Florida

Warning to Ro...you won't like this, I bet.

At the risk of being called a COW, Crotchety Old Woman, and do not like to be negative, this blog will have negativity.

I do not like Florida. I tell people that the only good thing about my folks' deaths, is that I will never have to go there again.

I will admit, when I lived in Boston after a blizzard or two, calling my folks and suggesting they host their beloved daughter was great. It was a series of eating Red Snapper at Captain Jack's, Early Bird Specials, going around to my aunts and uncles that lived in their retirement community and being treated like visiting royalty. They would say things like:

• "Let me take you to lunch dear."
• "I just baked you an apple pie."

I often travel with Rick on business and/or golf tournaments. I happily kiss him good bye when he has to go to Florida. Here's why.

I hate:

• Heat and humidity (in February not a problem)
• I dislike shopping and find the cookie cutter shopping centers all with the same stores depressing
• The alligators in the lake behind my folks. My dog could have been considered lunch.
  
• The rattlesnake enjoying the shade from a chair in the yard where I had recently sat.
• That people, although lovely, were mainly alike in nationality and age (okay, it was a retirement community). Okay there was one Brit and one Canadian family
  
• No children around
• I couldn't find a bookstore within 20 miles (the town did have a good library which I couldn't use)
• Palmetto bugs
• Overly air conditioned places

It is not Florida's fault that I loved living:

• In a city with 50+ universities
• In a village where on my 30-house street there are over 10 different nationalities and even more around the village as well as locals
  
• In Geneva where 43% of the residents are from all over the world and represent all aspects of the world
• Where there are four distinct seasons
• There's a winter with some--but not too much--snow
• Colored leaves in autumn
• Where English is only one of many languages
  

I don't get it all in any one of the major places I've lived.

What bothers me now more about Florida is the ignorant governor who is indirectly responsible for thousands of deaths. Any idiot would know opening the state without mandates for masks and social distancing would increase cases. I mentally marked my calendar after it went into effect on the day cases would increase. I was off by one day.

Okay, negativity over.