Meanwhile, back in Florida

I'm still processing piles of pixels and am learning to be brutal about discarding the junk. I got a new-to-me computer and to keep from overloading the hard drive I'm learning to take a hard look at the hundreds and hundreds of shots on the camera's memory card. I used to keep almost everything and have previously filled up a one-terabyte external drive with photos that I thought one day software would be invented for, software that would transform the garbage into Pulitzer material. I'll go out on a limb here and say nobody, nowhere, will invent any miracle that will save some of the true trash I have in storage. I've even started back on my Flickr pages, deleting the embarrassing stuff. I think to myself, I posted that?! and put a figurative bag over my head. But even though I'm getting better at discarding, I still have to go through every shot and make a judgment on each and every one, and there's always a little wishing and hoping in the background.

I easily had twice as many shots of the two Key West venues I'm showing today, and that's a reason I'm so far behind. I was there a month ago and haven't finished other Key West photos, nor all of them from just about anyplace else. But these two are done.

First is Hemingway's house. I admit to never being a fan but since I was there and it's on the National Register of Historic Places, why not go?

In the past few months I've toured this house, Roosevelt's Little White House in Georgia, and Truman's Little White House in Key West, as well as antebellum homes in Georgia in a variety of styles, and I never know what to expect. People with a lot of money live very well, and people with a lot of money live very simply. The living room, below, was the fanciest room in the house and it's not really all that fancy for a guy with a lot of money and large appetites.

There was too much light coming in the dining room to get a good photo, except for the chandelier, which is pretty in a 1920s kind of way.

The kitchen was also simple but I wonder how much cooking he did. I loved the tile.

One of the tiles. It reminds me of Pewabic Pottery work, in Detroit, but I don't know where this came from.

More pretty tile.

The big windows on the second floor and the cool tile were inviting. I could have a bathroom like this.

Imagine having to chain off the bed. They wouldn't do it if someone hadn't made himself at home.

The view from one of the verandas. Nice.

Out back is a real, genuine cat house. Not being a fan, I wasn't aware of the famous Hemingway cats, except for hearing about the polydactyl population. I just read there are 50-60 of them on the property! My first cat was a polydactyl Siamese and I had no idea it's unusual. Her kittens were also multi-toed. The cats here appear to be well taken care of,

even as far as memorializing them. I wonder how some of them rated names like Marilyn Monroe and some got stuck with Bubba?

Here's the star of the place. Love those toes!

A second set of Key West photos is from a Catholic church. I have a lot of good ones from an Episcopal church that will be done soon; it's much more ornate than the Basilica of St. Mary, Star of the Sea. The Episcopal church has stunning stained glass windows, but the Catholic church has louvered shutters that make it al fresco. It's a tossup which one I like more.

 Don't you love all the natural light flooding in?

 And here too?

 This is the only stained glass window in the place.

 The inviting look from the outside; the cool interior beckoning.

More KW and lots of other places soon, but I'm back in the saddle again at Petrified Forest. Depressingly, no little records management fairies appeared while I was gone to finish off the old work I left undone. It is, of course, what I expected to be the boring stuff, but one box I opened yesterday was half full of financial records from the early 1990s. Lucky for me, there's no records retention schedule in the world that makes you keep them that long. They'll be an easy pitch into the recycle bin.

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Thought of the day:

There is, incidentallly, no way of talking about cats that enables one to come off as a sane person. (Dan Greeenberg)