Tag Archives: Heat

If You Can’t Stand the Heat But Won’t Leave the Kitchen: Everyday Magic, Day 397

Posted on August 31, 2011 | 1 Comment

The kitchen in this case is Kansas, and although I won’t leave, I kind of can’t stand the heat anymore. After a few days in the high 80s, I lost my resistance, or maybe after many weeks in the high 90s/100s, I just lost my mind. Need I add that it’s 100 degrees (as usual) and will be the same tomorrow.

So what to do? I try work, but the heat distracts me. Ice bars help as does ice water. Movies? Done that. Shopping in highly air-conditioned places? Done that also. Lying on the cool floor? The animals have taken up much of that space. In fact, just about all the usual heat distractions have been implemented so often this summer that I’m reduced to simply sitting in front of the not-so-good air-conditioner with the not-so-good overhead fan.

Meanwhile there’s just the breath by breath consciousness of this weather to endure, observe and stop judging. Meanwhile the impending cooler weather is well over three days away, too far to pin much hope to when time bakes the earth right now. So it’s back to the drawing board and out of the sun. The one place I won’t go, however, is the kitchen except to open the freezer and stick my head in occasionally.

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Acclimating To The Heat: Everyday Magic, Day 375

Posted on July 26, 2011 | 1 Comment

It’s 6:30 p.m. and 97 degrees. Earlier, it was 101, and strangely enough, I’m not agonizing as much as I was a week or two ago. “It’s warm out,” I tell myself jauntily before turning up the a.c. in the car and heading to the recycling center, where I break a sweat lifting the first bag of plastic bottles. Later it may drop to 85, and it’ll feel like springtime…..if the humidity loosens its grip also. The summer heat in Kansas, especially this summer, is a challenge that keeps playings its hit songs, and those of us living in this music run out of energy for complaining about it after a while.

For now, I just sit tight under the fan, in front of the a.c. that barely works, and next to the sprawled out dog on the floor. One day this will end like all gifts and hardships of time, but for now, there’s nothing to do but keep living in increasing acclimatization, which means a minimum of motion during certain hours of the day, aiming myself toward coffee shops with strong a.c. and icy coffee, and keeping my mind and body moving accordingly, turtle like in its thickening shell, as I dream of cold fronts.

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“Satan Called: He Wants His Weather Back”: Everyday Magic, Day 370

Posted on July 19, 2011 | 1 Comment

Dinner

If only. I would be more than happy to pack up this searing heat and send it below and beyond, but I’m afraid that the devil is chilling somewhere while we in Kansas (and other places) aren’t. It’s 100 degrees. It’s always 100 degrees. When it’s above 98, it doesn’t matter is it’s 99 or 105: it’s 100 degrees, and it will be everyday for as long as any weather forecast projects into the future. While I’m sure it will one day be cooler, like maybe in October, for now, this is what we have.

What to do with it? I find myself dragging from car to coffee shop, fueled by air-conditioning and iced coffee, pausing to melt into the ground on occasion. At yoga last night, despite the air-conditioning, I was surprised by how all of us could barely hold any position before collapsing into the floor. Luckily, the teacher understood how to herd us, and focused instead on back bends and heart openings.

Home later, I indulged in dinner, following this recipe:

  1. Cut cantaloupe in half
  2. Insert spoon

Dessert was some gazpacho and a tablespoon of peanut butter. Last night, dinner was simply ice cream and a plum. Ice has become downright sexy, and what I — as well as many of us — crave most. I mean, desperate times call for desperate measures.

Meanwhile, I tell myself there are ways to arrive right where I am without so much complaint or weather-wishing, but it’s probably at 5 a.m. when the temperature is only 80 degrees or so, and the spiders are migrating across the porch. Or it’s right now when I walk out of this slightly-too-cold coffee shop into the first blast of heat, bringing me back to the sauna (when there’s no wind) or dryer (when there is) of this summer.

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20 Things To Do When It’s Above 100 Degrees: Everyday Magic, Day 364

Posted on July 11, 2011 | 2 Comments

In Kansas in the summer, we’ve become experts on this! Here’s some ideas:

  1. Sit in a comfortable chair, slumped down for extra comfort, in front of an air-conditioner with an overhead fan on, and read some trashy magazines.
  2. Go to a movie. Any movie. As long as it’s funny. Even if it’s stupid.
  3. Eat ice cream for dinner and fruit for dessert.
  4. Drink iced tea, water, coffee, juice…..a lot of it.
  5. Go swimming, but only in the morning before the water is the same temperature as a bathtub.
  6. Take a lovely walk wearing as little as publicly acceptable at about 10 p.m. when the temperature drops to 90.
  7. Wander through big box stores with iced beverage in hand. Don’t buy anything but allow yourself to stare at massive screens full of moving images.
  8. Go to a bookstore. Stay there for a long time (as long as it’s air-conditioned).
  9. Go back to sleep and wake up when it’s cooler….in September sometime.
  10. Go the basement and sort nuts and bolts.
  11. Get a watermelon, chill it, and then eat it as your main meal for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
  12. Forget about dishes, laundry and anything else that requires heat.
  13. Take a lukewarm bath or shower several times each day.
  14. Sit in the path of a big fan and plan your next vacation to the Arctic.
  15. Look over old pictures from when there was four feet of snow hiding your car. Remember what a difference a season makes.
  16. Do what the animals do: lie on the cool floor, stretched out, sleeping for hours.
  17. Call a friend in Houston or Tucson for perspective. Call a friend in Vermont or the Yukon to make fun of their 70 or 80-degree “heat wave.”
  18. Don’t use the stove when it’s over 90 degrees, the burners when it’s over 100. Tell the kids that frozen peas taste good (frozen grapes especially good).
  19. Don’t make any major decisions, especially about where to move, until October.
  20. Get in the car, turn the a.c. and radio way up, and drive somewhere…..like maybe Colorado to about 13,000 feet where you’ll need a winter coat.

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So Friggin’ Hot: Everyday Magic, Days 342-343

Posted on June 6, 2011 | Comments Off

Ice water? Check. Sitting in front of air-conditioning with ceiling fan on high? Check, check. Bag of cold cherries? Happy check. Wearing as little as possible without embarrassing myself in public? Of course. One thing I’ve learned in my 32 Midwestern summers is how to get through summer, but that doesn’t mean I can’t complain up one side of a hot wall and down another. Summers in Kansas are hot, and this summer, the heat is blasting in a few weeks earlier than usual, making me yearn for Thursday’s forecast (high of 88!). Of course, the closer it gets to 100, the lower the humidity usually gets too.

Complicating or aiding — hard to tell yet — my first intense encounter with the heat is also my first intense encounter with fly-by-night poison ivy and chiggers. Gentle readers who don’t know what the chigger is, I won’t destroy your innocence, but suffice to say that black flies, no-see-ums and mosquitoes have nothing on the chigger. In a sense, being in Kansas is like living with the Fire Swamps of The Princess Bride but instead of ROUS (Rodents of Unusual Size), quicksand and exploding fires, there’s chiggers, ticks and HOUP (Heat of Unusual Persistence). Walking out into the grass is a dangerous journey that will likely leave its mark on you for days to come.

Having been so marked, I’m now on steroids, which makes me both want to nap and run fast simultaneously, and buzzes my body in perfect tempo with the roaring cicadas (aren’t they early too?). The hotter it gets, the louder it gets: a.c., cicadas, movies we must watch to distract ourselves, and bags of ice we must hit with a hammer to break up. So I sit in the roaring echo of air and insect, my fingers wanting to type twice as fast as usual and my mind craving only cool water, and remind myself that sometime soon — maybe 4 a.m. — it will drop down to the 70s, and if I wake (likely, given the drugs I’m on), I will step outside and breathe in the moment of non-sauna living, then go back to sleep, dreaming of winter and preparing myself for the long stretch of summer.

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