It's Raining What ???

Funny word: Rain! We know we need it, but we'd rather not have it (most of the time). For as much as it does for us, it's still a bit of a downer. The word itself can be used in lots of ways. Heavy rain. Light rain. A metaphor for "bad", as "into each life a little rain must fall." Too much of a good thing: "It's raining money." Normally we're talking about water, right? Well, not necessarily. There's a song about "Raining Men." And a favorite expression- "It's raining cats and dogs."

But 2010 will go down as the year a new expression (and use of the word "rain") was coined. Hold the press on the latest edition of the Oxford English Dictionary- we have a last minute addition! Odd! Because it isn't even raining. It's snowing most places in the country. It's blowing most places in the country. But here in Florida (the Florida Keys to be exact)- it's just plain cold. Very cold. Elsewhere there may be frost on the pumpkin, but here there is ice on the strawberries- never a good thing. And the orange trees? They have skipped the processing plant this year and are going into direct production of frozen orange juice!

Which brings me back to the "new rain thingy." It's so cold. How cold is it? It's so cold that Green Iguanas are actually suspending their bodily functions (not dead, just in some suspended animation state) and falling out of the trees. I'm not lying! They're dropping all over the place- along side the road and even into some of the swimming pools (saw that one on the nightly news). Headlines in the local rags: "It's Raining Iguanas."

So yes, rest of the country, it is cold here too. We don't have to shovel snow (yet), just those big green lizards. It is after all, raining iguanas. You can now stick that in your Funk and Wagnalls....