If you live in a cold climate, you may not want to read this post. It may not amuse you one bit. I’m going for self-parody with this one, but I’ve been a bit sick this week – so my sense for these things (normally spot on, of course) may be a bit off.

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We’ve got a little problem – that’s getting bigger with the US $ in the toilet: people don’t show our weather the respect we feel it’s due. We Floridians think anything under 60F is pretty darn cold, and we don’t need a bunch of northerners frolicking in the sun like it’s summer, messing with our heads. A Canadian snowbird just bought into our neighborhood this month, and he was out sunning himself in the a.m., on our “cold” morning.

The day before I was picking up my daughter from school, and several of the parents were excitedly discussing the cold front that was passing through. Everyone was giddy at the prospect of the temperature dipping below freezing (for a few minutes just before sunrise). We were bonding.

Then we have these insensitive types that have to go around and ruin our winter. Maybe they’d like come over and open our presents for us on Christmas morning too? Or tell all the kids there’s no such thing as Santa. I should’ve gone out and scolded him. Someone needs to tell these people what’s what, that sunbathing is inappropriate behavior in Florida when it’s 58F. Everyone at the office had their parkas that morning, and this guy from Ontario (judging from the plates on his hog) thinks he can walk around his yard without a shirt? Why can’t people allow us our little delusion – that we’ve got winters here just like everyone else? It’s really demoralizing.

Sure, we rely on these folks to prop up state spending. If it wasn’t for tourists and snowbirds we have to do something drastic… like pay a state income tax. Oh the humanity! Rest assured, I’m not just picking on foreigners… I’m talking to all of you with Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, or New York plates (the more common out of towners we see). Come on people, couldn’t you all enjoy our milder winters with a hoodie… something to throw us a bone?

It turns out the Canadian fella isn’t alone, he’s the advance man for a whole Canadian biker gang.

Man this is so not cool (pun sort of intended).

There’s no real point to this one, other than to speed up the time it takes for the movie post to disappear (I think only the last ten posts appear on the front page).

I think I mentioned last week that it was finally fall in Florida. Well guess what? It’s only been a week and signs of spring are here! I do really love fall, when we finally get a reprieve from the heat of summer, but there is one part of “spring” I like… the blooming of citrus blossoms. It used to be you could smell them everywhere… until most of the groves around here were bulldozed for subdivisions – and most of the remaining trees were eventually burned to fight one of many citrus canker outbreaks. Still, there are many places you can smell that distinctive sweet smell around this time of year – and one of them is our backyard.

We’ve got three citrus trees: lime, grapefruit, and tangerine. Right now the lime tree is in bloom.

Oh, I just love it. It’ll be even better when we can pick some of those limes (which we think may be a variety of key lime – they’re small and a little more yellowish in color than your average lime).