Hot

It's like 104 degrees right now as I write this, and humid. People are freaking out. We get some hot weather in the summer, like in the 90s, but for most of our summers we have weather in the 80s usually. So this weather is pretty unusual for my part of the country. This is more like D.C. weather, or southeastern weather...or St. Louis weather.

And you know what, it is totally fine. I have been biking to work instead of walking. I feel like I need to do that because I get so sweaty outside walking that it'd be rude to show up to work drenched in sweat. It's a short (7 minute) bike ride, mostly coasting on the way to work, so it's not too bad. But otherwise, my work is air conditioned. My house is air conditioned. My car is air conditioned. We are lucky, lucky, lucky.

On the 4th of July the power went out. We were actually out in the park with our friends, and then I came home to find that I couldn't open the garage. I thought there was something wrong with the garage door but it was just a power outage. Our friends were worrying about the power outage lasting a long time and told us we could sleep at their house, but I knew we'd be fine in the basement, which stays cool naturally. Anyway, the power was only out for 20 minutes. We have amazingly good power consistency here, knock on wood. This is only the third time, I think, that we've lost power in the 8 years I've lived here and it's never been for more than an hour. What a contrast to people back east who have been without power for days!

The hardest part about living in extreme heat and humidity without air conditioning has always been sleeping, for me. When I was in college, we lived in a 3rd floor walk up without any air conditioning. It was probably a few degrees hotter inside the apartment, if that was even possible. The weather I'm experiencing now as an unusual heat wave was just what we called "summer". It was hard to sleep when it was so hot. I used to have a spray bottle with ice water by the bed, and I'd periodically spray myself with it to cool down. At some point, fans stop helping. It just feels like you've got a giant hair dryer blowing on you.

At night I would pick out my clothes for the next day and then put them in the freezer. The next morning, I'd take them right out of the freezer and put them on. It was a refreshing 30 seconds or so.

It was uncomfortable, but you got used to it. I think it's harder to get used to this weather now because we're so used to air conditioning.