Yesterday you could have fried an egg on my thigh and that’s certainly not the sizzle appeal a woman wants. My hotness was due to the blisteringly heat and humidity of summer. It came on like a Mack Truck out of nowhere. Too much too soon. The air was thick with moisture, like having a warm, wet towel wrapped around your entire body while trying to breathe through the weave. Even after a refreshing shower I was instantly sticky once back outside. I could barely breathe through the film of heat that coated my skin like Saran Wrap. I tried to garden but the water dripped from my brow and I felt dizzy. I was soaked and suffocating by my own sweat.
This gal is not a sun worshiper. You will never see me laying on a beach or sitting outside on a lawn chair unless I’m under a canopy. I’m pasty white for all seasons, somewhere between a cadaver and a bed sheet. It’s not so much that I dislike a tan; I can’t bare the heat on my skin. It burns me and I can't breathe. It feels like the world is closing in on me. If there’s a breeze, a slight movement of air to flow over my skin, I can go outside and manage without losing my cool, but when there’s high temperatures and humidity, it kills me. Like daylight to a vampire, I hide inside, shut the windows and draw the curtains.
Before, when it stayed hot for days and weeks, the upstairs of our house was unbearable. Every room has a ceiling fan but they don’t cool the air, they just whip it around making our moisture clad bodies feel slightly cooler as the perspiration evaporates. Turn the fan off and the heat closes in like a thief in the night, stealing your very breath away. I know we all get hot, I see hubby glistening from perspiration, but he never seems to mind, he says it doesn't bother him. I joke that maybe in a previous life, I was burned at the stake as a witch, or buried alive before embalming assured you were dead. There has to be some reason for why I panic when I get over heated.
Without air conditioning the pups could never sleep in deep heat and humidity. The poor babies would twist and turn trying to find comfort, so I can’t imagine what a dog locked in a hot car must go through. It’s the stuff of nightmares! Even when I used to wet their paws and stomachs so they could lay with their little legs up for the ceiling fan to beat air down it was only a temporary reprieve until the hair dried. I had a table the same height at the foot of the bed so they could drink from their water dish when needed. It was nasty, fitful nights of panting and heavy breathing for us all. Even a window fan gave little comfort when the air outside was only a few degrees cooler than inside. Sometimes when it was really bad we slept downstairs on the floor.
Luckily we no longer have to suffer inside the house. The heat pump we put in a few years back has been worth every dollar and then some. Now we are able to sleep without gasping for breath. My pups don’t know how lucky they are, they’ll sleep easy without a care in the world. We bought a double split, one unit for the downstairs and one for the bedroom so we have comfort on both floors.
I’m what I call a “cool air jumper’. When I have to work I begrudgingly leave a comfortable house to run to the oven on four wheels. I dash as if the sky is falling to escape the sun beating down on me. A closed up vehicle baking in the sun is a sweltering hell. I turn the key and open the power windows and sun roof to expel the pressure built in this metal and rubber cooker while fiddling with the air conditioning buttons before I suffocate. I’m gasping for cool air and sweating bullets, my hair sticking to my head and damp clothing hugging my body; so much for the shower and ironing my shirt.
The air conditioning hums to life and cool air begins to blow through the vents. Only then will I begin to calm. I’m dry by the time I reach my studio but the fifteen second dash to the shop feels like the air is stealing my breath away. Sadly, this oppressing humidity is only getting started. Usually we have two weeks of this kind of weather, back to back days of wilting like an ice sculpture in the desert. Give me snow any day. Putting on a coat beats wanting to rip off my flesh to get bare to the bone for relief. I don’t know how high the temperatures went yesterday but it was almost too much for this gal. I stuck my nose out a few times and the heat almost melted my freckles. Heat and humidity, you're a miserable duet…
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