Fantasy Fest

I know, I know, I haven't posted in two months. Time has a way of slipping away from me these days. That Keys mentality.....not productive.

ANYway, Key West's excuse for a party has been going on for a week, and tonight we went to see what it's all about. It's unbelievable for one thing. Tonight was the body painting contest; there were many many painted bodies out 'n' about. Since this isn't an adults-only blog, I'll have to be discreet about things and not post the truly aw-shit-inspiring ones. And believe me, there were plenty of those out there tonight.

I'll try to stay with the arty ones.

Yep, paint from the waist up, but done very nicely. It's not totally obvious that the women are braless. Or shirtless.

Naughty Schoolgirl talks to Wonder Woman. Later I photographed her with her boyfriend, the priest. That's on Crack, though, so I haven't gotten it onto the computer.



You do not want to see Sponge Bob Squarepants. Because he's not wearing any pants. I think he's the only totally naked person we saw. At least, the only totally naked man we saw. Most of the women were wearing at least tiny thongs.

We got your dogs.















We got your drunk guy.



We got your drunk woman.




We got your cats.






Look at this one's mouth. It's perfect. It looks like someone drew it on her with a Sharpie, but it's real.


Next we got your Cat Man. No, really. He puts on two shows every night at Mallory Square during the sunset celebration. He's nuts, but those cats do exactly what he wants them to do. I didn't know it was possible to train cats!








We got your Key West sunset (without much setting taking place).


Some of the nicer "costumes":



Those jeans are painted on her.

















And these were the tasteful costumes.

The other faction was there, too.



I didn't get a photo of the sign that mentioned Sodom and Gomorrah.

A couple of street shots:













Okay, enough.

Note: It was 81 degrees when we got home at 10:30. Eighty-one. At the end of October.

I like this living in the tropics thing!

Hello? Is anyone out there?

I've been lazy. That's nothing new, but the longer it gets since my last blog, the harder it is to get started again. And there's so much to blog about.

I'm still unemployed and loving it. I got my last "real" paycheck today; it's going to be painful when that's not available next month. But it's not enough to make me get out and pound the pavements begging for a job. I like this sleeping till noon and staying up till 3 a.m. I'm reading lots and lots of books, knitting baby things hoping to sell them (and thus eliminate the need for a "real" job), playing in the pool a couple of times a day, running the vacuum occasionally (and picking up furballs of cat hair far too frequently; we now have my daughter's two cats, Rex and Little Marie, in addition to Chester and Beghera), thinking about getting a dog (Chihuahua; mix is okay, no puppies, please), meeting the neighbors (tonight I met the lady who walks her two Min Pins on leash while her scarlet macaw rides on her arm; I played with the dogs, stayed away from the macaw's beak).

In other words, life is fun, sort of like vacationing in a ratty cottage with a sort-of kitchen but a super cool pool. Wait--that's exactly what it IS. We're vacationing in a ratty cottage with a sort-of kitchen and a super-cool pool and a really great mattress set.

No tv, but occasionally we watch something online. It would be nice if we had something larger than a 12.1" monitor, but I bought a set of $20 speakers so the sound is good.

Maybe now I'll actually start blogging again. I have tons of photos to show, and I can tell about how we participated in a promo video for Tim Dorsey's new book, Electric Barracuda, and how I knit on camera and had my own line and everything.

If anyone is still out there......

Contest at Fang-tastic Books blog!

Go to Fang-tastic Books and sign up!

The pool is open!

We don't have a finished room in the house, but man, we've got ourselves one hell of a nice pool.

Did I show you what it looked like last summer? Probably. Here's one from last week:



Mosquito Control actually put fish (gambusia) in there a couple of years ago. So as bad as it looked, mosquitoes didn't do much breeding there.

We found this guy in there the day before the renewal started:



By the time the pool was drained, there was a second one in there too. They finally had to be lifted out of there, because they weren't going on their own. Actually, they tried but they couldn't make it up the sides of the pool on their own.

This guy was far braver (or more stupid) than anyone I've met.



I asked him if he'd had his shots; he just looked at me funny.



It took most of the day to pump all of that nasty water and sludge out; he ended up shoveling I don't know how many buckets of really smelly stuff and hauling it out.





One guy stuck his hand down the *urk* drain to try to dislodge the 3 years' (at least) worth of crap while the smarter guy owner of the pool company power washed the rest of the pool.



By that evening, the pool was clean and dry.



And this guy decided to come back to see if it was safe to sun himself on the ledge again.



He isn't the brightest bulb. He repeatedly ran head-first into the fence attempting to leave the yard. He finally realized that *climbing* the fence was his best option.







I'm glad he didn't challenge me; he is one strong booger.



The next morning another crew came and did some stuff. I can't remember exactly what went on. The mosquitoes were so bad that I wasn't going to hang around taking photos, so I mostly took them out the upstairs window, which some idiot badly covered with tinted vinyl to reduce heat from the sun, a pretty much ill-fated attempt.

They spread this thick icky brown muck on the surfaces of the pool and left it to dry overnight.



The next day was Aggregate Day, but it rained all the night before (too bad we weren't filling the pool then, as there were about 6" of water in the pool the next morning) and until 2 p.m. As soon as the sun came out, the crew was back mixing and spreading and sculpting aggregate. They were professionals; they could have decorated a wedding cake, they are so good.




That guy, and the next one, spent the entire time on the steps. Two other guys did the rest of the pool.



They spent hours just smoothing the aggregate. I'm very impressed by the job they did. And it was 94 degrees that day, and the mosquitoes were biting. They finished after dark and returned Thursday morning to acid wash the pool and start filling it.

And by Thursday afternoon, my birthday, there was enough water that we could test our pool.

It's seven feet deep at the deep end; I don't swim and I don't put my head under water, so I use a float when I head in that direction.

The water straight from the hose is about 85 degrees, so it was very comfortable right away. When we take showers, we barely use any hot water at all.

Then *dum dum dum dummmm* the salt marsh mosquitoes descended the next day as we got into the pool. Within 5 minutes they'd driven us out. That happened again the next two days. Today we were able to stay in for about half an hour before they got too bad. Those are the little f^ckers that carry dengue fever, which is making itself known in the Keys and Miami. Lucky us. Regular mosquitoes aren't enough for us.

Mosquito Control said that they're working their way up the Keys and would try to hit us over the weekend, but it doesn't appear that has happened yet. We'll keep calling, because dammit, we have a POOL and we want to use it!

I just hope the crabs and the iguana don't jump in while I'm in there.