Don't be jealous of Florida

DID YOU EVER have one of those conversations that you thought would go one way but took you in a really unexpected direction?

I had three of them Tuesday. And I can't believe how much better they made me feel about Philly and the blizzard that has buried us up to our whiny mouths.

I'd been prickly about the snow. My street got plowed, yes, but I'm itchy from woolly scarves and sweaters and thwarted by how long it takes to slip and slide from one place to another.

Poor, poor me.

I needed to remember that I'd once again don breezy cotton tops and sockless flats (because, apparently, wearing summer clothes as recently as Christmas Eve, when it was 71 degrees, wasn't gift enough). I needed someone in a balmy climate to describe all that awaits me when winter ends.

So I called Steve Miller. He lives in Tampa, Fla., where Tuesday's mercury lolled around at 74 degrees. He's a comedian, game for nonsense. I closed my eyes and asked him what the sun felt like in the land of just-picked citrus.

And make it poetic, I pleaded.

"When I emerge from my apartment and I am walking toward my car - it's about a 200-foot walk - those moments are just tranquil," said Miller, his words landing like sweet-talk on my frostbitten ears.

"The birds chirp, the sun warms your skin and fills you with joy and a sense of wonder at the beauty of the natural world. The love from Mother Nature makes you feel as if life is eternal."

Tell me more, I begged. How will you spend the upcoming weekend?

"I'll have friends over and we'll hang around the pool and barbecue," he said, "burgers and hot dogs, seafood - it'll be like Fourth of July."

Will there be cocktails?

"We'll float in the pool and drink margaritas," he said.

If only Philly were like Florida! I said jealously. That's when Miller, who once lived in New York City and suffered through many a miserable winter, put my petulance into perspective.

"Philly and New York are historical and cultural seats of the Northeast, with so much to offer!" he said enthusiastically. "They're beautiful cities with great museums and nightlife, where you can find something delicious to eat 24/7! You can spend a lifetime exploring them."

Florida, he countered, has enviable weather only a few months out of the year. Its summers are brutal; without air-conditioning, you'll lose your mind.

It has people who still want to fly the Confederate flag, who love monster- truck jams. It has other people who, in the bitterly contested presidential election of 2000, "proved their inability to properly participate in American democracy."

It also has alligators.

"We have signs that say, 'Don't feed the alligators,' which proves that we actually have to be told not to feed them," said Miller. "I don't know if the weather affects our IQ or what."

But for a short time in winter, he said, Florida gets to be the envy of better places, like Philly.

"If Philly had all it has, but also had really great weather, that just wouldn't be fair," he said.

I have never, ever thought of it that way. I felt so encouraged by the perspective of this warm-weather comedian that I called another one - David Christopher. He's co-owner of Miami's Just the Funny, an improv-theater company.

I couldn't have gotten him at a better time. He had just returned from his daughter's school, which was hosting a "snow day": A truck had just dumped a massive, 6-foot-high pile of shaved ice in the playground, and the kids were playing in it.

Because "the only thing white and powdery in Miami is cocaine," said Christopher.

"I'm dressed in shorts and flip-flops, watching these kids in coats and boots play in shaved ice, surrounded by beautiful green foliage and sunshine," he said. "It's surreal."

I felt so ashamed. I never could have imagined, in all my whining about the Blizzard of 2016, that children elsewhere were being peddled phony snow instead of the real stuff.

At least Miriam Hill's preteen son Luke knows what a decent snowstorm looks like. Hill and her husband, Nick Simon, moved last month from Fairmount to Brisbane, Australia, for Nick's job.

She's been posting Facebook photos of the grinning family, clad in T-shirts and shorts, looking warm and happy as they discover exotic new birds, reptiles, and flora in their sunny new town.

Still, seeing photos of the Philly snow has her wistful. She wishes she were here to pull on her tights for a bracing jog on Kelly Drive or to sled with Luke down the Art Museum steps.

"I used to hear people say they missed the seasons" when they moved from a climate like Philly's to a place like San Diego, said Hill, who sounded wistful when we spoke on the phone. "I thought I understood what they meant. But now I really get it."

"I don't want people to think I'm complaining," she said. "Brisbane is beautiful. But this feeling is very strange."

I guess we really can't know what we've got until it's gone.

Oh, hell, of course we can. And I can't wait until the stuff melts.

Email: polaner@phillynews.com

Phone: 215-854-2217

On Twitter: @RonniePhilly