Climate Spoiled

 

I was born in 1960 (yikes I'm old) and grew up in East Point, Georgia.  A small city, yet literally a ten minute drive from downtown Atlanta. It was home to the Atlanta airport and home to me. After I got married in 1990 we moved to the suburbs to raise youngsters in a little more rural area. Coweta County was twenty five minutes south of the airport and a pretty great place to raise kiddos. After almost twenty five years there, my husband got transferred to Orlando with his job. We moved down in the fall and the day before Christmas my daughter and I scooted over to Cocoa Beach, a thirty minute drive from the house. We stayed on the beach maybe three hours and came home sunburned like we had spent the day in Equador.

I'm not a fan of cold weather so I was pumped to be living in central Florida and less than an hour from the coast.

I quickly became a temp snob. A woman can get away with comfortably wearing a sports bra or tank top, shorts and flip flops pretty much year round with a few cold (coolish) snaps thrown in about ten days a year. I was listening to the radio this morning when the DJ said, tomorrow will be cold when you wake up with a predicted low of sixty seven.

Oh my!!

Just wait, it gets worse. On the noon newscast it was reported some areas may drop into the fifties tomorrow in the morning during wake up hours.

CANCEL SCHOOL!!!!  Go buy all the firewood they have stacked out front of Publix and  make some chili for dinner.

Trust me. People will have on full winter gear, complete with fur lined Uggs and parkas, also with fur lined hoods. All dogs will have their little sweaters on as well when being walked by their owners in the frigid conditions.

Here's the thing about Florida. Rain doesn't bother or deter anyone from doing anything or going anywhere. Unless a hurricane is predicted to be a direct hit as a Cat four, it's just another reason for a party. We don't sell out of milk and bread, we sell out of Fireball, wine and Tequila.

I will also admit my dogs quickly got spoiled as well. In Georgia it would be in the teens for days on end and the dogs had no problem about tromping around the yards. Once we moved here and temps would dip below seventy, they would go out, do their business and be barking at the door in three minutes to get back inside. Let me point out they all wear a head to tail fur coat 24/7.

I did downsize my winter wardrobe. I gave away all but one coat. My Harley Davidson jacket. I have had it since 1980 and fits my Masters of the Universe Skeletor body like a glove.

 I kept two vests. One puffy and one fake lambskin. I have a couple of long sweaters which are mid calf length and one knitted winter hat. The only gloves I own are for gardening, and don't even wear them. They make my hands hot.

Any woman...and I mean any woman who has been through or going through menopause is all about keeping it cool. I would have never survived Florida before A/C and ceiling fans when I was raging through menopause. It still creeps up on me from time to time but nothing like it did a few years ago.

But when it does come a calling, all blankets, covers and sheets and socks and sport bras come off. I don't care if it's twenty below outside.

Then five minutes later you are putting the socks back on and climbing back underneath the sheets and blanket...for another thirty minutes. Rinse and repeat...it's the hot flash mantra.

That Eve really did a number on us, didn't she? And all over an apple (and a man).  Go figure.

Of course this is all in jest. (kinda)

I love living here. Even when it dips into the fifties from time to time. We found the perfect spot to live but the one and only bad thing about it is that my sister is still in Georgia.

 

This pic is from when we had dinner together right before we moved to Florida. I miss her every day and all the time.

It's been a learning curve for us both. We've never lived more than twenty miles from each other. But as Glennon Doyle has taught me, we can do hard things. We will survive.

Our country? That's another sitch altogether and worries me greatly.

The one single and only good take away from this recent election is that Florida will be rid of the orange abyss of a pie hole, Matt Gaetz (charged with underage sex trafficking) Marco-Polo flim flam Rubio and Rick Scott who committed major fraud concerning Medicaid and Medicare. Thanks for cleaning up our part of the swamp for at least four years. Maybe we need to put up a border preventing all of them access to return to the Sunshine State. Maybe you can find a cabinet position for Ron DeSantis up there too.

To everyone who voted this ass hat into office... be careful what you ask for. Trust me, he's just getting started and it isn't going to be pretty. 

Things are heating up for sure. 

Climate change is taking on a whole new meaning. It's going to be a long four years and it's going to get ugly.