“Full-on summer fell like a hammer. By nine in the morning you could already start dreading how hot it was going to be.”
The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was turn on the air conditioner. The house was already hot. The high today will be in the mid 80’s, but the humidity will make it feel hotter. The sky is cloudy, but none are rain clouds. There is a breeze which stirs the hot air and sometimes rings the chimes. All of that makes today a stay home day to luxuriate in the coolness of the house.
When I was a kid, I never minded the heat. It stopped nothing. Sometimes I even walked to and from the pool, from one end of town to the other. Back then it was only a dime to enter, and I had to wear a bathing cap. I was gone most of the day.
No one’s house had air conditioning when I growing up. A fan was the only inside relief. “Hot enough for you?” was rhetorical.
Where I lived in Ghana got the highest temperatures. During the dry season, over 100° was common. I hadn’t ever lived before then where it got so hot. That it was dry mitigated the heat but not enough, but I didn’t complain too much. It was just happenstance. I did take longer showers in the cold water. I went to bed still wet so the air cooled me enough so I could fall asleep.
My summer outfit when I was young was shorts, a blouse, sometimes sleeveless, and sneakers, originally white sneakers, and socks. The only deviation from that was my Sunday, go to church, dress. I wore shorty pajamas to bed, a night time replica of my daytime ensemble. My mother kept a pitcher of Zarex in the fridge. She did make dinner as my father liked his meat and potatoes. The table in the kitchen was against the wall on one side and the stove on the other. It only had 4 chairs around it as that was all it could fit though another chair could be added at the end. My mother always stood and ate at the counter. She did that even later when in our house the table had plenty of room for all of us.
I have things to do and places to go, but they can wait until I want to do them or dare to leave the house.
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July 27, 2023 at 9:50 pm
Hi Kat,
We’re not having record breaking heat, but just a steady row of triple digit afternoons for the next ten days and not a drop of rain in sight. Just typical Texas weather for late July and early August. However, the big story is that last month and this month are setting high temperature records everywhere. Yesterday, a buoy in the Atlantic Ocean, near Miami, recorded the hottest water temperature ever in the Atlantic Ocean of 100°F.
Our Republican friends still stick their heads in the sand and deny that global warming is even a problem. Much less that we are the cause. When the big orange pumpkin was in the White House, climate change was immediately removed from their website.
Our idiot Republican Governor, Greg Abbott, has placed a row of huge orange balls in the middle of the Rio Grand river near Eagle Pass to prevent people from coming across the river. He also has laid razor wire on the U.S. side.
The Federal government ordered him to remove the balls. He thinks that he will win in a court fight because the right wing majority on the Supreme Court will agree with him that a sovereign state has the right to protect its own borders. Unfortunately, the Federal government’s order is based on him interfering with the navigable waterway act. His sovereign state case won’t even be argued in court. Win one for the Biden administration. 🙂
July 28, 2023 at 12:12 am
Hi Bob,
Much of the state has had heavy rainstorms, but they have all skirted the cape. The only saving grace has been we are a bit, only a bit, cooler. Tomorrow Boston could get to the 90’s while well be in the mid 80s. No records have been broken here yet.
I’m just hoping Mar-a-largo suffers from a global warming catastrophe. Maybe that will convince Trump and his minions.
I saw those orange balls on the news. Abbott should have expected being sued for a few reasons. They were unlawfully installed without permission of the towns on each side of the river. I love that Abbott blamed Biden because Biden should have done more to discourage the migrants. Abbott totally ignored that the numbers of migrants crossing illegally was at its lowest level since Biden’s first month as President. Then again, republicans never concern themselves with facts.