OK, I need to vent (whine) today about the weather down here in South Florida. My friends and family up north already think (know) that, having lived here now for almost ten years, I’ve become something of an adult version of a spoiled brat when it comes to climate. January here in Fort Lauderdale is generally in the 70’s during the day, dropping at night into the sixties or upper fifties. There is never any sleet or snow here, but after folks become accustomed to this pattern, low to mid-forties can create a panic when our furnaces groan back into use, and fireplaces with their usual fake logs suddenly require real ones with actual flames, and I don’t mean for roasting marshmallows.
I’m looking now out windows to see palm trees with their branches wafting in the wind like enormous plumes. Even they seem shocked by the drop in temperature, as though waving for help.
At this moment, I’m sitting in my favorite wingchair with a wool blanket over my legs (perfect picture for a Christmas card). Situations are always relative to experience or to what we’ve become accustomed, so I suspect that someone from up north reading my little diatribe might compare it to that of a billionaire losing twenty dollars in the stock market. Mea culpa… and BRRRR are my responses. JB