As promised, more pics

Here are a few more pics from Key West. My tastes in what qualifies as interesting are a little wacky. So forgive me if these aren't very exciting.

First, here's a rooster wandering around the garden of the Hemingway house. Very weird thing. You'd have thought you were in farm country. There were roosters and hens and little chicks strollin' around everywhere. And either these things are really smart or they're considered sacred in KW, 'cause I didn't see one bit of chicken road kill.


Here's another six-toed cat at Hemingway house. Those of you who need creative writing inspiration feel free to share in the mojo.


Here's a shot that isn't from KW, but rather from a park next to my house. Can't figure out why it's in here, other than maybe I hadn't deleted from my camera card and accidentally added it to my upload list. Oh well, the birds are cool.


The next two pics are from a ghost tour we took the other night. The first is an old church-turned-theater-turned-nightclub-turned abandoned building we saw on a ghost tour the other night. I have to tell you that while I believe in weird crap that can't be explained with terrestrial logic or conventional wisdom, I've never been fully sold on the ghost thing. This tour did not help my skepticism. I expected to see some shadows walking around, and spooky howling, and bloody-eyed little girls wearing dresses from the 1800s, whispering "Redrum! Redrum!" Nope. The scariest things we encountered were a trash can on the sidewalk that smelled like death itself, or like Sheryl Crow's wiping hand, and the stove pipe hat our tour guide wore. And BTW, that whole "orb" thing? Lights and reflections bouncing off of walls and what not. You want to convince me there are ghosts out there kickin' it, have one walk up to me and levitate my furniture.



Here's the lighthouse across the street from the Hemingway house. According to a tour guide, Hemingway's friends used to tease him that he bought the house, because it was across the street from the lighthouse, whose spot light was always on, so after a night of drinking he'd always be able to find his way home.


Me lounging on the balcony of our hotel. We lucked out. There were two balconies - one facing the gulf, and one facing the Atlantic. For some strange reason all our time was spent on the gulf balcony. Something about the Atlantic balcony that wasn't as appealing.


I can't explain the grimace. Maybe I was being bitten by a skeeter at the moment Mrs. B snapped this shot or something. I can't remember. But I'm trying to commune on a psychic level with yet another six-toed cat. Hey, as the kids say, I'm trying to get my write on!


Last Hemingway reference, then we'll let him rest in peace for a while. Simple shot of the front of his house. Can you tell I spent a good bit of time here, soaking up the ambiance?


Another pic not from KW that slipped past me. This is some kind of lizard on a tree in my front yard.

From the RV park on the Burnettiquette World Tour

What's goin' on, folks? Kidding, I'm not really at an RV park. Not that there's anything wrong with 'em.

Sorry, I don't have any pearls of wisdom to share tonight. I'm still recovering from car lag, suffered during my temporary escape from Miami a couple of days ago.

I'm just chillaxin' right now in beautiful central North Carolina, along with Burnettiquette Wife and Burnettiquette Dog and Burnettiquette Mom.

Here's an inexplicably fuzzy image of Burnettiquette Dog and me during a stroll this afternoon.




A few quick hits:

• Deep-fried Couey, comin' right up - Justice will apparently be served in the Jessica Lunsford murder case.
• I smell a conspiracy - Why can't Sanjaya Malakar, the kid with the flowing locks and trickling voice, be voted off of American Idol? If it was a contest to star in a Paul Mitchell commercial, he'd win hands down. But a singing contest? Tsk, tsk.
• I saw the funniest thing driving up here the other day - a sign, when I pulled over for fuel, pointing to Astronaut High School, in Titusville, Fla. I don't know why it cracked me up, but I immediately thought of a training ground for diaper wearers and that terrible Disney flick Sky High. How do I know it's terrible? 'Cause I watched it on cable during a night of intense boredom a few months ago.
• Haven't seen any wannabe Slim Shadies here in NC so far. I know they're around. But thank you Jebus, I haven't bumped into 'em.
• A preview - coming up next week, an interview w/ actor-comedian-director Nick Cannon in my regular Monday Q&A column, and a profile in Tuesday's paper of a very unique cardiologist. I'll provide links.
• Officer Friendly is a real person - Remember in elementary school, the local police department would send a patrol officer by your classroom once a year to talk about his job? I remember - back before guns in school were used by angry children to shoot cool kids, bullies, and teachers - that Ofcr. Friendly would fire a blank round from his service weapon at the ceiling. Seriously. Did they do that in anyone else's school? Anyway, one of my constant gripes is that people don't complain about in-your-face bad behavior in their neighborhoods for two reasons: they're too timid or intimidated by the perpetrators, or they don't believe calling the police will do any good. So before I left town for NC I heard and observed a disturbance (bordering on fist fight) in the street, so I called 911. In theory, the operator asked me all the right questions, but I felt like she was rude and dismissive. Ultimately, no police officer ever showed up to try to calm the situation. My instinct told me to suck it up and deal with it 'cause my call to 911 probably wasn't that important anyway. Fortunately, however, righteous indignation got the better of me. And I fired off an email to a command-level officer at my local PD, 'cause something didn't feel right about the fact that no cop ever showed up. To my pleasant surprise he took my complaint seriously, and actually forwarded it to the commander of the PD's communications division, who opened an investigation. He found the tape of my 911 call, and what do you know? Not only was my complaint legit - not that I ever had any doubts - but it turns out the 911 operator never actually sent my complaint to dispatchers. She basically listened to me...or not, hung up the phone and moved on, without actually filing a report on the incident I observed. So no officer was ever given word to check on the fight. Tsk tsk. That operator's lucky no one was hurt...that we know of. The domino effect has been the operator is being investigated, the people involved in the fight are being scrutinized by police. So if they fart too loudly it's gonna draw attention. And their landlord is being put in check for harboring rowdy tenants. So while I hate whiners who whine for the sake of hearing themselves, I strongly encourage you to speak up if you see stupidity or criminal behavior or some combination of both. And if the people who should care don't appear to, put them in check too. Again, as long as we let people slide for bad behavior or shirk their good-behavior responsibilities, the numbnuts win.

OK, I'm done. I'm gonna suck some fresh mountainish air and get some sleep. I'll post again tomorrow and, I swear, start catching up on my visits to your blogs.

Peace and hair grease till tomorrow.

The worse part about being called out

Greetings from Burnettiquette World Headquarters, right next door to the Legion of Doom, in Sunny - today, anyway - Miamish, FL.

I apologize again for being absent the past few days. I've been trying to be a good host to my family-through-marriage.

So their visit has been nice so far. It's been chilly down here. I know, I know. We'll get no sympathy from those of you who live north of the Mason-Dixon Line. But seriously, when you're accustomed to it being 75 - 80 degrees every day, and then it drops down to the low 60s or low 50s even (high 30s/low 40s at night) then it feels like it's 10 below.

There was one hitch though. When my mom-in-law was just getting settled to the vacation house they rented at the beach, she got a call from the property manager telling her that there was a problem. The contract my mom-in-law and brother-in-law had signed was dated for last week. However, the tons of emails they'd exchanged with the property manager said they wanted the house for this week. She agreed. They signed the contract and faxed it back. The deal was done.

So here they find themselves late Saturday afternoon being told another family would be showing up any time and they had to vacate the property right away or else.

The property manager even sent two sheriff's deputies to the house to emphasize that she wanted my fam-in-law out of there.

So you have a house full of seven adults and a couple of tired babies with nowhere to go. They could've all come and stayed at Burnettiquette World Headquarters. But it would've been like a refugee camp.

Now, here's the rub: Everybody erred. You always read the fine print on a contract before you sign it - even if the details have been verbally agreed upon. We all know that. No one needs reminding. It's like saying "I told you so." Who wants to hear it? By the time it becomes relevant, who actually needs to hear it? But my brother-in-law called the property manager last week and asked if everything was OK for this week. She said yes. Saturday afternoon she explained that away by saying she was in her car when he called and didn't think to confirm it later by actually looking up the contract.

But instead of giving a "soft answer," as per the Biblical reference, or expressing some empathy, she immediately told my mother-in-law that it wasn't her problem, she wanted everyone out right away, and good luck, 'cause she had no help or advice to offer.

She kept saying over and over and over that never mind what she agreed to in the emails, she had a signed contract in her hand and couldn't care less where they went or how they got there, as long as they got out of her house.

And so everyone blew up.

So here's the deal: If you have to tell someone they were wrong, don't be snarky about it. If you have to break some bad news to them don't be flippant about it. I shouldn't say this, but I suppose an "acceptable" exception would be when you're responding in kind to a jerk.

Several hours later, when things had calmed down, and we had shared a few laughs with the sheriff's deputies the property manager sent out, and we had found a new vacation home for my fam-in-law to rent, my mom-in-law and brother-in-law said the situation would have been easier to handle if the manager had been nicer about it.

Maybe if she'd said "I'm sorry, you did sign the contract for last week. So my hands are tied as far as this property goes. But based on all our correspondence, I could've read it over and called you to verify those dates. So I wasn't as thorough as I should've been either. But what's done is done. Let's both work the phones, and we'll find something comparable for you, also near the beach and make the rest of your vacation as smooth as possible. I'm sorry all around that things worked out this way."

Instead she was mean and condescending about it.

I ain't preaching folks, but it is true: A soft answer really does turn away wrath.

Gotta run. I think I'm doing something touristy this afternoon.