And just like that…it’s July, and another heat wave is upon us. I swear this is the third one we’ve had since mid-May. And it’s only July first today! What the hell, climate? Un autre canicule? Remember I learned that word last week and wrote about it as I was sending sympathetic, supportive texts to my friend Jane Bertch who was literally melting under the weight of her glorious mane of hair in the historic Paris heatwave, aka le canicule? I was inviting her to come to NYC where it was only 80 degrees and fully, overly air-conditioned as only we Americans can achieve. Now I want to get on the next flight to Helsinki. Or Chile, where it’s winter right now. I’d like to be chilly in Chile, immediately please. One ticket to Santiago, por favor!
But instead, I am hiding out in the tiny bedroom of Tiny Bungalow, the only room (for the moment) that has AC in this 1950’s, uninsulated plywood box. Adam installed (all by himself!) a mini-split system so that for the first time in twenty-five years of ownership we will have actual heat and ac on demand, instead of salvaged space heaters and about seven fans, all of which have served us well the last quarter-decade. But now, shit’s getting real. We’ve always sweltered through hot summer days here, but the evenings always cooled off (almost) enough to sleep even on the worst ones. Not anymore…
He installed it and hypothetically it will cool and heat the whole tiny house, but there’s something that has to be done that involves compressed nitrogen and pumping and a guy who does that, I don’t know. Oh, and when he was on the roof doing something he noticed that our main power wire was horribly, dangerously decrepit…So we need a guy, with somethingsomething gas something, and the power company to come before we have the standard level of comfort that most every other house in America enjoys. So hence, the window unit, salvaged from the trash and made functional by him, in the bedroom where I am now working from. Soon as I finish this I’ll head to the pool and chill my overheated, perimenopausal bod.
We toughed it out here for all these years, the hottest summers, the chilliest springs and autumns (we can’t use the house in the winter, the water in the community is shut off) and were ok, but it’s different now. I don’t have to tell you or anyone else, we all know it. It’s getting hotter. That’s why I won’t plan any trips or travel in peak season, there’s no way I’m going to Europe in the summer in this post-climate emergency world. Want to come with me? Better plan for March or October, or Paris in December or Korea in October. Sorry, school-year calendar people, no-can-do.
Ok, enough about the heat and my adventures in climate-control. It’s July 1, and we’re on the brink of the semiquincentennial. Yay! No, not yay. It might have been a big yay if things had gone differently, but yet again, I also don’t need to tell you about that. Instead, we’re just living through another chapter in the epic shit-show that is the mid 2020’s. Enough said.
