A sneeze woke me up, and I quickly sniffed the phlegm back into my head. I had lost the ski cap during the cold night. In a few minutes, the alarm clock rang, and I got up. The dogs were anxious to start the day so I opened the back door. They enoy going out into the sunny backyard and soaking up the the heat now that it is cold in Florida. As soon as all but Gator filed out into the yard, I opened the front door and left that one open too. The door in the laundry room to the garage door had been open all night, and the big garage door has been open for more than ten years. I haven't air conditioned or heated the house since the first of September. Bulletproof pays for the electricity, and I try to keep the outrageous bill was low as possible. Even with no heat or air conditioning for a month, the lowest the bill has ever been is a little over two hundred dollars. I've complained but all I get are platitudes and an offer to have an "electricity audit" done. Bureucrats!
I knew the cold weather was coming even though it was still so hot I was using a washcloth under my wrist as I wrote notes into my legal pad so I wouldn't wet the pad. I also had a box fan perched on a chair aimed at myself. Still, I was sweating. But Thursday, I called Deep Cover in Georgetown, South Carolina. He said it was cloudy, and snowing in the western mountains. It was coming his way which meant it was probably coming my way too. It was about time as we were in the middle of October. The front came in the next day, announced by dark clouds, thunder and rain. Saturday morning, the kitchen thermometer announced that we were under eighty degrees for the first time in months. It was great to be able to walk around without sweating and gasping in the hot humidity. Happily, I hunted up a ski cap and hooded sweatshirt and put them on.
I want to end on an inspirational sentence I found today in the book, "Lions of Medina: The Marines of Charlie Company And Their Brotherhood Of Valor." The sentence is "Rather than wanting God when you desperately need Him, we ought to be a little more in touch with Him all the time." Peter Nickerson, MS, MSW at 352-359-0850.
