It's iguana plop-plop weather!

As I've previously mentioned, it's been "cool enough" in southwest Florida, that we have our windows open. Lately, we're talking 50s in the morning and by 3pm, it's 70. 

As I write this, it's 55° out and would be a "bring yer hoodie!!" day while doing errands. Even though the longer you live here, the more apt you are to be bundled from head to toe as if it's the snow that's coming later due to it being -4 in places. Trust me, I've seen it before. The people wearing down jackets, long pants, mittens, thick sneakers, wooly hats... I'm sweating just thinking about it. Yet there are also people who wear shorts, sneakers, a t-shirt, jacket and no hat, and are fine with it. It's all dependent on what you're doing and how fast you're walking (outside of how fat you are. LOL). 

Anyway, under normal circumstances, the rare occasion that it gets between 40 and 60, the news reports talk about the falling iguanas and to be mindful of them. 

Yes, there's such a thing as falling iguanas.

The big dudes with the long (sometimes spiked) tails hang out in the trees. There's a picture or two of them somewhere on my blog. I just don't remember when I added it. They sleep in the trees and night and wander around during the day. The height advantage warms them up before they can take a walk. 

So when it's "below freezing" by Florida standards, the iguanas go into a state of shut down and paralysis. They end up falling from the trees and landing on the ground. They're not hurt from the fall, but they do make a plop when they hit the grass. 

Instead of it "raining cats and dogs", Florida rains lizards in the cold. 

The places that are keen to having the reptiles in their trees probably have speed bumps in the grass right now, but allegedly it's going to get worse over night and into tomorrow, as the news reports this morning it'll be in the 30s in the morning. 

Am I still too far south to see snow??? 

I don't know what's worse - knowing big iguanas hang out in trees and on cold snaps can fall on you if you're not careful, or the fact people are reporting we're going to feel 35° this weekend. 

Sure, it's dropped to 45 a couple times, but I haven't seen anything below that since we moved here. I thought Florida was year round tropics? This definitely blows Tay's opinion out of the chunky monkey iguana tree, for sure. 

The humidity is gone, but the New England fall has decided to pay a visit?

At any rate, where ever you are, keep safe and warm. I've got to wrap this up because I am due to go out and shop with someone in less than an hour. They need my help with electronic stuff and want me to go with them to buy things. 

Until this place gets itself sorted...

Cheers;

My room's lit up like a Candy Cane Christmas Tree!

I know it's been a couple weeks since I've posted and I've really wanted to make some comments to my blog about what's been going on, but it's hard since I can't fully comment about a situation without going into exact details. 

Which is hard, seeing how the news outlets far and wide are starting to share basic information.

What's happening is a sticky situation to talk about since I try to not put exact locations in my blog for a lot of reasons. I want to talk about what happened January 1, 2024 in my neighborhood, but I can't put down names, places, thoughts, etc, because then I start getting into a grey area that could get me into trouble for potentially spreading gossip, ill will and negativity. 

I can try to give a basic story and allude to things without giving a lot of information.

Now that the dust is settling... of sorts. 

January 1, 2024, I had attempted to go to bed early since I had to be at work on Tuesday. I'm always losing sleep when I've been off for a few days and have to go back to work.. even on Sundays, it's hard to get a full night's rest for Monday, because I just can't shut my brain off long enough to wake up refreshed on Monday. 

But I try.

So I get into bed around 8:30pm and I don't know what time it was, but EMS sirens are blaring. 

Since it's been cool enough to sleep with the windows open, my mom and I have done just that. Therefore, my room shades were up just enough to have my window open and get some air.

Around 9:05, my room is getting lit up like a dull candy cane Christmas Tree. Because my shades weren't fully up, the light was trickling in through what was open.

I got up to look outside, as my room faces our street, and all the units I could see, were doing a disco dance to emergency blinky blink. 

I went to find my mother, as her room is in the back of the condo and she can hear the main road out of our complex. I told her there's a ton of EMS lights outside, and she said that it must be all the noise she was hearing since 8:45. 

She had gotten up from bed, as she was watching TV in her room, and we walked into my room. She looked outside and said we should probably get a little more dressed and go outside. See what's happing. 

So we did. 

As we got out into our garage and opened it up, we were able to see a little more of what was going on. People were standing on sidewalks looking to what would be our left. We got into our driveway and counted two fire engines, one ambulance, three cruisers. At this time, it was roughly 9:08.

We struggled a bit to squint and see what was going on, without walking towards the commotion. Due to all the flashing lights, it was hard to tell who was on the ground, but we could tell by the cars who's house it was. We just didn't know who was being resuscitated by hospital workers. 

The longer we stood in our driveway, the more some neighbors walked around. We didn't know who they were, but we could make out the shadow of one person we knew, so we walked to that person to see what happened. 

The person told us it was a neighbor from across the street and a couple houses down. From what this guy (we were talking to) heard, some shady things went down, that I shouldn't be repeating here. All the guy knew was what someone else told him (which happened to be the owner of the driveway / the person who called for help). 

Shockingly, we all stood in this guy's driveway (the one who told us the news) and continued watching what was going on. The guy on the ground happened to be late 30s and was being worked on for roughly 30 minutes before a police officer asked us to back away because things weren't looking well and emergency services didn't want us all ogling in case worse happened. 

My mom and I went back to our driveway and the guy we talked to, stepped back into his. As the minutes ticked by, my mom and I kept thinking there was no way this dude was going to survive what ever was happening to him. Since he had lost consciousness for 45 minutes at this point, he would be brain dead if they got him breathing again. 

A couple minutes to 10, a neighbor from across the street came out to walk their dog. They came out just as the emergency service crew had given up on the man and put a blanket over him. 

Sadly, he passed away. 

We walked over to our neighbor, told him what was going on, and the neighbor was very much surprised. He had been friendly enough with the guy under the blanket, but didn't know how the guy was into some dark stuff. Without giving the dog a walk, our neighbor took the animal back in the house and brought his wife down instead. He had told her what was going on and she was in disbelief as well. 

At this point, it's about ten after ten and the partner of the guy is out, surrounded by neighbors. People trying to calm her down and not do anything stupid. Luckily she had enough support right there and they kept her quiet enough so that the police could do their job. 

After our neighbors debated on going over to give their sympathy, they opted to go back inside. My mom and I went back to our driveway and watched the fire engines go away, the ambulance leave and one of the cop cars disappear. All that was left was a body under a blanket, two cruisers and a lot of questions.

It would be a matter of time before a coroner and anyone else show up, so about 10:45, my mom and I go in the house. It was at this point, she had called a neighbor who lives closer to the scene, to ask a couple questions, as that neighbor had been texting my mom about what was going on.

Without giving out details of the conversation, I'm just going to say we got a little more information about what transpired. We all agreed that we figured something dirty was happening on our block, but didn't realize it was this bad. 

The next morning, I got up to find my side of the street covered with unmarked government issued cars. There was just as many plain clothed officers and high end agencies, that I'm sure if you're paying attention, you can figure out what happened. 

I will say this: the beaded metal necklace with police badge you see cops wear on crime shows... it's legit. They mean business, and I do have to say the people I spoke to, were nice to me. 

As the cars were blocking driveways, I had to ask if someone could be so kind and move their vehicle. The gentleman who moved the car, approached me with a smile and a conversation, so I can't say it was a horrible experience. He was friendly and allowed me to crack a joke at the situation.

I said to him that "I'd like to wish you a happy new year, but given the circumstance, it's not too happy" and he essentially told me it's all in his job and it's his line of work, so it's okay to wish him a happy new year. When he said it's part of the job, I said "job security then" and he smiled. So at least it was positive?

We had talked for another minute and I explained where he could move the car (one of the empty driveways nearby) and he thanked me immensely because he said that he would park in that one, to save more movement on the street by them. 

Off we went and I got going to work. 

While I was working, I'd get random texts from my mom. Little bits of information here, a couple more thoughts there. 

By the time I got home, the word on the block was that some major stuff was going on under our noses and no one knew about it. 

The next day (Wednesday) was when the local news were breaking the story. The owner of the driveway was arrested on some charges unrelated to what happened on the street, as the police are actively investigating the death in the driveway (one thing led to another). 

What we know right now, January 13, 2024 is the owner of the driveway is in police custody until next month, unless he gets bailed out. There was a memorial service for the deceased on Monday and I would hope there was a big turnout to celebrate the kid's life. From the little I knew of him, he seemed like an okay fellow. 

I know I'm cutting a lot of information out, but I'm trying to be respectful. 

Yeah, yeah, since when does my filter limit what I say?? 

In cases of active police investigations and not wanting to get called in as a witness or anything, I have to stay as clean as I can. Even though what you are reading here is what I would tell police. I don't know much else except names, locations and opinions. 

I do know part of me wanted to desperately get my DSLR out and shoot photos that night (it's the Communications major & English minor in me) but I didn't. I could have easily submitted an essay with the photos to the news outlets instead of them coming here and wasting time talking to people at the gate, but I knew I couldn't. It's not my job to do this type of stuff, even though it'd be nice to use my major / minor these days.  

I want to share a lot more, but I can't. I'm obligated to be as neutral as I can and not give details out that could incriminate me or anyone else. It's the nature of observing and trying to relay everything back. You have to pick and choose what you say and do. I've probably already say too much in here, so I'm going to leave it at that. 

There's no positive right now for the woman who lost her boyfriend, but I hope she does find peace in knowing he's somewhere watching out for her and that she can move on knowing he's not suffering anymore. In time, wounds heal. I have seen much of these incidents, and you have to let life do its thing. 

Hopefully the police find the answers they need to close the investigations and the man arrested gets put away for a very long time (based on what I know of him and what has happened). 

Until the dust fully settles, take care of yourselves.

Cheers;