20 February 2011

Catch the Moment: A Slice of Paradise

Today's Blog is a technotest.  For years I have been struggling to find a way to include a picture in these blogs.  I think I may have accomplished that feat once some years back, but have never been able to reproduce the experiment-- the technology has always escaped me.  Inserting photographs into a blog is "simple", says Google.  But I have consistently found that modifier to be an adjective, not an adverb, i.e, it described me, not the employment of the software.

Nevertheless, seeing how it is a rainy day, I am willing to devote some hours to the project.  Here is the product.

What you see below is a photo I took from my deck yesterday.  It was just after one of those every-hour-on-the-hour rain squalls that drives full-timers like me off the beach. (The tourists here for but a week or so tough it out, unwilling to give an inch.  So they wait until they are soaked through, the wind makes the sand stick to their wet bodies, they begin to snap at each other about whose idea this was, and THEN they give up.  Of course the sun shines brilliantly at some point during their ride back to the villa. (Part of the island charm.)

The accident in the following picture was a major event here. Fifty year old worn-smooth concrete roads are as slick as ice when wet. A car not seen here came skating down the steep hill on the left and drove that other guy onto the porch.  I cannot conjure the angles, but the event  brought out the Gendarmes, the Fire Department sand crew, and the Fire Department Ambulance.  No, nobody was injured, but the Fire Department guys are always looking for something to do, so it doesn't take much to persuade em to roll.

For me, the best part of the picture is the people to the right of the automobile with which they share the porch.  Those bakery customers reveal what this island is all about:   They are relaxing over their espressos as if the car that came up through the railing to join them was an unexpected floor show, and they are enjoying every moment.

Actually, so was I, until I realized that the insect bite that made me swat my forearm came from a tiny ant, and he was but one of the column marching up and down the palm tree against which I was leaning.  Moreover it quickly became apparent that the deceased was not a lone scout, but a member of a squad, perhaps a company, (clearly not a regiment, I deplore exaggeration) that mistook me for a branch of the tree trunk--or not.  In any event, I had become part of a deviation in the line of march.

   Easy cure. Do ants swim?  I dunno, but I made it their problem not mine:  I was in the pool in a flash.  (Hey, this is Paradise. I am always in my bathing suit, except when I am not.)

All of the above, I suggest, captures the essence of this place.  Almost exactly like New York City, y'think?

A bientot!