What's On My Mind - Slowing Down

Skully here. Sometimes you just gotta get away. Last week was the perfect example. The better half let me know, in less than flattering terms, that WE needed to get away. Skully's not the brightest guy but he knows when to just say, "Okay", so I threw out three options. 1) Las Vegas. 2) Key West. 3) New Orleans. Her comment was something like, "Fine with me. You choose, but I'll be in Key West. So, off to the Southernmost we went. Four days. Great time. No blackberry. No office communication. Skully was one happy pirate. Here's the thing; when you get to the literal end of the road and it's on an island and the island has no electricity (apparently this is not an infrequent occurence), you really don't have much choice but to slow down. And it's this, "slowing down" thing that Skully is sort of liking. See, pirates didn't really do much other than occassionally plunder and wage short battles. Other than that, they pretty much sat around the ship and relaxed with a little maintenance thrown in. Maybe, just maybe there is a lesson in there somewhere if we look deeply enough. We're too busy being too busy. We're not really all that effective. Mostly, we're just busy.

We spend our days busting hump; getting home too tired to really engage with the rest of the family. Then, on our "relaxing" weekend, one parent runs one kid to the soccer game and the other parent takes the other kid to the baseball game somewhere else. Dead tired, mom and pop get home after grabbing fast food; exhausted because there's been no time to recover and restore the batteries. Finally, late Sunday night, the family might and I mean might, sit down to veg out in front of the tv. And then it's time to get up and do it all over again! What is going on? Does Johnny need to be in two sports and three school activities while Jane is being speed shuttled to just as many different activities? What happened to night games of stickball in the street and sledding in the park in the winter? Answer: They've been replaced with "busyness".

Frankly, Skully is fed up with self righteous parents bragging about how many busy things their little brats are involved in. Skully is fed up with 60 hour work weeks plus 20 hour weekend activities! Skully is fed up with getting home at midnight so he can catch a plane at 6:30 the next morning. Bottom line, Skully needed Key West! Here's Skully's Key West days:

Day 1: 8 am wake up and have some coffee. Oops, the breakfast at the hotel doesn't start until 8:30! Day 2, Skully sleeps in til 9. Oh, and don't even think about needing a car. Skully's didn't move from the parking space from arrival until 5 days later for departure. After breakfast, take a nice break. Read a book for a while. Slip on the sandals and head up Duval. Check out the Butterfly Musuem and Nature Conservancy (incredible, even for a pirate). Next stop, Southernmost Market. Take a few pictures. Mosey on up to Hemingway House. Take the tour (one of the few guided tours worth the time). Take some pictures of Papa's place and pet a few of the 49 cats. Interested factoid: Each litter of descendants of the original six toed cat, has about half that are six toed and half that aren't). From there, shuffle on down to the Green Parrot. Note: If Albert Castigia is playing later that night, definately go back! Then hit, in whatever order you feel like, Sloppy Joe's and well, every bar. Skip Captain Tony's. It stinks. No, not like, "this place stinks", more like this place reaks. Come on, somebody scrub that place down! After enough cocktails, you have to hit Mallory Square at sunset. After that, there is only one place to go, and that's to the Schooner Wharf. It's exactly what Key West is all about. No other place comes close. Then head back to Green Parrot for the rest of the night/early morning.

Or, don't do any of it! Just sloooooooowwwwwwwww down. Because even Pirates need a break.