HEADS UP

The weather didn't do me any favors today. It's cold again -- 41 degrees -- & the forecast for tonight is for a low of 22 degrees. All the places having water still have ice. The ground is still mostly frozen. We have not had relief yet. It's cold ... & I don't like it.

I guess I was fooled by the semi-pleasant day we had yesterday. The temperature was in the mid-50's & I shook off the cabin fever to work outside in the yard for awhile in the afternoon. I raked a lot of leaves & burned them. That's a typical chore this time of year. That is, if the weather cooperates.

I guess getting older & having lived in the South all these years, my blood has thinned. I don't remember the cold temperatures -- and I do mean COLD TEMPERATURES -- bothering me when I lived in upstate New York. Just another sign of aging, I'm afraid. Kind of like my Mother in Florida, complaining about the cold when it's 60 degrees outside. It's an old-person thing.

Down in Florida right now, the cold temperatures can get people killed. Not just from prolonged exposure to the cold, but ... from falling lizards hitting people in the head. I have not heard of anyone being severely injured ... yet ... but those big, green "meteors" can do damage.

I've talked to "Weiner" today, who is down in Summerland Key, Florida. It's really cold down there too.

NOTE: For those uninformed, "Weiner" is Marlene. She was my high school "First Love" & through the grace of God, still communicates & correspondences with me, something a few other women in my past no longer do. For more "details" about our past, see my post of December 5, 2009.]

Back to the story.

Even in the Keys, the weather has been abnormally cold. So cold, the lizards are falling out of the trees. Since this includes Iguana's -- the illegal aliens of the lizard world -- some danger & damages are a possibility, since these brutes can grow to six foot in length & weight close to 15 pounds. Quoting Emeril: -- "BAM".

Luckily, "Weiner" -- [Okay ... prove you care, Bill. Prove you care !!] -- MARLENE ...found a young Iguana on the ground near her house. It was cold & lifeless, which is what happens to them when it gets as cold as it has. The lizards go into a form of forced semi-hibernation, something they do not encounter in the warmer temperatures of their native South America. They get ridged from the cold, lose their grip in the tree or branch they are on & fall to earth. CLUNK !!

Being the good soul she is, Marlene took the lifeless dragon home & put it into the cat carrier to allow it to warm up & recover from the chilling. When the temperatures further warm up in a few days, the lizard will be returned to where she found it, unlike a neighbor who told Marlene she cut the heads off the chilled Iguanas she finds. The neighbor doesn't like the Iguanas because the lizards eat her flowers.

One other exciting chapter of this adventure for Marlene -- so far ,that is, since the lizard is still with her -- is the first night the Iguana escaped from the carrier & made it on it's own to the upper floor of the house ... leaving "evidence", if you catch my drift. Apparently Marlene's Rottweiler dog is not much for dealing with "intruders". Slept right though the visit & house inspection by the lizard.

The Iguana is now back in the [secured] carrier once again. At least Marlene, a former Nurse, knows she still can care for her under-the -weather-patients & that shortly "Iggy", now recovered, will be back in a palm tree where it belongs.

But ... if it gets cold again in Florida -- HEADS UP !!!