Stinking Heat
Doug observes:
It's hot. Nasty hot. Hot like Minnesotans shouldn't have to endure. Our schtick is cold weather. But this is day... nine-hundred or something, I've lost count... of our current heat wave.
There's the dirty little secret.
Minnesota's winters - at least in the Twin Cities - are very overrated. I rarely even need a proper winter coat in the Twins; while winter in North Dakota frequently brought weeks when the temps never got above zero, that's a definite rarity in this part of Minnesota.
But the summers? Oy.
I've had this theory since I was in fifth grade; people are best adapted to the weather they were first exposed to. My father was born on the hottest week in the history of North Dakota; it was over 100 IN the house when he came home. Dad has always been able to play three sets of tennis on a 95 degree day, drink a cup of iced tea, and go shoot 18 holes of golf and hardly break a sweat - but when it got below 40, he started like a Fiat.
I, on the other hand, was (so the story goes) brought out of the hospital in the aftermath of North Dakota snowstorm; it was -25 Fahrenheit with a howling wind (or so I'm told). I rarely button my jacket if it's above 10 degrees; I don't don an actual winter coat until it's perilously close to zero. But above 85, I'm a sodden mess (unless I can be on my bike, thrashing out the miles - which I can't right now).
The weather is the worst. Hot, sticky, stinking humidity. Food seems to turn soggy and "off" in your hand. The fridge strains to keep up. I have no AC in my bedroom - so at least once a night I wake up, drenched in sweat, thinking "I can't go on like this..." before I fall back to a stinking, fitful, humid sleep.
It's supposed to cool down tomorrow. Not a moment too soon.
Posted by Mitch at
July 17, 2005 12:19 PM
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I remember my brother talking about monsoon season in Vietnam. Even a clean dry dress uniform could get damp and moldy, just from the air, if you didn't keep washing it. Eventually you just get used to being damp all the time, if it lasts long enough.
Posted by: RBMN at July 17, 2005 12:53 PMI don't know about your theory, Mitch, but in my case my body is optimally designed for heat retention - there's actually a theory about it involving genetic drift and the symptoms are short fingers and limbs and a compact body. I'm with you on the winter thing though most of the time its just a light coat with gloves in my pocket just in case (and I'm only a few miles away).
Something that helps A LOT when sleeping, and I've even convinced a good friend in San Diego on this, she does it all the time - go to bed with a wet top sheet (WET, not DAMP) and aim a mucking big fan at it (one of those tall cylindrical ones that rotate works best). Evaporative cooling: it's not just a theory, its a law! (of thermodynamics). OK, for about two minute's you're going "yeah, right this will work, huh?" but I've had hot nights where I actually start freezing a bit, its so effective, and when I wake up everything is dry.
Posted by: Bill Haverberg at July 17, 2005 06:02 PMMitch, you're going to hate me, but I just spent a weekend camping in this weather, and I loved it. Luckily it cooled off just enough to be mostly comfortable sleeping weather, but I'm not sure it would have mattered if it hadn't.
I wasn't like this as a kid (although I didn't hate this weather, I didn't seek it out either). Six years working in a windowless over-AC'd office can convert anybody into what Bill Hicks called a "f&$@ing lizard."
Posted by: Steve G. at July 17, 2005 09:35 PM