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Our winter: No sleeting, just fleeting

By MARLENE SOKOL
Published October 13, 2006

You know the first time you sprint from the car to the office without feeling baked and clammy.

Winter is coming.

Forget about fall, not in Florida. We have two seasons: Hot-Sticky-Rainy and Too-Cold-To-Swim.

The second one lasts about as long as it takes to get your younger kid to try on the jacket that used to fit the older one.

As long as it takes to put the flashlights in a safe place so you'll forget where they are next hurricane season.

As long as it takes to finally look in your child's bookbag and learn he's living on cheese sandwiches because your lunch account is overdrawn.

Brace yourself.

In like five minutes the Christmas season will be upon us, everything from people asking for money after you already paid them to your neighborhood debating the constitutionality of twinkling lights.

You will stop going anywhere after 5 o'clock because those holiday shoppers, who are keeping the economy alive, will own the roads and the Target aisles.

The Up North crowd will e-mail with each drop in temperature. "Meet us in Disney World!"

Merchants will light the big tree in front of Publix. It will look ridiculous, people walking by in flip-flops, hoisting artificial logs.

And you'll wonder where another year went.

I think most of us are fighting back demons this year.

Your kid probably won't become a Capitol Hill page.

But they locked down a school in Westchase and we all saw the other school shootings on television and no one in the military is untouched by Iraq.

The air is no cleaner, Red Tide has claimed the beach and not even our youngest children are eating healthy or exercising enough.

If you're not stressed out about job security, there's the housing market or the homeowners insurance crisis to consider.

Time to take a walk and enjoy the fall.

Do some deep breathing. Dig out those track shoes. Find a yoga class. The first time is usually free.

Rejoice that it is October and not November. It all goes by fast enough. No good shows on television anyway.

This is why, all summer long, you paid $300 a month to TECO and smelled like you traveled to work through a sewer.

This is your moment. Seize it. Open the good wine. Stash the swim goggles in a safe place.

So you'll forget where they are next summer.

[Last modified October 12, 2006, 08:18:47]