A Beginner’s Notes

I love living in South Florida.  Really.  Every morning I wake up, look outside, and think:  “Man, this is wonderful!”

But there are serpents even in paradise, and I’m not talking about Burmese pythons.   And—alas—this isn’t quite paradise.  Besides, every place has its own peculiar ways of doing things, and in many respects Florida’s are more peculiar than most.  I bought a home in Miami-Dade in January 2011, and I’ve been learning all kinds of things–good and bad–ever since.

I moved here from Washington, DC, where I’d lived for nearly forty years.  I used to write another blog which I started when I first moved to my DC inner city neighborhood—a place riven with tensions between long-time residents and “gentrifying” newcomers.  That effort got me a certain notoriety, some wonderful friends, and a few enemies.

This blog is an effort to put down in pixels what I’m finding out as I go along.  Writing about it helps me try to make sense of things (not that things necessarily make sense).  If others read it, please excuse any rookie mistakes and feel free to correct factual errors.  I hope it may also prove useful to someone else.