Sunny Side Up: Seasons
By Philip Long

On the lighter side of the Nonahood, this is a column about the humorous realities of life in Central Florida. We must choose to laugh and sweat rather than cry and sweat.

We live where others vacation. This befuddles me.

I get calls at work. “Hey, Sweet Love of My Life, the kids and I are going to the pool, do you want us to wait for you, or should we go ahead?” – Call received November 13, 2015.

Yet Floridians grumble about the lack of seasons, to which I try to recount what seasons are actually like. I’m from the Midwest. Summer there is like a fire brick oven. There, even tumbleweed can’t find the energy to tumble. Fall is nice for a few minutes until I realize that with the arrival of all the fantastic colors comes the pollen plague of nasal pollutants that sends you to every allergist within a 100-mile radius. I glare at doctors with bloodshot eyes pleading, “Please, I think I just sneezed up a Lego.” Why a Lego? I have kids.

In the winter, they warned us not to go outside. If we did, we should cover our mouth, ears and eyes. Our eyes?! How terrifying the thought of eyeballs frozen in their sockets. Shudder.

Then came spring with its springy potential. Beware spring, it could seduce us into thinking that seasons were good. We had to remember that we were stuck in a never-ending cycle of meteorological doom, which could eventually lead to our demise. Or at least make us go see more allergy specialists. Same thing.

So I’ll take Florida, with its wet season, gently followed by a dry season, and repeat. I’ll take this reminder that we’re where everyone else in the country, plus a few Germans and Brits, wish they could be at this very moment.

I mean, have you ever called into work to say, “Friends are visiting from out of town, and they want me to be their guide for the day at Disney.” Or, “I’m not feeling so good today, I think I’m going to make myself a strawberry daiquiri, go sit by the pool, and read something terrible.” Or, “I can’t think of a good lie right now, but all the vacationers are around and I just can’t stand it anymore; I’m going to go play. Want to come?”

I’ve also lived in the Pacific Northwest, another vacation destination. However, it’s a summer-only destination unless you like to ski. For those of us not paper mache-d out of money, non-summer in the PNW can make one feel like that drop of water oozing down the window pane of life.

I’m one of those who gets a little down with the weather. Happy people tell me to exercise. Have you ever gone for a jog where you don’t need to bring water, as you’ll simply inhale it, you won’t need a shower, as you’ll gently be misted (not Disney misting), no small dogs will yap, since they’re too tired, and you might just see depressed birds falling out of trees? Don’t try it.

When I was in the PNW, my folks suggested I get a lightbox to fight my drum-drops. My own personal box of cheer sounded nice, so I ordered it. A sterile white box arrived on my moist doormat. I set it up and flicked it on. As it glowed on my face, I felt I was in a sort of hospital prison, where the bad cop turned the light on and asked, “For the last time, Philip, did you or did you not rob the convenience store with a squirt gun? We have you on record yelling, ‘I’ll squirt everyone wet since we’re never wet around here, ha-ha. Come on, folks, we must eat ourselves happy, all candy is free!’”

Unreasonably happy folks in the PNW told me I just needed to go ahead and do everything I’d normally do, when the sky is falling. Or pitifully rising up in mist around me. So I bought a bunch of water balloons and pelted pale-faced kids poking heads out their front doors. They were probably checking to see if the sun was out. Hopelessly hopeful kids.

So, on the days when I feel blue-to-vermillion black, I’ll take Florida. I can step outside and gaze at the bright ball of cheerfulness in the sky. At least it’ll thaw out my frozen eyeballs from the Midwest.

As I type, I’ll take looking outside our kitchen window at all the greens that make up our marshy mosquito haven of a backyard, with its maples, bald cypresses, ferns, and the treehouse I built in a fit of happiness. “Oh look, kids, a hawk just landed on the treehouse, see that? What’s it doing? It’s pecking at something. Ugh. Wait, kids, don’t look, I think it’s a bunny. Argh. Yikes. Kids, stop looking. No, it’s not playing with a big purple piece of gum. Everyone think happy thoughts. Pretty thoughts. I’m going to go cry in my room for a bit now.”

Philip writes for Cru, a nonprofit organization located on Moss Park Road, close enough to the 7-Eleven off of Narcoossee to justify ditching work for a Slurpee. While he thinks he’s funny, he wisely never verbalizes his musings to his two ever-increasingly hostile pre-teens. His brain doesn’t seem to do the heavy lifting in the writing process – his sweaty fingers do. So, if you laugh, snort, chortle or guffaw, they deserve the credit … both of them.