Jun 27 2003
Heat Wave
So it’s been about a million degrees here the past couple of days, which equals an even crankier than usual Me. It’s like living on the sun. By the time I got to the gym after work on Wednesday (it was a mere 88°F/31°C that day and I walked there up hill, arriving light-headed: what was I thinking?!), my hands were swollen little sausages and working out, despite the air-conditioning in the gym, didn’t help matters.
It was so hot yesterday that I took the cable car home, because walking up the hill, even on the shady side, was out of the question at 97 fun-filled degrees F (or 36C, which is fun-filled as a bra size but not as weather). Just leaving the overly air-conditioned office building, where I had been shivering all day in my appropriate for the baking heat of the outdoors but inappropriate for the mini-Alaska of the indoors outfit was enough. The heat hit with the force of a blast furnace, and you know what? The sun’s rays really do beat down. Like you can feel them hitting your skin and making it sizzle in spite of SPF 45 sunscreen.
This makes me wonder how people in Arizona and Florida and other places that are legendarily hot on a routine basis survive. They must go from air-conditioned car to equally A/C’d offices and then back to A/C’d apartments or houses, but the unnatural cold of the A/C is almost as unpleasant as the natural heat of the sun. Does one’s body eventually become accustomed to it and better able to cope?
Fortunately for us, the heat wave is supposed to be over by Sunday, and we should be back to our usual daytime highs of around 70 F/21 C. Sweating will once more be relegated to the gym, where it belongs, and I will no longer fear setting foot outside. I can’t wait to hear the fog horns again, signalling the arrival of the blessed fog and its natural air-conditioning.
4 Responses to “Heat Wave”
As much as I hate the way too long winters of WI… I can’t say I’m a big fan of summer either where I have to dress for winter so I can survive my overly AC’ed office but melt outside. I really can’t seem to win.
It’s been quite hot in my part of the country as well. South Floridians DO just go from AC’ed buildings to AC’ed cars, but you know what? Going between the hot and cold (just walking from your cold car, hot parking lot, to cold store) really wears you out. Many people say that’s why they’re so tired in the summer.
Plus, electric bills are outrageous this time of year, because the air is pumping 24 hours a day. And you spend a lot more on gas too, because the AC in the car is on full blast wayyyy too much to be healthy for the ozone. But, you do what you gotta do.
Saw on TWC that SF had hit 97F and could NOT believe it! I just knew you were miserable. Glad for you that the fog has arrived, although the fog is the reason I left SF! I need sun and heat, although 97 is a little too hot even for me!
The heat wave is killing my arthritis down here, walking from the stifling hot outside to the freezing store inside and then back again. I actually dislike air conditioning, and use my fan in the car before I try the A/C.
I agree, the sweating should definitely be left to the gym.