an amazing morning of fishing.  Including the fish monster pictured below!
- We enjoyed a really lovely early afternoon in the back yard and the house.  We had a fab cold lunch of Norwegian smoked salmon, Italian prosciutto, Spanish sausage and Irish cheese.
- I may or may not have had a vodka screwdriver with my lunch (of course I did). And we had some squares of key lime pie chocolate for dessert.
- Patrick went grocery shopping and came back with 4 bottles of our favourite Cabernet Sauvignon that were on special
- We faffed around and had fun in the house and yard for the afternoon
- I had an outdoor shower.  Yes, I know, an every day occurrence.  And one, that will never not be, an awesome novelty experience
- Back we headed to the boat at around 4pm.  We went for a massive spin all around the island and I had my famous "goofy [aka really happy]" smile on my face the whole way
- We went for dinner in Dante's and it was fabulous - had the seafood sampler of oysters, shrimp and crab claws
- Went back out on the boat and did some evening fishing.  Patrick caught another fish monster.  Saw a beautiful sunset
- Home and chilled for the evening.
- Ate some key lime pie for a late night treat
- Went to bed absolutely exhausted but so happy.  Slept amazing!

Letter from Key West, May 17 2020

89,498 Deaths from Covid19 in the USA

On Friday evening we went out for a quick dinner before going out on the boat.  It was not a great experience.  The social distancing arrangements in the restaurant were good - thumbs up there.  However service was slow (drinks and food) and the menu was limited (ok I am fine with this).

But my major concern was some of the other patrons.  Key West is supposed to be residents only at the moment, but there are definitely tourists in town.  Hey guess what, four of them strolled into the restaurant, not a mask to be seen, straight up to the bar, not giving a care in the world about keeping 6ft away from the bartender.

Frankly, I don't think they should have been served.  And finally, about ten minutes later they were politely (too politely imo) invited to step outside - the prompt for this being when one of them dropped their drink and the glass smashed everywhere.  Not cool man, not cool.

Contrast that with Dante's on Saturday.  Am happy to report: great social distancing of tables, great service, great food.  We had the seafood sampler and it was awesome!

Oysters, peel'n'eat shrimp and crab claws

Oysters to die for, the size of a a plump baby's fist!

Covid Cooking - Shrimp & rice

We ate out last night and it was "fine" but a little bit, dare I say it, fast food/"kids food" type of fare. Ok I hold up my hands, we had chicken wings.  And flatbread. Which let's face it, is essentially pizza.

So this morning we made a pact, no more "kids food" and aim for food with more complex flavours than buffalo and ranch.

So I made dinner tonight! Nothing fancy, in fact rather simple. But it had some good flavours and left us both feeling good after it.

Shrimp, basmati rice, tomatoes, onions, garlic, cumin, paprika, salt, pepper

And that's it!

Letter from Key West, May 11 2020

Key West continues to open up.  For residents only! The road blocks are still in place and no tourists can come...yet.

There is talk of non residents from June 1.  I am conflicted.  I get it has to happen. Life on the island as is, is not sustainable, but on the other hand is life itself sustainable by bringing the virus into our midst?

Am I being dramatic?  All I can say, is that after an initial few weeks of anxiety, based on the current numbers of cases in Key West and up the keys (Monroe County) I feel safe.  Looking at the numbers up North (Miami eek) scares me.

Anyway, on a nicer note, as noted, Key West continues to open up.  Today Shanna Key reopened.  So guess where we went for dinner!

I had the chilli as I ALWAYS do

Patrick got chicken wings which is unusual for him.  He also had two pints of Guinness which is not unusual.

It was a really lovely evening actually.  We must have told our server eleventy seventy times that it was great they were back open.

Letter from Key West, May 10 2020

4,097,158 Worldwide Cases
282,495 World Deaths
1,328,201 USA Cases
79,508 USA Deaths

Key West continues to be in the early stages of opening up/planning an opening.  A small amount of restaurants are open at 25% capacity.

We went to Alonzos for Happy Hour appetizers yesterday and we pretty much had the restaurant to ourselves.  A good thing for us, not so good for the business.  It felt good to be out and having a drink, even with facemasks etc.

There have been reports of some businesses not managing the crowds adequately, and the patrons not practicing good social distancing.  Yes, Smokin' Tuna I'm looking at you.

Us...we've been practicing social distancing by heading out on the boat. A LOT.  So happy with it.

Yesterday morning we took home 4 fat grunts.  

Stuffed and seasoned, with garlic, lemon, rosemary and thyme, we enjoyed them for lunch yesterday and today.

Letter from Key West, May 5th 2020

1,194, 494 Coronavirus cases in the USA
70,272 Deaths due to coronavirus in USA

Key West is starting to open up - limited opening, residents only.

Letter from Key West, April 29 2020

I bought myself a new mask yesterday.  It is from Sister Season and they are $10 per mask which goes into the fund to help people who work in the hospitality industry and who need financial assistance.

It is a lovely vintagesque flowery material and it is nice (firm?) material (double lined) and cut in a good shape which covers my whole face.

I also bought Patrick one too.  It is a soft t-shirt material.  It is double lined too - in fact reversible - and is made from a donation of  old stock of (unworn) Conch Republic Celebration 2019 t-shirts.

This one works great for him because it doesn't matter if he squishes it into his pocket (which he does!) as compared to the medical mask he was previously using, which really did not respond well to the squishing.

Both masks are also much more comfortable/more breathable than the medical masks.

Letter from Key West, April 26 2020

CVS have reduced all their Easter stock so I snaffled some peanut butter cups, some lindt chocolate and some PEEPS! Why the capital letters??  Because they are an unknown in Ireland and intrigue me so much.  Like didn't we have enough goodness, and sweetness, at Easter with all that chocolate?  Well, it appears not, someone came along and said, heck no, have some lurid coloured, sugary marshmallow while you're at it. 



 

Right, well who am I, to argue with that?

 

*******************************************

 

 

Things I am thankful for right now:

 

1. Fresh, clean bed linen. 

I did some chores yesterday, which included laundry of our bed sheets. Simply nothing like it.

 

 





Temperatures are going up here in Key West.  We have started using our AC and literally have two sheets as covers at night.

 

2. A healthy and happy relationship

I've grown a lot over the last couple of years, slash decade....ok, so, slash two decades. Yes it took time but I can confirm it was worth the wait. 

 

A couple of years ago, I remember meeting up with visiting friends to Dublin, an older (and clearly wiser) couple.  With drinks in hand, and sitting by a fire in the Library bar of the Exchequer Hotel I beseeched them for the answer to happiness in love.  Ok, truth be told. I whined to them. "How? how do you do it? how do I do it?? How, when you want to absolutely kill the other person, how do you avoid that turning in to a big massive argument? Howwww?"  

 

The advice they gave me was "we just laugh about things".  At the time I struggled.  How could one laugh about something, when you felt so passionate about it, when you just KNEW you were right and the other person was wrong? 



But slowly over the years, I realized it was great advice. I also realized it was ME who was in control of my happiness, not the other person.  I started thinking about me and what I could do differently, ok so I didn't laugh every time, but I certainly started breathing and thinking more. Thinking things like, is this really important to be "right" about?  Is this really the one thing that I want to hang my hat on today? Really....reeeeeeeally???  The answer invariably, tended to be no. 

I guess it's a variation of Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, or something like that??  All I can say is, it definitely feels a lot better to be the person that I am now.

And as for the laughter?  Well that came too.  And maybe that is to do with the other person, as well as me.  God damnit he is funny! God damnit he makes me laugh about something every single day!

And you know, I like to think that I make him laugh too.

For this, and a million other reasons, it just works.

And for that I am grateful.

Letter from Key West, April 14 2020

Yesterday I had to go to the bank for some essential business.  Town was deserted, and while wearing my mask, I took the opportunity to take some photos of some of the Closed signs on shop doors. Apologies for the quality - it was difficult to capture with the shine from the windows - but I think you can see most of them ok.



It sure is sad seeing the optimism of the unknown, and some of the proposed re-opening dates which we have gone well passed now at this stage.

I re-read my last blog and realized how whiney and first-world problemy I sounded "it's so boring" For the record, just in case it is not apparent, boring aside, I totally understand the importance of flattening the curve and why this quarantine is so vital and needed.  I totally support it. 

Letter from Key West April 12, 2020

I am sure the situation is the same in Key West as where you are right now.  It's life, but not as we know it, and boy is it BORING!
Masks are de rigeuer.  Even Marilyn Monroe is wearing hers.

Hard to say when things will start opening up here in Key West.  Most people accept that April is totally over now.  And it is my belief that May is a bust too.  Maybe all the bars, restaurants and hotels open up again on June 1st?  Hey guess what, that is our off peak season (it gets HOT on the island) and then we are in to August/September which is hurricane season.  I reckon it will be October i.e. Fantasy Fest before the island sees any real action...

Hmmm... Moving swiftly on. On a nicer note; it's Easter Sunday today!

Woke up and the Easter bunny had come and made a delivery which was nice. 

And this evening we are having lamb for dinner.  We wanted to have salmon but none of the supermarkets had any that looked decent.  Lamb and wine will be MORE than fine!

Edit.
Here is a picture of our lovely Easter dinner!

Simple. But jazzed up dinner

Yesterday we ate Indian food.  We made it from a jar of Sharwoods, which really doesn't feel like cooking at all (spoiler, it's not).  Because of this we hit on the brainwave idea of jazzing it up with some onions and cherry tomatoes.  Chicken, done on the barbeque, and job DONE!

Well! That was it done until I went all faaaaancy with the rice!  Ha! Check it out.Lol

Have a great Easter weekend!
Stay well and healthy wherever you are, friends.

Letter from Key West April 9th 2020

Hello from Key West!  Well I have some exciting news for you today.  But first, a coronavirus update...and the update is that I don't really have much of an update for you:

- Internationally/British news: Boris Johnson has apparently been moved out of the ICU onto a regular recovery ward.
- USA: I didn't really watch a huge amount of news today but one thing I am picking up on is that Small Businesses are having trouble getting access to the cash promised by the Government.

Okay! Are you ready for my exciting news?!  How about this for some treasure finds!

Do you remember my previous blog about cleaning out the shed?  I didn't say what I did with all the stuff I cleared out.  If you follow this blog regularly you will know I am a big advocate for avoiding landfill and "reduce, reuse or recycle".  So I do love Key West and the "curb alert" system where people put stuff they want to get rid of out for other people to poke through and take.  One man's junk is another man's treasure as they say.

So yesterday I put stuff out, and a decent amount got taken, yay!  But a decent amount was still left too.  Patrick really just wanted rid of it. He is, understandably, not mad on a big pile of rubbish outside our house, and not mad on strangers mooching around either. So he really would have liked to throw what remained straight into the rubbish bins at that point.  But he knows also how much I wanted it to be reused, so we compromised that I would put it out this morning for just one day more, and that anything left at 5pm today was for the trash.

So out it went:

Ok so this is where it gets interesting! The photo above is pretty junky right?  Bear in mind this is the remains from the second day.  There was some really good stuff on the first day. The type of Christmas decorations (sorry, ornaments!) that look like they would have been expensive and purchased in Fast Buck Freddies back in the day. 

This style of ornament (or even nicer)

And I am sure there are some people (Enid?!) reading this right now shouting, "no way, why didn't you keep them??!!" And while this is a reasonable question, I guess the answer to that is that I would prefer build up our own collection of Christmas tree decorations over the years. Plus there was an awful lot, boxes and boxes, remember my objective was to clear out that shed!! And also I am happy for them to go to new homes if other people will like them and they will be used.

But this morning while putting all the stuff out, my gut told me I should do a thorough search through them all and make absolutely sure I was happy for everything to go. 

Well guess what! I found THIS!

Oh, just a Waterford Crystal snowflake! The 2007 Christmas edition.

Can you believe it?  What is really funny is that this means a fabulous piece of (heavy) cut crystal worth approximately $100 (I looked it up!) was sitting outside of our house for a whole day, for the taking.

My gut was still niggling, urging me on that there was something else decent to be saved.  So when I saw these little teeny tiny guys I knew I had found something good!

They have a 1950/1960's look about them and I had a feeling that I was going to find some kind of identification on them that would be useful - I almost thought it would be something familiar like a steiff tag or something.

Well strangely, it was not Steiff, but it WAS German.

Original FDR Toys. Made in W.Germany

This dates them from prior to reunification i.e. between 1949 and 1990! And I would wager, going on the look of them they are late 50's/early60's.

I am just thrilled to bits with both my finds!  And to think that if I hadn't had that look this morning they could have been in the trash at 5pm.  Eek! Just doesn't bear thinking about.

Letter from Key West, April 8 2020

Since I last blogged it appears that masks, and the wearing of them, is coming to the fore.  As per yesterday's City of Key West directive all employees must wear masks.  Some stores are insisting on shoppers wearing them too. Home Depot is not letting anyone in without a mask, late last afternoon Fausto's posted on their facebook the same. 

Me, I stayed at home and cleaned my shed.  How the heck did it get packed full of all that junk?? When we moved in (mid January) I did a big clean out of the old owner's stuff but heck seems we managed to fill it with our own stuff since then.

It took me almost the whole day, with breaks, but I think you will agree from the photos; job well done.  Now just need to keep it this way!

Where ever you right now, stay well and positive friends.

From there, to here...a post to bring you up to speed

I haven't been blogging much at all in 2020, something that I was slightly regretting and now with the Coronavirus Pandemic, something I am very much regretting.  My twin sister over on her blog has been doing a great job documenting what is going on in Ireland over the last month or so, and I do wish I had been doing the same.

So! This blog post is to record my thoughts and what has been happening for me, over the last few weeks, and then let's see where I go from there - I would hope I would be better at recording things as they happen.  I need to get the sequence of events down in text because honestly, even now, it is all turning into a bit of a blur really.  So this is really just what I "remember", I cannot unfortunately swear to the accuracy of it!

Ok, well first of all let me assure you I was aware of the coronavirus from early January.  I don't live in a total bubble! And I do read a million newspapers online daily, and peruse another million discussion forums etc.  Oh and I get the New Yorker delivered every fortnight lol. And that is not to mention what I pick up from facebook and twitter.

An easy marker for me is St Patrick's day.  Probably about 10 days to two weeks out from the 17th of March, Ireland was starting their fight against coronavirus and as part of that the St Patrick's day weekend celebrations were cancelled (all over Ireland - the biggest parades being Dublin and Cork).  A smart thing to do - a large gathering of people is clearly a magnet for the virus to be spread.  It should be noted that nowhere in the UK (e.g. Manchester) cancelled their Paddy's day parades.  Also the Irish Government cancelled (or banned?) the Six Nations rugby match between Italy and Ireland.  They say this was done a little late and still a lot of Italians travelled to Ireland, but at a minimum it did stop the large crowd of spectators crammed in together in the Aviva stadium.

At this point in Key West we really were not feeling, or seeing any impact.  Life was going on as usual and business was as usual.  Town was full, and all bars, restaurants and hotels were all open and operating as normal.

Now moving forward to closer to the 17th of March.  Things still "as usual" in Key West, people talking about coronavirus but very much in the context of "how it was affecting elsewhere".  Me talking about places like Ireland, Italy and Spain.  Other places in the USA being discussed e.g. the nursing home in Washington where there was just utter decimation of the poor resident's lives. RIP. But still nothing about Key West, and at this point no discussion about it even arriving at our door.  I know, I sound naïve, I can't capture in words how insulated one feels down here - one feels very remote to the real world at the best of times, and clearly the same at the worst of times. 

We hosted a St Patrick's day party on the 15th of March.  With hindsight, the optics of that don't look great.  At the time I had no concerns.  Well actually, I did post one post on the facebook post on the party invite page saying if anyone had symptoms to stay away (different wording lol!!)...but important to note that at this point the "the asymptomatic carrier" did not even enter my consciousness.  I tapped elbows with everyone who arrived but there were other people who hugged each other, and definitely we did not stand 6ft/2 metres apart. The coronavirus was one of the biggest topics of conversation, but it was by no means the only one.  One or two people did mention that they were planning to hunker down and stop going out after the party.

So then, this is where things began to ramp up.  I believe on the 16th of March, by order of the Governor of Florida all bars were ordered to be closed and restaurants were to reduce their seating capacity by 50% in order to allow patrons to socially distance while eating.  The city of Key West went one further and ordered all bars and restaurants to close completely on 17th of March (17th of March!! St Patrick's day! Traditionally a BIG day and big holiday period in Key West).  Later during the week it was further ordered that all lodgings/rentals/hotels were to close on the 21st of March.  Thus meaning that by Sunday 22nd March the island should be inhabited by locals only.

Since then everyone has pretty much started and continued to "stay at home" and I think my previous blog post takes up from that point onwards...

Onwards and upwards!  Stay well, stay healthy, and stay positive.  We will get through this.  It is going to take time, how long I do not know, but what I do know is that if we all play our part the quicker it will be.

Oh! On that note about everyone playing their part - yesterday it was widely reported around the world about Ireland's Taoiseach (Prime Minister/leader) Leo Varadkar, who has re-registered with the Irish Medical Council and will be working as a doctor (his previous occupation) for one day a week during this crisis.  Talk about leading by example and being unafraid to roll up your sleeves and get stuck in.  Good man Leo!  I have been the first to criticize our Government in the past but I am extremely proud of how they have managed and guided Ireland during these unprecedented times.