A FLORIDA EARLY MORN

Early morn had come bringing with it an artist’s sky. Shades of blue varied like those on an artist’s palette. Streaks of pink and small, puffy white clouds floated by. The clouds seemed to be playing the children’s game of

“I Spy With My Little Eye.”

One moment a cloud looked like a teddy bear, and within a matter of minutes a gentle breeze changed it into a puppy or was it a baby dragon?

Mrs. Carmichael sat on the back porch (oops she meant lanai) holding a hot cup of tea in her hands. All those many years ago, Mrs. Boland, her third floor neighbor, had taught her a cup of tea “is only worth brewin’ and drinkin’ if it’s hot. Not warm, Darlin’, but hot.” She had never digressed from her mentor’s advice.

Two small ducks paddled by. She had named them Finnegan and Keegan. Behind them came Lucifer, a fat, black duck with a dangling red throat like a turkey. It was a blessing Lucifer had never looked in a mirror, but then again there were days the lagoon water was so still, surely he could have seen his reflection. He had his morning route and was quite faithful to the many condos that lined the lagoon. He knew there were croutons or slices of bread waiting for him. The outdoor sign explicitly read, DON’T FEED THE DUCKS, but gratefully most seniors couldn’t read the sign what with cataracts and drooping eyelids. Or as Bill from Cleveland liked to declare,

“What the hell! I’m 76 years old if I wanna feed the ducks, I’ll feed ‘em!”

The “goils” were holding their morning meeting on the peak of the sun porch across the way. They needed no Timex. They just showed up every morn chirping about this ‘n that.

“Forget the worms. With no rain, they’re just too dry to eat.”

“That little guy of mine flew to Miami alone yesterday. He just won’t listen! One of these days he’s going to fly off course and wind up in Cuba!”

In the distance, perhaps four condos away, the PING of golf balls had started. It befuddled Mrs. Carmichael how grown men and women found such pleasure in chasing a little white ball all around golf courses. Ah well, her own James delighted in it, so who was she to complain?

Her geranium pots were thriving bringing her daily thoughts of home. It was cold up north now, cold and snowy and icy. She knew she was lucky, lucky indeed, to be in a warm climate that eased her arthritis pains and erased her fear of falling AGAIN on slippery ice. But O! how she missed her grandchildren! At home there were volleyball games and hockey meets, trips to the show or museum, sleepovers and pizza parties. Here there were card games which she chose not to play. Talk during Bridge and you’d committed three mortal sins! She tried to learn knitting and the teacher suggested pottery. Though soon she’d be 72, she was back on a toddler’s schedule. Breakfast, pray, walk, read (in place of playing with Super Heroes or Barbie) lunch, nap, read, dinner, TV and sweet dreams.

Indeed life was grand, but without your grandchildren near by.………..? Her Florida friends had a pool going as to how long she’d last without flying home for a visit. Himself had said this year they’d stay put, there’d be no flying home and that was that. Or to put it in the modern vernacular,

“It is what it is.”

Let’s see now. Where was that Southwest Airline Schedule?

All in a Florida early morn.