9 Reasons To Still Love Florida After the Midterms

Things looked so bleak in Florida the morning after the midterms, I wondered whether I would ever again feel joyful about visiting the state. As of the writing of this blog, recounts, even manual recounts, look likely. But the frontrunners as of yesterday morning continued to be Rick Scott for Senate, and Ron DeSantis, the Trump mini-me, for Florida governor.

Scott is the former governor of the state. When thousands of Parkland high school students turned up on his doorstep (after 17 of their classmates and teachers were slaughtered in a mass school shooting earlier this year) he finally signed a piece of anti-gun legislation raising the age for buying automatic assault rifles from 18 to 21. Before that, Scott was a National Rifle Association (NRA) darling with an A+ rating from the gun lobby.

As for DeSantis — who is routinely applauded by white nationalists — he said he would have vetoed the modest anti-gun legislation that Scott was shamed into signing. Take that, Parkland students!!!!

9 Reasons To Still Love Florida

Even so, I found myself looking for reasons I can still love the state of Florida, and I found nine. Here they are:

1. Sunrises are spectacular

They make you happy to be alive, and rarin’ to go in the mornings

2. Bougainvillea abounds. I used to read novels set in exotic locations where bougainvillea was always flowering. I had no idea what it looked like. Now, I can see it from my condo balcony.

3. Golden sand and clear blue waters. Spectacular. You can’t take that away from Florida.

4. The Palm Beach Book Festival. Poet, Kwame Alexander was a fabulously entertaining guest at the festival in April 2018

5. The Palm Beach Writers Group: great lunches every month with informative speakers like bestselling author Andrew Gross

6. The Breakers Ocean Club where you can play tennis all winter

And, drink the most delicious sangrias made according to a secret recipe by the fabulous Orville at the Beach Club Bar

7. Because someone UP THERE took pity on Palm Beach County voters and provided a spectacular rainbow the morning after the midterms (Photo Credit: Lisa Pouchie)

8. Because you can get a really cheap divorce — for example, if your spouse voted, and cancelled out your vote. (Seen on Australian Avenue, on the way to PBI airport)

9. Because, a supermajority of Floridians voted for amendment 4 on the ballot. Currently, this will restore voting rights to approximately 1.4 million convicted felons upon completion of sentence. As Richard Wolffe of theguardian.com wrote the morning after: “Ron DeSantis won the governorship despite his close ties to white nationalists. He’ll need many more of the white-sheet gang once those former felons start voting.”