John Teets

Nightly votive in the porch garden.

"In primal Fascism everybody is educated to become a hero, and the ultimate Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death." — Umberto Eco
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December's full moon framed by palm fronds.

A certified selenophile, I took in the last full face of 2025 with quiet wonder. The Moon of the Long Night: Somehow it feels like a fitting metaphor for the entire year.
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Nightly votive in the porch garden.

"For a moment at least, be a smile on someone else’s face." — Dejan Stojanovic
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The bonnet and face of a mahogany tall-case clock made by Simon Willard, Colonial horologist, featuring brass finials and carved wood fretwork surmounted by an eagle and globe.

#tbt: Throwing back to the late 1700s clock we brought with us, very carefully, to Key West. When it stood in our Tennessee hallway, Robert's godmother, an #antiques dealer and collector, always tottered over to it and made a little bow: "Good to see you again, Mr. Willard."

Classic.

Nightly votive in the porch garden.

"The old saying is that figures will not lie, but a new saying is 'liars will figure.' It is our duty to prevent the liar from figuring — from perverting the truth in the interest of some theory he wishes to establish." — Commissioner Carroll D. Wright, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1889
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Clusters of pink blossoms on a Dombeya wallichii, often called a tropical hydrangea. The plant, native to Madagascar, does well in the full tropical sun.

A profusion of pink hydrangeas in a parterre off the veranda of our former place in Tennessee.

We had no luck with hydrangeas here, so we put in some dombeyas as a tropical substitute. They bloom just fine, I guess, and it's not their fault, but mostly they remind me how much I miss hydrangeas.
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A New York Times headline: Trump calls Somalis "garbage" in anti-immigrant tirade.

It'd be great to see a Somali debate Trump on this, but to assure a fair exchange they need to be evenly matched, so if you know a Somali with 34 felony convictions could you call me?

Nightly votive in the porch garden.

"The epoch-making discovery of modern dictatorships is the invention of the loud lie, based on the psychologically correct assumption that people will believe a shout when they doubt speech.” — Joseph Roth (1894-1939)
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Two intense magenta blossoms of a dendrobium orchid rooted to a palm tree. Behind them are spade-shaped leaves of Burle Marx philodendrons.

Dendrobium blossoms are here and gone while a phalaenopsis is just getting its shoes on for a marathon, but they trade longevity for an unrivaled blast of intensity.
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Nightly votive in the porch garden.

"If I can do no more, let my name stand among those who are willing to bear ridicule and reproach for the truth's sake, and so earn some right to rejoice when the victory is won." — Louisa May Alcott
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So young for such a mature and polished style. Imagine if he'd had another three decades.

Nightly votive in the porch garden.

"Write on my gravestone: 'Infidel, Traitor' – infidel to every church that compromises with wrong; traitor to every government that oppresses the people." – Wendell Phillips (1811-1884)
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... of survivors in the wreckage of a Greek steamer they had sunk, the Peleus. All were found guilty, and three were executed by a naval firing squad. Pete Hegseth ought to read up on it.

A machine gun mounted on the conning tower of a World War II-vintage German submarine. In the Peleus massacre, the anti-aircraft guns were used against distant survivors floating in the wreckage, but couldn't be tilted far enough down to kill others. They were murdered by grenades.

I often think of Nuremberg as the first of the Nazi war crimes trials, but it wasn't. Days earlier, the captain and four junior officers of the German submarine U-852 faced a tribunal in Hamburg for the machine gun and grenade murders...

A painted wood art piece of the cartoon Tasmanian Devil, with a Pride flag in one fist and a Key West flag in the other. The city banner celebrates the Conch Republic, a fanciful microstate that declared it had seceded from the United States in 1982 in a dispute over federal overreach.

Today's the official end of hurricane season, and for the first time since 2015, none made landfall in Key West, Florida or anywhere in the United States. Storms don't respect calendars, but things look good enough for Taz to rejoice.

The joy of transgression.

Nightly votive in the porch garden.

“For each new morning with its light. For rest and shelter of the night. For health and food, for love and friends. For everything Thy goodness sends.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

"For family, friends and those passed on, with gratitude we lift this song." — Nita Henley Johnston

Supern figure work.

Navy fighter jets high in a pale blue sky, with palm fronds in the foreground.

Back from their vast combat training range over the Gulf, the biggest Top Gun school in the country, these warbirds are roaring home to our naval air station. You can hear them coming a mile away, but they're usually gone before I can get a shot. And then some days you get lucky. 📷

I keep coming back to the bunched cloth in the second image. Just astonishing.

Yes indeed. Noble thoughts came with an asterisk in those days, and we can never forget that. I'm glad you brought it up.

Wow.

Nightly votive in the porch garden.

“I had always hoped that this land might become a safe and agreeable Asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong.” — George Washington, letter to F.A. Van der Kamp, 1788
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Depends on your climate. They don't do well under 60° F. The easy thing to do is bring them indoors when the temperature dips. Since it never gets that low here, they're safe on trees, but friends in Miami have to keep them in pots.

White orchids anchored to a palm trunk. For the record, the temperature is in the high 60s F (20s C), which is pretty darn cold for those of us thoroughly acclimated to the 80s and 90s.

The great part about a little cold snap is that it can trigger blooming in phalaenopsis orchids. The not-so-great part: My hothouse flower of a self is shivering in a hoodie.
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Nightly votive in the porch garden.

"Life is short. Kiss slowly, laugh insanely, love truly and forgive quickly." — Paulo Coelho
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A silver dish brims with bright fuchsia, orange and purple bougainvillea foliage punctuated by yellow roses, all on a bed of fishtail palm fronds.

Here's a centerpiece Robert made for a Thanksgiving table. Memories of him are my biggest blessing ever. But then there's this morning's music of rain on the roof, the unswerving love of dear friends, all the joys of living and giving... and for all that and more, all I can say is thanks a lot.
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This is marvelous, reminding me that gay folks have not just been part of our national fabric but have been some of its weavers, creating icons, institutions and movements that help define us as Americans. We have always been everywhere.

Nightly votive in the porch garden.

"My own experience and development deepen every day my conviction that our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy." — George Eliot
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