So it’s a new year now and it’s hard to celebrate because of the tragedy in South Asian tsunami. Makes you grateful to be alive and feel lucky to even have internet, music, food, shelter.
Jasmine has been here for a while and we have been, well, raising hell! Her close pal (since the second grade, Rachel Libeskind, has been with us most of the time). I will explain the pictures for you one by one:
^ Jasmine on phone (hard to get her to pose and she HATES being on the phone by the way). ^ Rachel and Jasmine in the airport en route to Key West FLA
note: Jasmine has on my OLD “Mick Jagger live in Australia” sweat shirt I got from Alan Dunn a zillion years ago. She wears it constantly 🙂
Fort Zachary Beach in Key West >
Us gals on the beach on Christmas morning (while you froze) ^ Me in disturbing pose that reminds one of BIG FOOT sighting
^ Me, Jasmine and Rachel in water ^ Jasmine working on her sunburn Christmas Day
^ This bird glided above us the whole time ^ A Gecko and Rooster hang out at Dunkin’ Doughnuts (HELLO! The New Zoo Review?)
^ Duval street is THE place to party at night in Key West
^ Jasmine and Rachel on Duval (I had to act as body gaurd, the men were too friendly) and Jasmine and Rachel after a huge bitch-fest in Taco Bell
It stayed light until around 6:30 pm every night. ^ View from our hotel parking lot
^ Jasmine braiding Rachel’s hair while we wait outside the airport in Key West for the Bomb Squad (there was unattended baggage and ALL passengers had to evacuate the building and wait for more than an hour out side which delayed everyone’s flight. It took us 9 and a half hours to get home)
I am convinced escaping the clutches of any demanding relatives at Christmas time is the best idea, and why not bake in the sun while they shop till they drop in below zero temps? I have never been to Key West before, and didn’t know what to expect. It is NOT like the meat market South Beach, no thong parades at all. Everyone is relaxed and dresses for comfort, not a Maxim photo-shoot. I absolutely LOVED it that every restaraunt and store we went to had classic rock playing in the back ground. We ate pan cakes to Eric Clapton, Bowie and Led Zeppelin every morning in the hotel restaurant!
Every time we got into our rent a car, they was Pink Floyd or Jimi Hendrix playing, and not just on one channel, it’s on every radio station, it is paradise! We went roller blading one evening and ran into a group of roaming hippies/dead heads. They had two dogs and one was starving. They live on the road and move their campers only when the cops come and tell them to. I drove to a shop and bought a huge bag of dog food and some cans and a 12 pack of beer, and went back and fed the dogs and donated the beer to the hippies. They were happy campers.
One strange thing about Key West is that almost every hotel and restaurant is operated by Russians, and I mean, fresh from Russia. We had trouble understanding their heavy accents even in Denny’s. They obviously like it there in Key West. Everyone told me it was predominately gay there, but I didn’t see that many gays, only two transvestite Santa’s on Christmas eve on Duvall street.
Oh, and of course I found a karaoke bar/restaurant. Just as I started to whine that I hadn’t seen any, bam, I walked right into one. This place is called Two Friends Patio Restaurant and they have karaoke every night at 8pm. The DJ looks exhausted and you can tell he is bored and hates his job, but the sound was awesome. I wanted to wake up the over 50 crowd, so I belted out ‘Heart Breaker/Livin’ Lovin’ Maid’ and a crowd gathered lol! Jasmine and Rachel said they could hear me all the way in CVS (most places there don’t have windows as it’s always warm). They weren’t really carding down there so us gals slid into this bar (Duval street is wicked long and is packed with bars that ALL have live music every night) and this one particular bar had a guy playing guitar perfectly. I asked him if he would mind me joining him for a song and he said ok, I got on stage and sang Bobby McGhee while he played. It went over very well and he said he felt like Janis was next to him during the song. The girls watched and swooned.
As you can see from the photos, the girls are growing up fast and I had to keep a close eye on them as guys were swarming around us way too often! But locals told us it is extremely safe on the island and not to worry as there is NO crime at all there. There is a military camp on the island, but I didn’t see it and didn’t see any military guys running around. We did feel safe there actually. We let down our guard after the 2nd day and just relaxed. It did rain a bit so we went to the movies and saw Meet the Fockers which was wicked funny!!!! Barbara Streisand is amazing in this film! She is so charming.
The girls and I came back to NYC a few days ago and since then they have been running me ragged, they want to go out every night (Rachel sings too) to karaoke and so I am exhausted and need a vacation again lol. I get my revenge though by bringing them out to exercise every late afternoon, be it jogging on a track, up and down stairs, a tread mill, step machine and the dreaded push ups/sit ups I make them do. I was hoping this would drain them of some energy and make them sleep earlier, but it doesn’t help much.
I have been procrastinating lately doing the blog and I also have to do a huge task now for my book agent. I have to take like 100 of my star photos and write a tiny story about the photo for our up coming book. It is a bit bad luck to give too much info about it in advance, but it will be the bomb and you will be the first to know when it comes out.
Dot