How soon until winter?
By Melinda Wichmann
Last week, I swore up and down that I would never complain about cold weather again. In fact, I’ve been dreaming about the first frost with the starry-eyed enthusiasm of a little kid at Christmas. There’s nothing like a heat index of 110 to make 30 degrees above zero look like a really good idea.
I try not to complain about the weather. Being hot in August in Iowa is no big surprise and there’s no sense whining about it. However, the last few weeks have not been hot. They have been molten. They have been incendiary. Between the heat, the rain and the tropical dew points and it’s like being boiled alive.
I realize this weather is perfectly normal for people who live in the Gulf Coast states (can I point out Iowa County is probably about 1,000 miles from the Gulf, give or take a few 100 miles?), and they don’t get just a few weeks of weather like this each year. They get months and months of stifling heat and humidity.
How do those folks function? Do their bodies adapt? Do they just get used to it? Because I’ve lived in this state for nearly 45 years and let me tell you, I’m still not used to heat like we had last week.
Maybe I’m just a weenie. I spent a lot of time avoiding going outdoors. This wasn’t too hard during the day, since I have an office job. It got a little harder after work because I’m used to spending evenings outside, working with my dogs, gardening or going for a walk.
I still did all of those things, but only for about 10 minutes, then it was back indoors to the central air. And the ice cream.
The ice cream has been about the only good thing to come out of the heat wave. We’ve been eating a lot of it because I figure if you’re not going to buy ice cream when it’s 95 degrees outside, there’s no sense buying it any other time of the year.
I try not to buy it a lot because there is some unwritten rule that says ice cream must be consumed as fast as possible after being brought into the house. Never mind that it’s kept in the freezer were it would be perfectly good for six months. Why take chances? We can go through a carton in six days. Or less. Usually less.
I’ve started walking on my treadmill again. Considering my recent ice cream intake, that is probably a good thing. When I bought the treadmill, I intended to use it when the weather was too abysmal to be walking outdoors. I was defining abysmal in terms of mud, cold, wind, snow, ice and sleet. Silly me. It’s lovely to go for a long walk in the central air when it’s viciously hot outside.
The weather forecasters love predicting the end of a heat wave and at some point every one of them says, “Shut off that air conditioning and open up those windows!” like it is some royal decree that must be obeyed.
Do you know what happens when you shut off the air conditioning and open up the windows? (Besides realizing it is August and you really need to clean out the windowsills and it would just be easier to keep them closed in the first place.) You hear every raccoon fight, cat fight, bawling cow, train whistle, car horn, police siren and whistling, chirping, buzzing insect in the township, all going to beat the band at 2 a.m.
Since you’re used to sleeping accompanied by the white noise of the fan on the air conditioner, all the sound is amplified to the point you sit straight up in bed, wondering if something is going to come crashing through the window. Then you realize there are two cats having a knock down, drag out brawl on the patio and the only crashing may be the dogs, going straight through the door, Wile E. Coyote-style.
I’m probably going to regret saying this next February but I’m really ready for cold weather. Not necessarily snow and ice and all that bother, just cold weather. Where nobody talks about the dew point.
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