Thursday, February 10, 2011

February 2011 Dateline:Florida

In the last blog entry I told you about the place we're living in down here in the sun and fun state of Florida. Anything is better, I guess, than dealing with the weather in Northern New York at the moment, but this place has given me a new look at the differences in life as we know it.

The place is situated on a canal, nearly in the canal, I might add, and it's very old. It hasn't been rehabbed as I was lead to believe, and rarely has it seen a mop, bucket or cleaning agents. It is however, a place to learn how to repair things.

So far I've learned to repair slats of vertical blinds (which if you think they're cool, think again...they're awful in humid conditions and they rip apart quickly if there's a slight wind...trust me, that's experience talking and I've only been here one week) , repaired drain plugs, wiring, oven, mirror, shelving and some other assorted items that broke as I touched them.

The decor leaves much to be desired in 2011. Although, perhaps it was state of the art in 1968. At the moment I'm being seranaded by a myriad of fine feathered things. I can't call them all birds, I think they're more like ancient dinos that didn't realize they were supposed to be extinct.

We decided to check out some other parts of the island today. It's about 15 miles across the island and there is only one road in and out. There are no traffic lights and everyone is pretty good about courtesy on the road. There are many accidents though, usually motorcyles vs. cars. Motorcycle drivers are not required to wear helmets, and as far as I can see, that's just hoping for suicide by old people driving cars.

There are lots of old Americans on this island all looking for their youth again. They have all the toys they wanted when they were kids but couldn't afford them, or else their wives, Moms, or kids wouldn't let them have them. They look kind of cool I think, but Larry thinks they look pretty foolish. The ones I like are the ones with the longish hair tied back with a bandanna, jeans, boots and tee shirts that say things like, "road hog", "don't be jealous, you can have me too", and assorted other things unprintable. You KNOW they wouldn't have worn some of this stuff when they were younger but now they figure, "what the Hell".

It's really quite a place. It's not all bad, mind you, but it is different. We wanted different this year and we certainly got it........

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