wet weather

Key West is gray and raining on this Saturday morning.
There's a light 5 knot wind with gusts to 10 and low, rolling thunder on the horizon that spooks Max the cat. It feels like about 70 degrees.
I like it; a great day for Clam Chowder and a salad for lunch.

So with nowhere to go and not much to do (last night's lovely guest has already gone home) I'll take time to write a bit.
I've got Sgt Pepper's playing on the i-Tunes and I'll take some time to let my mind go wandering.
("where it will go-oh, where it will go-oh. . .")

Spike

Well Spike (my now very large cactus plant) has been at it again; flowering.
I always say I love when he does that and always take time to sit out on the porch to admire him doing his thing.
Spike started out as a single cactus lobe I pinched from a small wild cactus plant I saw the first time I went to Ft. Zac,
12 years ago.
(I know your not supposed to do that in a state park but, what the hell)
I potted the single lobe and since, he's grown into the big boy he is today.

I'm gonna use yesterday's pictures of him to thread together whatever comes up while I write on this rainy day.


Tax Time

So that was tax time.
I don't do my own taxes, Louise, my CPA, takes care of it for me. All the same, every year I spend a day or two looking over the last year's financials and making a copious list of
proposed deductions.
(I work as an independent contractor).
It makes Louise's life easier (and I'm all for that) and it gives me a clear picture in one frame of how the year's business trend went.
(blah, blah, blah. . .)

Anyway, this year was a new thing.
The entire process happened happily but I never laid eyes
on Louise.
In past years I'd sit with her in her office for an hour or so and we'd go over stuff. Then a week or so later I'd stop back at the office, sign on the line, write a check, pick-up my copies and they'd mail the return from their office.
This year was a little different . . .
While I did need to go to the office to drop off the initial paper work, Louise was with another client. I didn't interrupt, left the stuff with her secretary and beat feet.

Louise called the next day to confirm that she had the stuff and why don't I just e-mail my list of proposed deductions? I did.
A few days later her secretary called and said we were good to go. I paid Louise's fee with plastic over the phone, the return was filed electronically and they mailed me my copies.
I know none of this is strange magic or anything but this was a first and, if your interested in how stuff works,
it might make you say "hmmm. . ."


Urgent Care

Have you ever been to one of those "Urgent Care
Medical Centers"?
You find them in places like strip-malls.
I hadn't until last week. It was my first time, for nothing major, and was in and out in well under and hour. In fact I spent more time in the waiting room than I did with
the doctor.
I hate waiting rooms and figure if there's a hell for me, (which I don't really believe there is) it would be a crowded waiting room with FoxNews on the TV, a rack of magazines about obstetrics and I'd be sitting between a woman with a crying baby and an old guy muttering to himself.

Anyway these places are literally assembly lines for
medical care.
You pay at the gate, see the doctor with the tired eyes, take care of your need and "next!". . .

I'll tell you, these don't get me as the places you'd want to be if you got really sick.
But the price is right so they draw the crowd.
Americans. . .
What will we think of next?

Conch Republic Days

Our annual "Conch Republic Days" (more about that in a later post) started yesterday and today I thought I'd start covering some of the events.

Among other things, today's scheduled includes "The Great Conch Republic Drag Race".
It's a foot race down Duval between dozens of drag queens pushing rolling queen size beds, each bed with a pajama wearing rider under the covers.
It's scheduled start is 1:00 this afternoon but it's 12:45 now and still raining like crazy. So I don't think they'll make it
in the wet weather today.
Maybe tomorrow.

Now where's that clam chowder?