“Florida is the sunny Italy of the New World.”
- Capone
Ninety-degree pounding sun has proven a tremendous relief and balm to the sanity. The pale-skinned ones in my family contend with sunburns and I, having mercifully inherited Dad’s Sicilian skin, am all, “Sunburn? What is this ‘sunburn’? I am not familiar with this concept.” Sicilians don’t burn – we roast, like almonds. It’s dead useful.
Henley the bald eagle stopped by today! He bathes himself in the lake behind the house and then perches on the roof of an adjoining house to preen and survey his territory. I employ the pronoun “him” because I named him Henley for obvious reasons and thus have imputed a gender affiliation upon him. If he ever turns up with baby eagles, I will amend the moniker accordingly and extend a humble apology.
Also spotted two raccoons last night whilst walking, who glimpsed my approaching form and promptly gallumpted to the shadows. Peculiar, lumbering gait they have. I’ve kept an eye out for my beloved armadillos, to no avail.
The two Jurassic Park cranes from last visit have remained, evidently taking residence on the opposite side of the lake. I biked over and distributed some bread, in which they seemed tremendously interested and at which they pecked and hawked with their odd, yellow-raptor eyes and blazingly red heads. Until one of them turned to stare directly at me, calmly, and I remembered reading their beaks can easily penetrate the skulls of mammals. I pivoted rapidly on my heel and sprinted back to my bike, prepared to bound right over the thing and cower behind it if necessary. It returned to the calm ingestion of breadstuffs.
Returned from a bike ride in the steady, beating sun and thick, smiling air. The thing about Florida, though... lots of tiny, airborne critters such as gnats and midges. Which enthusiastically plaster themselves against sweaty skin. So I return home and have to extract fruit flies from my cleavage. Invariably an unmitigated delight.
