Gulf Breeze, Florida, USA

If you live in Florida, you may spot some parakeets at your back-yard feeder. They are descendants of house pets which have been set loose and gone wild. Albeit invasive, at least parakeets are colorful and cute. The rest of the world calls them budgies, by the way. [2018]

The Everglades, Florida, USA

If today is your birthday, may you continue to strengthen your wings so that they will carry you to worlds unseen, lift you above the madness, and sharpen your vision of what lies ahead. In the words of poet William Blake (a fellow Sagittarian): "No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings." [2018]

Navarre, Florida, USA

The first snows of the season fell on the "lower 48" this past week. Most squalls delivered not quite enough to build a snowman. Oh, well. Snowmen can be made of material other than snow, at least ersatz snowmen. Snowmen? Didn't you get the gender-neutral memo? We now call them snow people! [2017]

Century, Florida, USA

You don't even have to invite Lady Liberty to your picnic (or pay her airfare from New York). She's already at the park waiting for you and the gang in Century, Florida. Perhaps she got confused. After all, she came to the U.S. to mark a century of the French Revolution. [2005]

Celebration, Florida, USA

February is all about the number two, and 2/22 is a palindrome too! It may be time to celebrate our street signs and let them help sell the places where we live. How would you evaluate the design? the color? the font? the emblem? the cartouche? How would you evaluate the street names themselves? Be sure to see tomorrow's post. [2017]

St. Petersburg, Florida, USA

The street signs on Snell Isle are far from standard issue. They look like they could be drawn from a museum (a) of natural history (see the panther?) or (b) of art (see the Roman frieze?). As for the panther: The neighborhood is his former habitat. And, as for the demigod trying to be helpful: Could be either Bes or Bacchus. [2009]

Miami, Florida, USA

Paving the way for Geography Awareness Week this year were the Glasgow Climate accords. Yet, the agreement will allow greenhouse gases to rise by 14% over the next nine years even though they need to fall by 45%. Perhaps this memorial in Woodlawn Park Cemetery is destined to be seen as a harbinger of things to come: a graveyard home for our planet. [2014]

Key West, Florida, USA

Odds and Evens, Ones and Twos, Singles and Doubles, Which one be You? Here's one performance artist who just jumped off his skateboard (barely visible). The setting: a sunny Key West sidewalk that should be wider. Do you see how crowded it is? [2018]

Gulf Breeze, Florida, USA

Remember "those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer" when you felt like he looks? Remember those days of hot dogs and pretzels and beer? Thanks Nat King Cole for giving us a lens (now almost six decades old) through which to see the world. [2018]

Key Largo, Florida, USA

What is the strangest thing about this mailbox canine? (a) She does all the work to attract other dogs to her master's motel, yet does not qualify for a room herself. (b) She would have been loved by Gertrude Stein because of her resemblance to fashionable Basket. (c) She will not budge from that post, almost as if she has a stick up her *rump*. [2014]

 

Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA

Greek Islands: Crete, Euboea, Lesbos, Rhodes, Chios, Kefalonia, Corfu, Lemnos, Samos, Naxos, Zakynthos, Thassos, Andros, Lefkada, Karpathos, Kos, Kythira, Icaria, Skyros, Paros, Tinos, Samothrace, Milos, Kea, Amorgos, Kalymnos, Ios, Kythnos, Astypalaia, Ithaca. Any look familiar? [2005]

Navarre, Florida, USA

Here is an urban skyline that sits like a crown on top of a narrow ribbon of sand, a barrier island between sound and sea. The island is regularly bombarded by storm waves, coastal currents, hurricane-force winds, heavy rains, the outflow from Santa Rosa Sound, and rising sea levels. Is all that urban development in this particular place a good investment? [2018]

Miami, Florida, USA

Barnum's Animals are out of their cages and back on the African savannah, where they have flourished since 2018. That is when Nabisco redesigned the box for its animal crackers. What do we mean by "out of their cages"? See the gorilla in his cage on the old box below. [2019]

Panama City Beach, Florida, USA

Barnum's Animals are out of their cages and back on the African savannah, where they have flourished since 2018. That is when Nabisco redesigned the box for its animal crackers. Your assignment, resurrected from primary school memories, is to write an essay on "How the Lion got his Mane." [2018]

Alligator Alley, Florida, USA

Here along Alligator Alley, there are three levels of mail delivery. The mid-level box is for air mail destined for human hands. The lower-level box is for alligators. And, the higher-level box is for all the birds with big bills, like the egrets and herons. [1983]

Panacea, Florida, USA

Adjacent to the Wakulla County Airport is a housing development with a rather unique sales pitch. It's a development with fly-in homesites. However, there doesn't seem to have been much diffusion even though Tarpine and the idea of fly-in homes has been around for decades. [1995]

Tavernier, Florida, USA

Her only duty in life is to accept the mail six out of seven days every week. Where does she work? The Florida Keys, the one place in the world where mermaids might actually be real. [2018]

Gulf Breeze, Florida, USA

Today is the 100th anniversary of my mother's birth. Happy Birthday, mom! Two years younger than my dad, you were. Your issue numbered one: me. So, let me take advantage of the day to reflect on the past and remember that into each life some rain must fall. [2018]

Key West, Florida, USA

"Something is going to change!" Whenever you see the surveyors plying their craft, you know they are drawing the line between yesterday and tomorrow. Yesterday: Memorial Day. Tomorrow: Labor Day, a day to honor workers like this. In between: three months of summer, a season when "something is going to change!" [2018]

Destin, Florida, USA

So faux: That's not a real light house. It's part of Destin's HarborWalk Village. If you are building along the coast and want to make money, you better build an ersatz lighthouse: not to guide ships into the harbor, but to guide tourists into the nearby money pits. [2018]