** A quick update before getting to it: Nana made it through surgery, and, despite some difficulties early on, is recovering well. Way to go, Nana!

Sunshine gal...

When my clothes are sticking to me in the dead of winter, I hate Florida.

When my air-conditioning bill is just as high in January as it is in June, I hate Florida.

When the ocean is so warm, it feels like bath water, and ice cubes down my back fee refreshing, I hate Florida.

But when I spend the first weekend of March sunbathing by the pool and waterskiing and speedboating around a lake, beneath a cloudless sky, I remember why it is I came back here in the first place.

It's a trade-off -- Snow skis for water skis. Fortunately, falling face-first in water is a lot more pleasant than catching a mouthful of packed snow.

Sometimes during the winter, I get grouchy and nostalgic. I long for the days of turtleneck sweaters, hot chocolate and warm, sweet-smelling logs burning in the fireplace, all of which I came to know very well during my years in North Carolina.

But when my friends call me and complain about high heat bills, chipping ice from their windshields and dreary frozen rain, I remember just how good I've got it.

The truth is, you always want what you can't have. I want snow when it's sunny, whine for warmth when I'm chilly and yearn for palm trees or autumn leaves whenever I'm in the presence of the other.

I can't help it. I've tasted both, and now I reap the seasonal misery of desiring what is undesirable to everyone else.

I look at all the northern transplants around here, and, unlike other natural Floridians, I understand them. They bask in the 90-degree sun, while the rest of us pine for the slightest hint of winter. It's like they are still thawing out from years spent in Ohio, New York and Indiana.

I feel that.

Four-and-a-half years in the frosty Appalachian mountains, waiting for the bus while bearing inhumanly icy temperatures taught me a lot, as did my annual slip and fall on a patch of black ice (of course, right in the middle of a packed sidewalk).

But 3-and-a-half years away has taught me a lot too. Showing up for work with sweat marks all over my clothes is almost, if not just, as embarrassing as falling in front of your peers. Neither way works well for me.

So when you think of me lounging on a pool raft or cutting through waves behind a wicked-cool speed boat while you're bundling up in layers just to check the mail, you can hate me, if you must. But don't forget, I've been on your side of the weather front -- and I miss it, too.