Plotting My Escape

Dear, dear friends in Florida,

Remember that tongue firmly in cheek very slight put down I laid on you in my recent correspondence? Please accept my most sincere and humble mea culpa, for I knew not what I was thinking.

We are now in one of those weather patterns, I can't recall if it is the nina, the pinta or the santa maria, where mere contemplation of stepping outside gives one chills. A place where polar bears now come to congregate for the winter. Where icicles form on the mustache I don't even have.

I have been far too cavalier in my earlier assessment of the many benefits of your most wonderful place of residence. This morning I will dress in clothes on top of clothes, layers that were never intended to collide. I will insert hand warmers in my gloves and then back ups on top of these, just in case of catastrophic failure of the first set. And I will be filled with wanderlust for sandy beaches, palm trees (is that you, California, or both?) and early bird specials.

They say the temperatures will moderate in but a few days. That this will be but aberration of mercifully short duration. Don't tell that to my nose which will likely turn redder than Rudolph's before I reach the car. Or my toes that will beg to be left inside while the rest of me shivers and shakes in the elements.

Oh how I hope you can find it in your heart to reconsider your earlier decision to ban me from entering your state. I know that the warm temperatures where you live are matched only by the warm embrace you will now offer. And for your beneficence I will be eternally grateful.

People are filled with both the capacity to hate and to love. I fully believe you reside on the correct side of that ledger, that my earlier misplaced sarcasm will be forgiven and forgotten by you in all your magnificence and magnanimity. I thus eagerly await your renewed invitation for me to escape this frozen Hell and come join you in your heaven on earth (why is Hell capitalized while heaven is not?)

Yours, in gratitude for your exquisite kindness and admiration for your brilliant choice of home,

Your once and hopefully future BFF