Living in Florida

Lately I’ve realized that while every state has its idiosyncrasies, Florida might have more than its fair share. Dave Barry has often written about Florida being a crazy state, and he’s right–where else will an alligator come up and knock on your front door? Or barge right through your kitchen window?

Where else can you–like I did yesterday–run into a lovely young rat snake climbing up a trellis and simply say, “Excuse me” as you sidle right past him on your way to feed your chickens? Or rescue another rat snake who’s caught in the snake netting around your coop? Or realize that that SAME snake ate all the baby cardinals you’ve been watching for the past few days? What kind of gratitude is that?

And today, as I sat at my garden window and wistfully looked out at the Eden threatening to gobble up my house, I realized that I long for rainy days just as many northern folks long for snow days. You know that cozy feeling you get when you’re inside, safe and warm, and the snow is falling outside? That’s how I feel when I’m inside and rain is falling. Unless it’s a hurricane, then I’m liable to be sitting in the dark, even at noon, because the windows are boarded up.

Florida is the place where you pay for homeowners insurance–which seems to cost as much as a mortgage these days–and flood insurance if you live within two miles of a beach (and tons of people do), and hurricane insurance, which comes with such a big deductible that the only way it will ever pay out is if your home is totally demolished. Seriously. This year, because we live in an older wooden house on a creek and less than two miles from Tampa Bay, we will pay more in insurance than we did for our first house. It’s killing us, frankly, and it’s another reason why we operate two airbnb units–to help pay for the insurance!

But despite the fact that we’ve reached the spring-into-summer point where I have sweat dripping down my nose if I work outside more than ten minutes, Florida has some lovely advantages. Wildlife, for instance, mostly harmless. We live in the most heavily populated county in Florida, yet we routinely see bunnies, snakes, raccoons, possums, coyotes, and turtles in our yard. One of my guests saw a gator in the creek. And my next door neighbor has seen bobcats.

Six months out of the year–November through April–the weather is lovely. The rest of the time we stay indoors and only come outside after supper. (There’s a reason why Florida remained mostly swamp until air conditioning was invented.)

We have no state income tax–thanks to the tourists who fund things for us.

Florida is so humid, you can grow orchids in trees.

We are a true melting pot–the New York/New England retirees come down I-95 and settle on the east coast; the Ohio/Michigan folks come down I-75 and settle on the west coast. Which is why our state has a split personality during elections.

Native Floridians like me and my kin are pretty rare. I watched a You-tube video the other day–one of those police body-cam vids–where a drunk woman kept insisting she was a “seventh generation Floridian.” I don’t think that’s actually possible.

We have a governor who makes sense. We have Dave Barry, who is hilarious. And we have a Major League Baseball team that can’t fill the stadium because everybody roots for their home team, and nobody who lives here really calls Florida “home.” (Except me and my kinfolk.) Even my husband, who has lived here almost forty years, still roots for all the teams from Ohio.

So come down and share our adventures. Glisten a little. Take pictures of gators. You can even stay in my airbnb.

What are some of the best and worst things about your state?