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A Catalude at the Hemingway House in Key West
Polydactyl Rudolph Valentino at Hemingway House on Elizabeth Weintraub’s lap
Read carefully: tops, bottoms and shoes required for entrance. You don’t see a sign like that every day posted at a business, much less at a museum but hey, this is Key West. After spring break last year, the Hemingway House staff found it necessary to post such a notice at its ticketing desk. This house is such an attraction in Key West that tourists lined up down the street to get inside. Most of them were probably there solely to pet the 6-toed cats and couldn’t give a hoot about Hemingway or recall anything he wrote, if they even read his novels in the first place.
Hemingway House in Key West
They hold weddings at the Hemingway House. It doesn’t seem like a romantic way to start a future together, getting married at the home of a philanderer, much less a guy who had 4 wives and thought nothing of shooting enormous animals through the eyes and then mounting them on his wall, but what the heck. I guess we all romanticize history in our own ways.
Much of the home remains in its original condition, high ceilings, crown molding, hardwood and tiled floors. The first floor is laid out in kind of an odd manner in a circle, with its tiny kitchen and smallish bath at the back of the home. Each room contains some item pertaining to Hemingway such as artifacts, framed photographs, personal letters, war medals and books. The grand staircase leading to the second floor is surprisingly narrow, maybe 24-inches-wide at best. There is another building out back, and up those stairs to a large room is where the magic happened: Hemingway’s writing. A cat now nestles in his inbox. Many descendants of his cats remain on the property.
Black cats at Hemingway House
What I can humbly admit was the highlight of my visit and quite possibly one of the nicest things that has ever happened to me is when Rudolph Valentino, one of the polydactyl cats, jumped without an invitation into my lap. Many of the other cats in the household — about 45 are in residence — were ornery and grumpy, as you would be if somebody kept poking you and shoving a camera into your face 8 hours a day.
Rudoplph sat in my lap quietly, purring, inviting me to pet him, so I did what he wanted. Then, he stood up on my lap and began kneading my knees, extending and contracting his giant claws, which resulted in shredding my t-shirt. Still, I sat there and let him do it. This is what cats do to you.
Other tourists came by. I warned one little Asian girl who reached out to pet Rudolph that he bites. Another tourist stooped down to take my picture with her cellphone, yeah, right, my eyes flashed and I held out my hand to demand: Five bucks, please. Rudolph insisted I return both hands to petting him as one hand was no longer sufficient.
If you are wondering if the penny is indeed embedded by a post near the 65-foot pool, it is indeed.
Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub and Adam Weintraub
The Morning of New Year’s Eve in Key West
Key West Hotel Pool on Oceanfront
Not surprisingly, Key West guidebooks don’t tell you that if you stay at an oceanfront resort near Mallory Square, you might very well wake up to a docked honkin’ huge cruise ship blocking your view of sunrises until evening sunsets. It’s not like these floating cities are indiscreet or small, they take up the space of 3 city blocks. Yet, the party goes on and on, just like Peter Gabriel’s ghost likes to travel. It’s a good time to celebrate New Year’s Eve in Key West.
White pelicans look so intelligent
This New Year’s Eve morning in Key West, the cruise ship is gone. Herring gulls are screeching, flying back and forth near our balconies; and I can only imagine that this behavior is due to some hotel guests either deliberately feeding them or thoughtlessly leaving food scraps where the birds can reach. It’s like gulls are yelling: get up, it’s 8:00 a.m.; where’s my bagel? The sounds of birds certainly beats that persnickety baby whining down below, and I’m so relieved his parents had the good sense to pick up their bottles of beer and chocolate doughnuts and wheel the kid off the pier.
Key West Pier Early Afternoon
If that doesn’t wake you up, Room Service will. We could leave a note on the door-hanger order that asks the deliverer to quietly open the door, deposit the cart and leave, like I have done on other occasions. There is no reason I need to meet face-to-face with a food-service cart pusher when my hair looks like it got caught in a blender on the way to the door, with one arm in my robe and the other sleeve over my leg dragging the tie.
Bougainvillea in hotel lobby at Key West
After one is up and retreats to her balcony to place laptop in lap because the table is too low to type, unless one wants to plant fat butt on hard cold ceramic floor, there is no going back to sleep. The hotel guys are busy pushing out all of the carts, grills, tables, folding chairs, cut-out palm tree stands and other important decorative accessories to the pier, clanging, jangling. Tonight, all of Key West will descend on this place to watch the Key Lime Ball drop and celebrate New Year’s Eve in Key West. Our bellman — who told us “we do not judge in Key West,” yet some fool pushed our tutu-wearing bellman off his bike and gave him a gash on his forehead — will be there, no doubt.
Pink Floyd Singer in Mallory Square
Elbow-to-elbow bodies, spilling drinks on each other, shrieking, hollering, dancing, bumping and grinding, singing at the top of their merry little COPD lungs and having a helluva good time, which they will not remember the following morning. I wish I could show you a photo of the Key Lime Ball drop, as I am in a good position to do so. But that would require staying up until midnight to enjoy a proper New Year’s Eve in Key West, and that just ain’t gonna happen.
Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub and Adam Weintraub
Buying Homes on Christmas
Gulf Bay at Islamorada Resort Casa Morada
One would think that the real estate business, especially in Sacramento, would be pretty slow over the day before Christmas and on Christmas itself but I still had showings on my listings. I guess I could see this if parents were in town visiting and had but one chance to look at homes with their kids; however, if the main objective was to shop and not buy, like for shoes at Macy’s, that could be done online.
Let me depart for a moment and say how unhappy I am with the quality of merchandise at Macy’s in the downtown Sacramento mall. Its inventory has been downgraded. Gone are many brand names and with it the expensive price tags, which I suppose is a result of supply and demand: Macy’s supplies and then buyers purchase those items online. I propose that shoppers would buy directly from Macy’s if a shopper could ever locate a clerk. You’re lucky to find one clerk per cash register, and that’s if you can find the cash register, which is probably buried under returned items dumped on the counter.
You might think I am just a grumpy old person who goes around complaining about everything and nothing makes her happy, but you would be confusing me with a tourist who had spent time in Miami. Who can be grumpy with the above view from her deck in Islamorada? OK, maybe a person who didn’t get any coffee.
I stumbled into the breakfast room, which is right around the corner from our deck that overlooks this lovely view. Pretty convenient. Scooted past bent-over-guy who was trying to read the headlines of the New York Times without actually touching the newspaper because there could be lizards tucked away inside, I guess; I have been warned to be careful what I pick up around here and I imagine he’s heard the same thing.
Fumbled on the counter for a coffee cup. Picked up the coffee pot and dumped it upside down, shaking out every last precious drop into the paper coffee cup. Grabbed another pot and repeated episode. If my husband’s eyes were not open, this would not have been a problem, but we needed 2 cups of coffee and not just one. I called room service. I don’t think they can identify you at this small resort upon answering the phone, but I was still polite, even though the opportunity afforded me the chance to snarl. I did not snarl, just for the record.
I simply said there was no coffee in the breakfast room. Anticipating that I would be asked if I checked all of the coffee pots, I added that all of the coffee vessels were empty. My husband heard that conversation as a person who did not yet have her morning coffee.
This was not a day for me to receive an email from a buyer’s agent demanding that I educate my sellers on sales prices. My sellers are so educated they should be sporting real estate graduation caps. But it’s the day after Christmas, and I didn’t get into it. Serves no purpose. Besides, when you think about it, I am not the agent who was forced to drag buyers from house to house on the day before Christmas.
Photo: Gulf Bay in Islamorada, Florida, from private resort deck, by Elizabeth Weintraub
