Cool morn ride.
Some dude and his squeeze in tee’s and shorts stared at me as I biked
by, dressed for winter. No doubt the two
were from Michigan.
For those of you who do not understand how a former Midwesterner
like myself can wear a tee and a sweat shirt and gloves and a stocking cap to
bike in 65 degree weather let me explain:
“When you bike 11 months out of the year in eighty-five plus degree
heat, 65 degrees does indeed feel like an arctic blast. ‘Tis true.
I understand Michelle and the other bird-boned Floridians perfectly now
when they clamor to turn on the heat, add a blanket and make heavy thick soups
for supper. This also explains why
reptiles are not seen down here periodically—or, as I first noticed years ago
in the Louisiana bayous, on a day that would seem lusciously warm in the north
and would surely witness a human and reptile coming out party, say 75 or 80
degrees, down in the Deep South the suckers—warm bloods and cold bloods--are
still shivering in their holes. It’s a
relativity thing. What is cold to a Southern
organism is nice and mild to a Northerner.
I am, however, a bit amazed that it only took me three years to evolve
such.
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Taze-Mania—Those of us who have come to know and love cop
correctives to bad behavior administered through the nodes of a ray gun would
have loved to be present at the taze fest the other night over at the Denny’s in
Port Charlotte. Some drugged up
savages—about a dozen of ‘em, judging by the report--were tearing the hell out of the
restaurant over some silly something or rather. As the blue lights pulled in the brawl continued as if no blue lights
at all had pulled in. When one woman continued
to beat, kick, punch, gouge, bite, scratch, and strangle another and refused the command to cease and desist, Officer O’Reilly gave the
fat lady some sharp volts on her fat butt to consider. She jiggled the chicken-dance with the best of 'em. In another area, one combatant was in the
very motion to smash a metal chair down on the noggin of another, when Officer O’Malley
whipped out his zapper and BBBBBRRRRRRZZZZZTTTT he dropped the fool in his
tracks with the chair crashing down on the assailant’s out-of-control-and-empty head. Another rioter charged Officer O'Bama and down goes
this one too. Sgt. O'Goldstein nailed another. Even Lt. O'MacDonald got in on the fun. Here a Zap, there a Zap, everywhere a
Zap, Zap. And so on. Quite a night for the Buck Rogers Boys
in Blue. There will be some serious recharging
of Port Charlotte rays guns after this evening fun-fest.
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Red Tide is Back. This pernicious algae is ravaging our beach once again. Red
tide is a natural born killer. A natural
massacre of fish is taking place, as well as a massacre of our island nose holes. I
stopped on my bike ride this morn and walked the beach up at Blind Pass. The
mullet lay by the thousands neatly in a long row as far as the eye could see, showing clearly high water mark of the tide. I would imagine that the rate
would be about one ton of fish per hundred feet. Thick.
The smell, of course, is ferocious. The slaughter, the stink. Sickening. The vultures over on the bay side almost blackened the sky yesterday.
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Fight Fire With Fire—I kid not when I say that it is very
hard to kill a fire ant. The little beasts
run so fast across the sand that they are actually very difficult to catch and pinch unto death
with my fingers, and I am very fast. Grinding them into the sand with your shoe never
works, either. The suckers seemingly just dust them selves
off and commence running like blazes again, looking for a way to sting you.
I wonder. Chairman Mao thought
that one way to give his idle peasants something to do as well as take care of the Chinese
fly problem was to arm his millions with fly swatters and offer incentives for
those who killed the most pests per week.
I propose that Chairman Obama give us all ten or more of those long-nosed butane
fireplace starters and set us to work ridding the U.S. of fire ants. Even a slow, weak person should be able to kill the
little brutes with a mini-flame thrower.
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Michelle and Mike are out the door now, outta here, heading for Key East or Key South or Key Something with five of our new best friends. After that we will be running up the coast to the Arctic Circle of Florida, the Panhandle (six hours north, the area is always ten degrees cooler than here). A full report upon my return. In the meantime........
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
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Photo of the Day
