Heat Wave

Mid to Upper 90's all week. Add in enough humidity to drown the planet, and you have this week's Rochester weather conditions. Phew! It's enough to make you sweat. I broke down and bought another fan - one for the kitchen, one for the living room, one for the bathroom, two for the boys' room, and now, one for my room as well. Bit of overkill for a less than 800 sq ft little place, don't you think?

Our air conditioning consists of one small window unit in the living room. Normally that is plenty to keep everyone happy. The boys tend to open windows often, and since our unit is shaded by lots of gracious trees, we don't get fried to a sizzle in the blazing heat of afternoon intense sun even though we are on the second (top) floor. But these days, even the pool water is tepid and more like a soggy bath than a refreshing dunk.

I can't really complain though. DJ and Shannon and the girls are undergoing temperatures in the upper 100's! They say even with central air, the interior of the house is a roasting 80 something. The horses are wilting not to mention anything that once was green and growing. Its even worse in places like Arizona where the temperatures are hitting 108 and higher.

What did people do before air conditioning? Could explain the good die young thing. My grandmother used to run a conveyor belt for an ice house when she was young. Seems they cut blocks of ice out of the frozen lakes in the winter and stored them in underground vaults packed in sawdust to keep them from melting. In the summer they would haul them up to ground level, load them on wagons (and later trucks) and deliver blocks to businesses who sold them to people. Messy.

People nowadays are full of ideas about how to stay cool. Check out this site:

http://www.wikihow.com/Cool-Yourself-Without-Air-Conditioning

Just for future reference. Last summer was one of the mildest I remember in a long time. I remember being thankful that I didn't have to go through chemo in a hot summer. This year seems more typical. I wonder if that means we will have a snowy winter??!!