June 26, 2007

Hot hot heat

Another day in the 90s. The humidity is so high that any movement takes effort, like walking through water, except without that nice coolness of water. Our house has windows on every available wall, which is wonderful in the winter, but not so great on hot summer days. When I was at my parents' house this afternoon, their house was considerably cooler than mine, even though they don't have air conditioning either.

"We always pull the curtains shut in the morning," my father said. Yeah, we never remember to do that. And we do have an electric fan but I hate the noise a fan makes. I'd rather listen to birdsong and bullfrogs and the sound of teenagers complaining about the heat.

Luckily, we don't get many days above 90, or at least we didn't used to. The worst part today was driving Shaggy Hair Boy to his guitar lesson. The steering wheel was almost too hot to touch, and I could feel myself melting into the car seat as the sun dripped through the windshield. Normally, I sit in the car and write a blog post on my laptop while he's at his lesson, but today I could not bear to have any contact with a hot computer that would likely stick to my sweaty legs. Instead, I drove to the grocery store and bought myself some cold juice.

When I returned home, Skater Boy was filling the ice cube trays. "We're making smoothies later." That sounded to me like a good plan for supper.

I took a spot on the couch. "Someone look at the paper and tell me when the heat wave is going to end."

The newspaper was scattered about the floor. Boy in Black picked up the section nearest him. "I don't see the weather, but I've a page of dead people here. Want to hear the names?"

My daughter reached over to the nearest laptop. "Thunderstorms tomorrow." Thank goodness.

By late afternoon, the lethargic teenagers were beginning to perk up, making phone calls to friends about the evening's Ultimate Frisbee game. When Smart Beautiful Wonderful Daughter came out of the shower, she wandered about in a towel, her hair dripping wet, looking nice and cool. "Let me take a photo," I said, "I want to put something on my blog that isn't miserable."

Girl and cat

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

is that gretel again? or do you have a whole flock of striped, plump, extremely friendly cats lurking near all the young folks?

condolances to all about the heat and the humidity. [or as some used to say when we lived in the south, "it's not the heat, it's the humility."]

jo(e) said...

We do have a whole flock of cats -- seven of them altogether -- but they are all different colours. This cat in this photo, by sheer coincidence, is Gretel again.

S. said...

Last year we had no a/c in the store until the middle of July and all the covers on the books curled open. It sounds like your covers were curling. (That was what it felt like here, too.)

east village idiot said...

It is hotter than hell out in NYC and trust me - every street smells like a fish market at this point. I wish I could live without airconditioning.

Linda said...

I suppose I shouldn't mention that it's been in the mid to high 70s here today.

jo(e) said...

S: Yeah, books, hair, cats -- everything curls in this weather.

East Village Idiot: It's tough to be in the city in this kind of weather. Where I am, it gets nice and cool at night because I'm far enough from the nearest urban heat island.

jo(e) said...

Linda: Oh, go ahead and brag. I think the cooler weather is heading our way.

Ianqui said...

I think you should have a cat in every picture from now on. I like how in the past 2, they've been mimicking what the human is doing!

Iris said...

That is a beautiful picture. Certainly not miserable.

Jennifer (ponderosa) said...

All the water is sucked out of the air here. I have been drying clothes on a rack in the living room in an attempt to get some humidity in the house, and this evening I put vaseline on my son's chapped lips.

Can I come visit you?

Kathryn said...

Meanwhile here in the UK we've had torrential rain and severe flooding, with people killed even with the emergency services attending...and I'm wearing a fleece over my t shirt.
Oh the joys of MidSummer!

Mona Buonanotte said...

Oh, we got yer heat. It was hot this morning before 6 am. I let the kids pour water on themselves when we're outside, so they look like marathon runners. My office is air-conditioned, which just makes me a baby when I step outside.

Love that Daughter and Cat are both engrossed by the Thing Outside!

listie said...

I sure hope the heat breaks soon. I'm supposed to be moving things out of my apartment and back to NewTown, but I can't make myself drag things down 3 flights of stairs and across a beastly hot parking lot in this weather.

Anonymous said...

We had thunderstorms yesterday, and again this morning. They should be your way by today. I know it's weird, but I love this humidity. The sweet green fragrance of the wet woods says "home" to me, and before the rain started, the garden was alive with big swallowtail butterflies. The hotter and more humid it is, the better they like it. Looks like steady warm rain all day today.

a/k/a Nadine said...

It was 88 degrees in my house at 10:00 last night. Ugh. Why doesn't the house retain heat this well in February?

Anonymous said...

Closing the curtains didn't work for us ... I read that the real problem is lack of the right kind of insulation under the roof, to reflect the heat back up. Too hot to think about figuring out how to do that or who to call to do it for us.

jackie said...

We're hoping for thunderstorms tonight too, because the showers we had last night did NOT lift this awful humidity. Curtains would help in our house, I think, but I've heard the same thing about proper attic/under-roof insulation.

Liz Miller said...

Love that picture!