This is not meant to diminish the real horror wrought on Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Those poor souls just had yet another devil parked on top of their little archipelago, tearing apart comparatively flimsy structures with the savage force of a powerful tornado. Shelter and pray as they might, they face death for now and an uncertain future later. Meanwhile, we elbow each other away from cases of water that we probably won’t need and wait in lines at the gas station at the last minute because we never learn. And some of us wear masks to protect each other from the wrenching evil that sun and humid trade winds won’t dispel after all.
We rolled the dice when we gave up our cozy, frosty nest in the north. The very real danger of slipping on ice and being found just a bit late, tongue frozen to the sidewalk during a last cry for help as mitochondria quit functioning is the final humbling event we chanced by living there. Here in the south, we develop an intimate relationship with that eighty percent liquid we’ve always been told we’re made of. Outdoor activity in Florida can drain you of vital fluid without much effort. Jane Stroke sneaks up with far less warning than her cousin Jack Frost, who cutely nips at your nose. Here you’re suddenly face down and with any luck soon being pumped full of saline at a local ER. If not, oh well, you can brag in Heaven that you swam in January in your Earthly paradise.
Not to be outdone by our beer-swilling peers, we are planning Part Two of a dairy counterpart this week, participating in an ice cream crawl on the hottest of weekdays. We visit seven destinations, each tantalizingly similar but different, all offering a unique range of flavors and textures. Since we are all either confirmed or aspirationally pre-diabetic, we choose to purchase two single small scoops at each stop, then divvy them up four ways. We thus minimize quantity and maximize the number of flavors we taste. By the fourth stop of Part One I recalled the weekend we spent at a chocolate fest, the only time in my life I said, “enough!”
So, I’m heading out to Dairy Queen to practice. They stay open despite the pandemic or any passing disaster. And on the chance that a hurricane eventually prevents me from ever enjoying another Blizzard on Earth, my personal testament to the struggle between good and evil, I’ll pass through the pearly gates with one question for Saint Peter: “Is there ice cream here?”
😎
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