Sigh.

anotherrunner.com

Watching events unfold at the Boston Marathon yesterday was terrifying, appalling, and sickeningly mesmerizing. I had a friend that's put so much on the line to run two of her dream marathons before going back to "normal" running in order to allow some of that training time to return her to her family. She wanted to conquer both the New York City Marathon and the Boston Marathon and had worked incredibly hard to qualify for both. The day before her flight to NYC, Hurricane Sandy hit and obliterated any chance of a normal life for many folks in the city for awhile, including a massive marathon.

Saddened, but determined, she turned her attention to Boston and was determined to make it the best race she could. Her family, including her two young girls, would be on hand for a rare chance to root her on (they live outside the US). I was so excited for her and was watching her progress

Steamy Weekend

This morning was the 7 Mile Bridge Run.  I had thought it might be fun to do, but it turned out that it is a very popular race. When online reservations open up, wannabe runners pounce on their keyboards, and within minutes, the coveted 1,500 places are filled.

I didn't see anyone that
looked like this though.

I think a lottery was made available this time too. I wasn't that into it, so didn't get into the frenzy. Hopefully anyone who had to get to the Miami airport from the Keys this morning knew about this event because the road was closed from 6:45am to 9am. If you were on the lower Keys, you were staying on the lower Keys until the last person ran across the finish line. I did a 6-mile run in solidarity and was drenched by the time it was over. We're 10 degrees above where we're supposed to be (we're breaking records for overly high lows) and it is very humid. My sunglasses fogged up. Every person I ran past today was drenched. There were a surprising amount of white wet t-shirts out there.

Yep - I looked just like that.

For the first time ever, anyplace we've lived, we had to turn the a/c on in April. I tried valiantly not to do it, allowing sweat to drip into my eyes as I vacuumed the 3 minutes it takes to cover the tiny apartment yesterday, but by last night it was like a sauna in here. The cats had planted themselves under the ceiling fan and hadn't moved for hours. Watching them come back to life was like watching a reverse taping of a flower wilting. Does this mean summer is upon us?


Last weekend, I plopped down to stretch out a sore back (I've changed my workout routine) and this happened. Knowing Jack was smushed against my face and feeling Zura down by my knee, I asked Michael to take a picture. Do these cats know how to relax or what? I'm pretty down with it too.

  

There's a 15K race around the island tomorrow and apparently Islamorada is having a big weekend too, but we don't have any way to get up there. We might just head to a beach and veg for the day. Next weekend the Independence Day stuff starts. There might be a chance of the Coast Guard's participation after all - as long as the guys & gals in uniform are willing to volunteer their time. We shall see. Michael and his coworker are going to have to start working on their bed for the bed race. Yep, gonna be interesting.

FYI: Monday's feel-like temp: 93 degrees. Yikes.

Boom, Pow, Kaboom

Front Street

We had our first thunderstorm for the season (Thursday), so that was fun. After one particularly bright lightning bolt and its accompanying deafening thunder boom, the power went out. The difference between here and St. Kitts is that here, the power came back on within 5 minutes. Most of the rain came in one particular deluge (supposedly 1.27 inches) that left streets flooded. Those north of us had tornado warnings all day, and a tornado or water spout touched down in nearby Big Pine Cay (in the middle of the night, of course). According to the National Weather Service, the tornado visited the Long Beach Estates community with estimated peak winds at 75 to 80 mph, a tornado path width of 80 yards, and a tornado path length of 2 miles. There were no fatalities and no injuries (photos).

London - © WENN / Chris Saxon

I have to say that I was surprised that none of the bars here celebrated National Pillow Fight Day yesterday (April 6th). They do the weirdest things here and that would have been fun! London and New York did it. Toronto also participated, as did several other major cities around the world. I did too when Michael started snoring. I only hit him once...but it was a good one.



We got word that the Coast Guard won't be able to participate in the upcoming Conch Republic Independence Day festivities thanks to the sequester. I don't really get that since the boat is just sitting at the dock anyway. We throw bread and water balloons at them, they respond accordingly. How much can that possibly cost? But one of the Conch Republic Navy officers said in a long(ish) letter:

...For the first time in thirty years, the United States Coast Guard will not be participating in the Great Battle for the Conch Republic this April 26th... 

...We thank the United States Coast Guard for their dedication and their willingness to participate with us in commemorating the day "We Seceded Where Others Failed," and we mourn the loss of their participation in 2013. They have been and remain great friends of the Conch Republic, and with much respect and gratitude, we remain as their staunchest fans... 

...How shall we react? Our High Command and our Officials are meeting as we speak to determine an appropriate response. We will work to make it funny, because we try to be funny when we are being serious...

I guess we'll see what ends up happening.

A Day for Fools

Can you believe that a day for pranks has not only been celebrated for hundreds of years but is recognized on various days throughout the year by countries from within the Middle East to Europe to Asia? I'm Italian (among other things) - perhaps I should do as the Italians do when Michael comes home and tack a paper fish on his back and yell "pesce d'aprile!" at him.

Now you'll note that last week, I had a couple of pics of the cats demonstrating how chilly it was (Sun! Follow the sun!). This weekend? Sun! Stay out of the sun!

Our own personal ther-meow-meters (hee hee). 

Actually it was a very nice weekend. We still didn't do much (it's March Madness), although we did stop in at the Ocean Festival on Saturday. It was a good place to be for kids, which meant we weren't going to hang around long, but we did luck into a vendor that had a great Mother's Day gift. Each of these little art shows has had different artists, so they've all been worth checking out.


Starting April 19th (through the 28th), all kinds of Conch Republic Independence Day events are going to kick in, so brace yourselves.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter (and Passover) folks

Or as they celebrate it in Florida:

Photo: Andy Newman

The Reach (Waldorf)

**A few things you might not have known about this day.

Taking The Bad with The Good

Can you tell it got chilly again? Sun! Follow the Sun!

It's warming up though just in time for everyone to do their Easter rituals.

I just had a nice surprise when I was doing my occasional scan for things said about A Sail of Two Idiots (it was illegally being downloaded for a bit) and adding the fun stuff to my Chit Chat page. I just discovered Walmart is carrying it. How about that? Rather unexpected.

The book's been out for a year now and I'm happy with my Amazon rating, but, of course, not everyone is a fan (nobody and nobody's book is perfect). I try to avoid the worst reviews - they don't usually provide constructive criticism - but I couldn't help it when this one jumped out at me:

Blue Angels and Thunder

This weekend turned out to have the best weather. It's a good thing we got out and enjoyed it (the moped rides were perfect) because we had thunder and lightning this morning (it eventually started pouring causing Michael to go into work 2 hours late, but it was short-lived and brought in cooler air).

Saturday entailed chores and some shopping, but Sunday we decided to see if we could get closer to the action going on at the Boca Chica airfield. We knew we couldn't get to the base itself, thanks to the only 55mph zone in the entire Keys located just outside Key West (something our mopeds don't do), so we took up the Key West Harbour Yacht Club's offer to hang out on their beach - normally member's only. It was a small beach, but had a great breeze and a good view of Boca Chica Key across the way. We couldn't see things like