I remember my mother and father saying these exact words . . . "OH BOY, my bones sure do ache". My mom died pretty young so at sixty two her bones probably didn't ache as much as my father's bones did by the time he was ninety seven. As a young person I had no idea what they were talking about. How could your bones ache ? Muscles could ache, joints could ache, head could ache but BONES ????? Well take my word for it . . . Bones can ache !!
Here I am today, twenty two years younger than my father was when he died and I can not imagine if my bones ache this much now what were his bones feeling like at ninety seven years old. The smart thing that my dad did was he moved to Florida for the winters while he was in his eighties and then stayed there full time for the last seven years of his life.
VERY SMART MAN !!! As I am coming to realize my dad knew the key to long and happy life with bones that did not ache.
HEAT AND SUNSHINE !!!!!!
Something that I am sorely lacking right about now in these cold north woods of Michigan. To put it bluntly . . . It is FREAKING COLD up here in the UP !! And as a result of this chilly, damp weather my bones are aching like never before. (And no it's not Covid 19. . . I have no other symptoms but you know that wast he first thing I thought about the I started aching. Funny how that works . . . used to be when you got some symptom your brain immediately went to Cancer. Now everything is probably Covid 19.)
I have been a full time resident of the sunshine state for the past sixteen and a half years with four years of snow "birding" before that. I was only fifty five years old when we bought our first residence in Florida so at that time my bones didn't do too much aching except when I pushed them too hard, (like that ever happened) or did something stupid, ( that happened often! )
At that time of my life Florida was still a warm vacation spot to be enjoyed during the cold NY winters. We would fly down for a couple of weeks, warm our bones and then head back to NY for another month or so of cold only to repeat again and again. When that got to be a bother we sold in NY and moved South permanently. I knew Florida was HOT in the summer but after a few years of being there you really do get used to it. So for the past twenty years my bones have been warming in the Florida sunshine. When I am in Florida I have HAPPY bones. Sure I get a little achey now and then but I don't live on Tylenol or Aspirin like I've been doing up here.
It was a lovely summer here. I did not miss the HEAT and HUMIDITY that flows into Florida like a river of lava. Every time I talked to my daughter she would say, "Mom, don't come home ! It's terribly hot this summer! " And I would laugh and tell her how it was seventy two and sunny with a gentle breeze up where I am. She would curse me and we would laugh.
I'm not laughing now ! This morning the temperature was 43 degrees !! At least it had stopped raining. Yesterday it rained ALL day and the temperatures didn't get out of the LOW fifties. Even I couldn't get warm. Forget The Man trying to be warm. He had the heat on from the minute he got up, (wearing only his underwear . . . no wonder he is cold . . . DUH ! ) to the time we went to bed. The eighty degree heat in the house felt GOOD ! Every inch of my body was chilled yesterday and as a result every bone in my body was yelling at me to get my ass back to Florida !
There is definitely something to this "putting a chill in your bones" theory. Today the sun is out but it is still cold by my standards so I'm not outside sitting under my favorite tree in the sun. I think those days are gone for this year and I'm not going to be ache free until I return to Florida in five weeks. If it were up to me I'd be in the car today but we have to wait until after HUNTING SEASON ! Does The Man hunt any more ? NO ! Do we need the venison to take to Florida to sustain us through the hot winter months ? NO ! Sooooooooooooo . . . why must we wait until after hunting season ??? I have no idea ! Perhaps we resemble a couple of old deer and if we leave the house before the end of hunting season some one may shoot us ? Whatever the reason I'm here for another 5 weeks and and seventeen hours.
But other than my bones, who's counting ?
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