This and That

We're still on our search for free things to do here, so on Wednesday took part in the last-Wednesday-of-the-month movie night at the library. Prometheus was the movie of the month and since Michael & I are Alien fans (I can not believe that movie came out in 1979 - !!),  we thought we'd give it a shot. I was just wishing I had some popcorn when someone actually sneaked some in. It smelled sooo good.

I was kind of surprised the library would show a rated-R movie, but I'm not sure why Prometheus was rated R in the first place. The movie itself was, eh.

Michael's attempting to get a cold, so we put off walking around to see the holiday lights for another time. There's something to be said for living on a boat (and a small island), you're not surrounded by sick people so tend to stay pretty healthy. No more...

Thursday we decided to check out the ChalkFest, a part of a 3-day event called Art! Key West 2012. You can see it wasn't exactly hopping, but some of the artists had started drawing. The judging is on Saturday, so I'm guessing that it'll be more lively and impressive then. Rain in the forecast is probably making some nervous.




This guy, who I'm presuming was Jonathan Woods, was using his art to promote his book. Hmmm, maybe I should have done that.



Alrighty then, what now? Well, I had read that there was going to be a ceremonial burning of the hurricane flag to signal the end of 2012 hurricane season, so off we went to see what that was all about.  First up, cheap fortification (you actually got your own $2 beer and put money in the buckets - how trusting, and yes there was money in them).

And then we found a circle of people, some of them in uniform and everything. Other folks were in pirate costumes because El Meson de Pepe's was hosting its annual Cuban Pirate Feast that night. Believe it or not, the men in white were part of a pretty-serious-but-not group from the Conch Republic Military Forces. I liked how a couple of them wore flip flops with their uniforms. There were a couple of promotions and rewards for service (the serious part was that they had helped deliver tons of food to Haiti during its last disaster and fed thousands of people for 6 months). You'll note the second photo depicts the two little red flags about to meet their fate.



Isn't that special? They even have their own "official" vehicle.

The story is that back in 1982, The Conch Republic seceded from the U.S. for a few hours to protest road blocks that had been put up to search vehicles for drugs and "aliens." Conch Republic "forces" went into the harbor and "attacked" the US Coast Guard Cutter DILIGENCE with water balloons, conch fritters, and stale Cuban bread, while the Coast Guard responded with fire hoses. In no time, the Conch Republic "surrendered," and is now considered to exist as a sovereign state of mind. You can even get yourself a meaningless passport. The officers saluted with their left hands (associated with their heart), and shook the hands of new friends or drank beer with their right. Key West is weird...

Anywho, back to the ceremony. We had a moment of silence for the hurricane victims from this year and then it was time. Once the fire got going, watch out! Wow, I'd hate to have had that flag on my boat. Sheesh.

There. It's official. No more hurricanes this season. You hear that Mother Nature?!

You could see the other craziness going on for the usual sunset festivities. There's even a tour bus that goes from land to water.

Again, we've deferred on the holiday lighting mainly because once the sun goes down, we get cold. I was happy to get to wear my new shoes though - heels and everything - I haven't worn anything with a  heel in 7 years. Didn't twist my ankle or anything!

I guess we'll just have to see what we run across this weekend and hope that Michael is on the mend (I've been spraying everything in the apartment down hoping not to pick up what he's got).  He can apologize later to the neighbors for all that snoring. I'm missing our second bedroom.....

Thought of the day: