The Holidays

Despite our sadness over losing Puss, our wonderful 23 year old boat kitty, we had a great holiday spent with old and new friends. Christmas Eve we had a dock party on Coconuts, an old converted tug owned by Lois and Terry which is docked right next to Gypsies. It was a great evening of meeting the rest of our dockmates, laughter, fun and really good food. We have a great group here at the Key West Harbor Yacht Club for the winter so I'm sure there will be lots more fun in our futures!

The Early Stages of the Party

As the Rest of the Folks on the Dock Started Arriving

We left the festivities a little early so we could head in to the Sunset Pier in Key West to hear our friends Scott and Dave perform the opening of what is going to be a long winter gig for them there - they were wonderful as always!! It's a great venue for them to play and I'm sure we'll have our own bar stools before long (we already were getting free beers from the bartender since we obviously knew the band - did I mention I love this place!)

Scott Kirby and Dave Edmisten

Doug, Jill and Brett at Scott and Dave's Gig

There's actually a very funny phenomenon in KW called the local discount which is at the bartenders/servers discretion - if you get to know them (and you don't piss them off), they give you a local discount on food and beverages (this will come in handy I'm sure)!! What they think is fair to charge the tourists is not what they want the locals to be paying - works for me especially now that we are locals! Needless to say we are already on the receiving end of such discount at several of our favorite bars!!! (but then again, come to think about it, we used to get the locals discount back when we were hanging out in KW several times a year - I guess it's just a function of your attitude and how you dress/act or don't.....)

We had a great Christmas with our friends Brett and Jill on Gypsies with way too much food and wine - I take that back, there can never be too much good wine (thanks Brett - we haven't had such good wine and champagne in a long time!!)

I Can't Believe We Ate It All

Gypsies was all decked out in her holiday finery complete with lots of stuffed holiday mooses and a moose nativity scene (we are from Maine after all!)

Moose Nativity Scene

Bootsie loved her snacks of real turkey (not the deli stuff which is OK in a pinch but not nearly as good...) and was seen to be contentedly sleeping off her turkey coma on the love seat in the salon

Bootsie in Her Turkey Coma

Puss Sleeping After Christmas Dinner

while the rest of us watched Xmas day basketball (both the Celtics and the Cavaliers won - Brett and Jill are from Ohio so are fans of our rivals...oh well) with champagne glasses in hand!!! Wonderful homemade cream tarts by a local baker the Muircu crew knows was an amazing way to top off the day! We even had a visit from Santa

Santa Visits Key West Harbor Yacht Club

and a green heron (Stephanie will tell me if I'm wrong since I really don't know the names of birds or trees too well but everyone on the dock thought that's what this guy was!)

Green Heron

After spending several days on Gypsies with Puss (we wanted her last days to be as comfortable and fear-free as possible so she sat in our laps while we watched football and movies), we finally emerged yesterday in need of some fun. We still have our rental scooters so off to downtown we headed with the destination of Irish Kevin's in mind - we wanted to see our friend, musician Bil Krauss who is playing there for the winter.

Bil Krauss at Irish Kevin's

We first met Bil in Georgetown, South Carolina last Fourth of July when September Song and Gypsies descended on the local dive bar, Buzz's Roost (actually we had both headed into town thinking we'd meet up later - on the rare occasions we would split up, we'd find each other by looking for the SS crew in the local candy/ice cream store and they'd look for us in the diviest bar in town - these were usually pretty small towns so it wasn't like there were tons of options!!! They won - we were in the dive bar!) Doug had on a Lazy Gecko tee-shirt (another local KW bar) and Bil immediately stopped singing and started talking with us about KW - from there the afternoon took off and we kept in touch. He was just what the doctor ordered as he had us laughing within seconds of our butts hitting the bar stools - thanks Bil! I'm sure we'll see lots of Bil this winter - he plays from 11:00 am-3:00 pm most days at Irish Kevin's and usually has the crowd rocking so if you're in town, go check him out!!!

Irish Kevin's

Today is our last day with our scooters (before we hopefully buy a couple after the new year) so we plan on heading into town again and then maybe walking back to the boat - it's only about 6 miles and we really need to start working off that Xmas dinner and all the turkey sandwiches that came thereafter!! Hope everyone had a great holiday season and our best wishes to everyone for a happy and healthy New Years. While we will miss Puss more than we can say, we now have a furry guardian angel up in heaven watching over us (and knowing us, that can't be a bad thing!)