Winter in Florida

So, winter has finally hit my old state.  Now, there is a common misconception that we don't have winter in Florida.  We do.  It's just two weeks longs, and comes a couple days at a time.  Florida winter would be any morning you wake up and the temperature is less than 40 degrees.  It only gets this way when we have a cold front, so we get a very windy, often times damp, 30 some odd degree morning.  Yeah, its not really a fun situation to be sure.  To complicate matters, by afternoon, it'll be 60-something and sunny.  How do you dress for that?  Layers.  But the colds never really around enough to figure out what layers.  No one wants to be carrying around all these layers either by mid afternoon.  So you go home from work, its cool and sunny.  You leave for work and its like "Holy crap, when did this happen?"  This happens for a few days a few times a year.  You never get the chance to adjust.  After 22 years, I admit I never got the hang of it either.

But the first cold front of the year has hit Florida. I can tell by people on my Facebook page saying things like, "It's 35 degrees?!?  This is Florida!" and posting links to newspaper articles talking about heavy frost and how we won't have any citrus crop and ITS THE BEGINNING OF THE APOCALYPSE!!! The Mayans meant Jan 4, 2012, not Dec 21.  Keep pets and children indoors!  Don't burn down your house with a space heater.  Only, this happens every year.  More than once.  And this is what happens every.single.time.

Yes, apparently cold is 50 degrees for a low. (Mom is somewhere right now saying "Well it's cold to me!"  Aren't you?)

I mean, if it snowed, which is has, I think people would faint.  This is out of our area of knowledge.  Sure, we know summer.  Oh boy, do we know summer. I we know those of you who do not.  Yes, I am looking at you, sunburned, spandex wearing British tourist on International Drive.  You and your tomato red clan. It's called sunblock. And no, you can't just keep drinking beer like you do at home.  Because after 2 or 3 on the beach, we will have to call an ambulance because you didn't want to be a sissy and drink any water with that.

So, since I fully believe I am the most winterized native Floridian that has ever existed, I will say this: That is not a cold snap, that's a heat wave.