IKE IS MOVING TOWARD THE WEST NEAR 13 Musings of a Jewish Conch

This is a picture of Great Inagua through the eyes of Hurricane Ike. It's down there somewhere suffering the brunt of a bulls eye hit by a Cat 4 Hurricane.

And, yet we are all worried on where he goes after he hits Great Inagua dead on. Will he hit Gitmo dead on? Key West? Havana? Mobile or New Orleans?

So many questions.. that it reminds me of the old poem "IF"

"IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs..."

So many Ifs...

Is Ike going to be like any of these 3 storms that were in similar areas? Not sure... none of them traveled WSW to get there so not sure.







This is Ike not Donna and not Frederic and not any other storm and this high is the high today not the high from Donna or any other storm. And, there is no strong Cold Front coming down to grab it.. not now anyway, not today and the models don't see any it seems...

And yet I look at the historical tracks and I have to wonder.. all other storms here at this place Ike is at this strength on this day went towards Florida ...



vs models that show a different new path for the Maverick Ike..



Is the strong really as high as the models are reading it?

That is one question here....the big question.

Another question is how much interaction Ike has with Cuba.

If it hits Cuba head on and slows down and moves west across the backbone of Cuba he will weaken, not be a Cat 4.

If he slows down a lot over Cuba from interaction with land (friction) the timing may be real off here and he may come off later rather than sooner.

If there is any weakness in the ridge Ike could feel it and make a break for a more wnw or nw movement into the Eastern Gulf and affect Alabama and NW Florida.

If the high stays strong and he keeps moving west to wnw he could go all the way to Galveston.

Will Ike do Key West? IF history repeats itself he might as Ike did Key West years before already.

http://myfloridahistory.blogspot.com/2007/09/president-eisenhower-over-fort.html

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,866692,00.html?promoid=googlep



All I can think is how much I love Key West and selfishly don't want Ike or any storm to destroy the place that I and my family have loved so much over the years.

God I love the Keys... everyone here knows that, knows how much I love Key West. Wish I was there today watching the Dolphins play at one and watching TWC at the same time watching Ike. Part of me wants to say this storm is going to stay so far south of Key West and they will get nothing more than weak Cat 1 winds. Yes he is a 4 now but he won't be after Cuba... unless... if.. he pulls north of west but..NONE of the models show that.. none of them. They all differ down the line but they all have it going west over Cuba. I have friends down there with homes and possessions that at times almost feel like mine. Two guys in particular that are two of my favorite guys in the whole world short of my guy in North Carolina. Their lives can be turned upside down and destroyed or they will err on the side of caution and fly out and deal with it all after the storm. I wonder if the breakfast club will meet at Lulus for breakfast tomorrow... I bet they will as even if the schools are closed Lulus may be open. Some of the sweetest, most genuine real people I know.

One thing people need to understand about Key West is that everyone there is not 22 and working as a bar tender on Duval Street or on some boat taking people diving or kayaking or hawking tee shirts on Duval Street..though I know a few cool Israelis who own stores on Duval who will miss the cruise ship traffic.

There are real people in Key West. People like Jack who grew up in Key West, his father owned the Red Door Store and Jessie who worked at the Post Office her whole life and rode a horse around town growing up there back in the 30s and 40s. Charlie Lowe who is a doll whose family is the Lowe family from Key West who has the sweetest smile and Mary whose great grandfather was Dr. Porter who grew up in house across the street from where they built the Casa Marina and who never evacuated for any storm ever and says she never will. Her family's big green house is on Duval Street where people post for pictures and her son runs the chamber of commerce and plants cocoanuts better than anyone else I know. His house is down the block from Tom's where I have spent the last few years catching my breath, lying in a pool of water, staring up at palm trees and the clouds passing by over my head trying to revive myself enough to go back to the hustle and bustle of Miami. Going to Temple with Sid and thinking how I was at the Temple my great grandparents started way back when.

I am what you call a Jewish Conch.. which is sort of odd to say as Conch is not kosher and yet I am and so was my great-great grandmother who ate fish and vegetables and they had kosher meat twice a month when they brought a kosher shochet down from Jacksonville to schect kosher meat for Passover and Rosh Hashonnah. When someone had a boy they brought a mohel in from Havana to do the bris.. Jewish Life in Key West in the 1880s, 1890s...

Understand..these are real people who grew up on the rock, went to Key West High or the Catholic School run by the nuns.... as my grandma Mary would say... my great uncles all went there because it gave the best education. They prayed at St. Marys or at Temple Bnai Zion once known as Rodeph Shalom. It's not just a place where people drift in and drift out and party on Duval Street.

They have lives and are not all rich and famous and they are worried the track could shift just an iota north and then Key West would be closer to the cone.

Yes..I know you live in Tampa and are worried. I know you live in Gulfport. I know you have a sister in Houston. I know.. I know..

We all have our priorities... I have friends with families still stuck in the 1950s in Cuba in towns that have not been rebuilt after Charlie four years ago even though Castro PROMISED who often don't have meds when they are sick and eat rice and beans when they are lucky who will suffer the brunt of Ike.

I may be a Miami girl.. from a Jewish Conch family but that makes me one part Cuban as we grew up on cafecito with our eggs and grits and toasted bagels. And, my mother and my grandmother all spoke Spanish and knew how to dance every Spanish dance there is... or was...

So... going off..going to mentally light a candle at St. Marys Hurricane Grotto. I love St. Marys. I love the poincianas. Some of those nuns who helped build the grotto nursed my great grandmother back to health after she almost died back in the late 1890s and so I owe those sisters my life ... if they had not offered her shelter and healed her lovingly from what I understand as she became close friends with many of them even though she was an orthodox Jewish woman of a different religion ....well I might not be here posting today so here's to the sisters at St. Marys back in the 1890s and thanks to my great grandma Ida and here's to my Grandma Mary who was always afraid of those Cape Verde Storms that came up and over the islands. Grandma could tell if a storm was coming, she was awesome.. wish she was here now.

Going to watch the Dolphins play and play on www.flhurricane.com and eat popcorn my son Zalmy is making and watch Ike move west and hoping for a miracle so that Ike doesn't kill too many people in Cuba and ports west or northwest..

Oh.....lord... oh Lordie Lordie as Gramma Mary used to say.. my mother just arrived. She wants to talk about Ike... where she will stay if Ike comes this way... in the middle of kick off.. in the middle of me playing online... in the middle of life Hurricane Chana aka Annette has arrived and wants to talk..... you should see my face.

I am going to get her off the subject of the storm.. we are going to talk about Sarah Palin, we are going to talk about UF Gators and Uncle Oscar who went there and Daddy who went to UM and my my doesn't she look good for her age. Yes, it's working..she's telling me about Shuky and the baby and the Bar Mitzvah while I type and smile :)



Trust me this frail looking well put together woman in her 80s who looks 20 years younger is the REAL Category 3 Major Hurricane.

Hurricane Annette... yes.. I did put my mother's picture online ;) lol
(Jay in Greece just coughed up his coffee laced with Bailey's all over his Dolphin shirt trust me on this one lol)


more later..

Kick off... Dolphins On...

Text from an article on the Breakfast Club in Key West now eating at Lulu's Kiss on Flagler.

" YEAR AGO, Dennis Pharmacy—a quintessential island establishment that had been around for 44 years—closed, leaving many Key Westers wondering where to go next for their daily cheeseburger fixes and small-town atmosphere. (For the full story on Dennis’ closing, see Key West Magazine’s October issue.)

Not 10 months after the pharmacy closed, The Deli—a similar landmark— closed after 57 years in business. It had been the longest-running family restaurant in town. Here, behind its iconic seahorse doors, Deli patrons gathered for conversation and comfort food—cheesy eggs any time of day or for an early dinner, a beef pot roast so tender you could cut it with a fork.

One group of diners in particular—the self-proclaimed “breakfast bunch”—worries where they’ll go next. Jack and Rose Einhorn, Jessie Watkins, Chippy Fernandez and Lenny Salazar naturally made The Deli their hangout after Dennis closed last July.

On a Friday morning a few weeks before The Deli is set to close, the breakfast bunch gathers for its usual routine: coffee, eggs, newspapers and gossip. Chippy and Jack are in their usual debate over the Yankees and the Soxs, Jessie is greeting every regular who walks through the door with a kiss on the cheek, Lenny is showing off photos he’s taken of the group at Rose and Jack’s 59th anniversary celebration held there the day before, and Rose is quietly enjoying her grits. But there’s not so much as a word spoken about where they’ll be in two weeks.

Jack, Rose and the others are still uncertain about that, and when pressed, they toss out a few potential replacements—the old Seven Days restaurant over on Kennedy, the Cracked Egg Café on Summerland, even Wendy’s. But it’s hard to find a hangout that’ll meet their needs: parking, indoor seating, affordability, but above all, “we need a place that’ll let us take over, where we can make a lot of noise,” Jack smiles.

“We’re coming to the end of that era of the small, local restaurants catering to the neighborhood crowd,” Lenny later reflects. But, Chippy, always the jokester, will tell you another story. He blames Lenny: “Lenny started working at the Coca-Cola Company, and now, they’re no longer here; he worked for Monroe Ford, they’re going out of business; he started hanging out at Dennis, they went out of business; he came here, they’re going out of business. If he comes [to the next place], they won’t want us there!”

Whatever the reason, The Deli will be sorely missed. “The waitresses and the Bernreuter family [the owners] . . . they’re good people,” Jessie says. “Good Key West people.”

Real people.. beautiful people... on an island in the stream


Links to watch while I watch the Dolphins and talk to my mother and keep her mind off of Ike. Oh...just realized Ike was the ONLY Republican she ever voted for.. before McCain ;) LOL... yes, I put her online... now you all see what Mother looks like :)

Go Fins... Be back later...

http://www.bnaizionkw.org/history.htm

http://hadar.cira.colostate.edu/ramsdis/online/trop_ge_wv_ls_0.html

for info on closings and govt info on the Florida Keys
http://www.monroecounty-fl.gov/Pages/MonroeCoFL_EmerNews/020FD91D-000F8513

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/flt/t4/sloop-avn.html

http://www.kwmag.com/2007July/talkofthekeys2.html

http://www.keysnet.com/

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/key/ghls/index.php

good local blog:
http://conchscooter.blogspot.com/

Lulu's Kiss
http://conchscooter.blogspot.com/2008/08/post-fay.html

http://www.allmenus.com/menus/58844/Lulu%27s-Kiss/ (good coffee)