Sultry is not the word for tonight’s temperature. It’s downright hot as hell, and it’s after 10 pm. The weather has been so strange this summer. Right after this ridiculous heat wave, a cool front is supposed to roll in, bringing rain and temperatures barely brushing seventy degrees. This is not the Oregon summer climate I have come to know and love.
I remember the culture shock when we first moved to Oregon 24 years ago. What was with summer? We had been used to 95 degrees with 95% humidity in the Midwest. Hot days and hot, steamy nights. One lived in the shortest shorts and the skimpiest tanks or halter tops one could locate. Not because one was trying to be sexy, but because one could literally not tolerate anything else touching one’s skin. And you had to bring a coat to the grocery store…
I grew accustomed to Oregon weather after several years. But it still seemed bizarre to bundle up to watch the fireworks on the Fourth of July. I finally got used to carrying a sweater or sweatshirt around with me even on the hottest of days, because it always got chilly at night. Oh how I missed those balmy nights of my youth!
Well, I’m here to tell you, I don’t miss them anymore. Not every woman is besieged by hot flashes as she approaches age fifty and beyond. But they seem to run in my family. When my four sisters and I sit around the dinner table talking after a family get-together, it’s a cinch one after the other of us will goopen a window or whip off her sweater or start fanning herself with her napkin. We carry our personal summers with us year ‘round. And I cannot imagine having to deal with this particular feature of growing older in the heat and humidity of Chicago. I have truly grown attached to Oregon summers, where I can open wide my bedroom windows in the middle of August and be shivering under the covers by morning.
Most of the time. But not last night. And not tonight. Which is why I am sleeping in my driveway tonight. In our travel trailer. Which is the only bed we own with air conditioning.
And I think if we didn’t have that, I’d be sleeping in the car.
Well Lisa you are giving me a good chuckle, because our summer here in change-a-second-weather New England is quite the opposite of your two hot nights. We haven't had but one or two miserable, humid, sweaty can't sleep nights all summer. I close my windows to keep the dampness out of my joints at night.
ReplyDeleteI'm ready for fall AND winter. Honest.
Weather is like my dieting, it changes constantly! Dannelle (hate humid hot like it dry!)
ReplyDeleteIn Minnesota, it was hot during the day but it always cooled down at night. That's not the case in Texas, of course. Thank heaven for central air!
ReplyDeleteJudi
ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteWelcome to how I feel almost all the time!
But since the ripe old age of 36
And when we lived in the desert.
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I've never been a fan of hot weather unless there was plenty of swimming water around. LI beaches don't count. The water hasn't gotten warm enough to get into but lying on the beach is deadly.
ReplyDeleteI've gotten worse about it in recent years. If it's too hot...count me out!
Can't imagine living withoug AC!