Retired: Venice Florida Snowbird

by Mary V
(Venice, FL)

We visit from Ohio. We stay in Venice, Florida.

We rent a house for a month from a pair of retirees who treat their Florida house like a time-share, staying in it themselves only one month a year and renting it out the rest of the time.

We go because my mother hates the Ohio winters. She's elderly and has arthritis.

I can't say I actually like much about Florida, let alone love it. The flowers are nice, the beach is nice.

Negatives? Even in the dead of winter, it's hot as hell: the town is overrun with more retirees every year, most of whom should not be allowed behind the wheel of a car, yet drive anyway: huge insects: everywhere you want to go is crowded.

I typically get up and clean the house and do the laundry, then we usually go out to lunch, then we either go to the beach or sit around the pool.

My old people swim, paint or read, while I write. Then we go out again for dinner, after which my old people either watch some TV or see a movie, while I web-surf or write some more.

Then we go to sleep, or they go to sleep - while I have hot-flashes and curse the ineffective air conditioning.