It seems like the climate dropped 20 degrees in one week. It was 95 degrees before our vacation, we spent a week in Florida, and now it’s 75 degrees after our vacation. What happened to the summer? I wasn’t finished with it yet!

As much as I complain about the heat and humidity of Southern summers, I do miss them when fall arrives. I miss the warm mornings and the warm evenings. But sitting here thinking about it more, I don’t miss the wet hot afternoons or the bugs. Oh God, the bugs!

I hate having the mosquitoes flying around my face, into my eyes, buzzing at my ears. The getting into my face is what bothers me most about the bugs. But poor Cowgrit, she gets eaten alive. Her soft skin and sweet blood are just a picnic spread for the mosquitoes. I don’t get so many bites.

A few days ago, I was out laying in the hammock for a few minutes after having cut the grass (thinking to myself, I never get to lay in this hammock). At one point, I saw what I thought was a piece of dirt or grass on my leg. It was there for a couple minutes until I moved and it took off and flew away — it was a mosquito. That blood-sucker had been on my leg for a couple of minutes, but I never had an itch or bump. Apparently it didn’t or couldn’t bite me.

Cowgrit, however, walked outside for a minute while I was in the hammock. Five minutes after going back inside, she had two itchy bite bumps. Soft skin, sweet blood. Poor thing.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

Going through some of my blog archives, I happened across an old post I made back a couple days after my 13th birthday:

Keep Your Hands Off My Toys

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

During our vacation in Disney World, I ordered sweet tea to drink at every meal. Every time I was told “We only have unsweet tea.”

The first time I was told that, I retorted, “But this is Florida!”

The waiter shrugged his shoulders, nodded his head, and said, “Yeah, I know.”

That’s just wrong. Is this the case in all of Florida? It’s been so many years since I’ve eaten a meal in Florida, and I don’t know if I even asked for tea then. Maybe it’s just a Disney World thing. If all of Florida is “unsweet tea,” I vote for us to kick the whole crazy state out of the southern United States — it’s northern Cuba.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com