Tag: summer

Icky Sticky

Once more, I am proud of my restraint. I have waited until it is actually summer before posting my annual Florida horrible summer weather rant. Yes, it is indeed after June 21, and I am having a meltdown- emotional as well as physical. Is it possible for skin and internal organs to melt into a pool of goo when both the temperature and humidity factors exceed 90? I am not sure, but I do know that exposure to these conditions cannot be good.

I recently returned from an emergency trip to Pennsylvania. It was not a fun, easy trip. The circumstances that prompted that trip and another planned one are sad and hurtful. Still, when I returned to Florida, Max pointed out three things that I learned during that trip. One of those fundamental truths was that I made the right choice when we decided to move to Florida instead of Pennsylvania.  Our first thought was to move to Pennsylvania because we would be closer to family. Eventually, we changed our minds. There were two factors that weighed heavily in favor of Florida. For one, there is the whole “Disney in my DNA” thing. Pennsylvania is a long way from Orlando or Anaheim. The more practical thing, however, was the weather. I lived in California my entire adult life. In fact, we moved to California from New York before I really had any true awareness of weather. I decided that, since I had never had to learn to navigate ice and snow, my golden years were not the time to start. However, I did have cause to question my decision after a couple of weeks back home in the Land of Summer Despair.

Upon returning home, summer hit and hit hard in central Florida. After being outside for less than ten minutes, the sun feels like it could burn through my clothes, skin, and kidneys. I sometimes forget whether I have my sunglasses even on because the glare is so bright there is almost no difference between the clear glasses and the colored ones. My retinas are fried. In addition, the humidity climbs steadily throughout the day. When I first walk outside in the morning, it takes everything I have to proceed forward, as the blanket of humidity covers my nose and mouth. I breathe water, not air. However, God did not provide me with gills.  By evening, as the sun goes down (like at 8:00pm), the temperature gets slightly cooler, but the humidity gets worse. Thus, the “feels like” temperature at 8:00pm can be as high or higher as what weather.com reports at noon. My brain is programmed that the weather should be more comfortable in the evening.  I tell myself that all the time. However, it does not help to “should” all over myself. It does not get more comfortable in the evening.

In addition to this disturbing Florida habit of becoming even less comfortable as the day wanes, the evening brings another form of torture. Mosquitos. Most people know that mosquitos breed near standing water. Since the entire atmosphere is pretty much standing water by 5pm, it is hard to avoid these beasts. I seem to be a particular delicacy to the winged demons. If I am outside at night for even 10 minutes, it is likely I will come in with at least 20 mosquito bites. I like to think it is because I am so sweet. Unfortunately, I suspect it has more to do with the vast quantities of salt I secrete through the four-month sweatfest that the calendar calls summer in Florida.

People in some places joke about being able to fry an egg on the sidewalk on a hot summer day. I saw a meme yesterday that showed a tray of cookies baking on the dashboard of a car in Arizona. I think we could probably poach an egg by just leaving it outside in the humidity in Florida. And as for the climate cooking things like an oven, Florida’s climate is more like a crockpot. Instead of cooking our bodies to a crisp, light, sweet consistency, Florida stews our bodies in our own disgusting juices. And who eats crockpot meals in the summer, anyway? Beef stew and spaghetti sauce seem way too heavy to feed into my sluggish metabolism when the weather is this warm.   Come to think of it, even baked cookies seems a bit much. Ice cream, anyone?

What is your least favorite thing about summer? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com. 

Have a COOL day!

Terri/Dorry 😊

Living In Satan’s Sinus Cavity

I believe I have shown remarkable restraint. It is nearly the end of July and I have not posted my annual summer weather whine. Since I live in a place where summer begins in May and does not conclude until November, I think I deserve some credit for avoiding a meltdown before now.

Time’s up, though.

I reside in Florida, which is pretty much like saying I live in Satan’s sinus cavity during the summer months. It is hot, moist, sticky, and slimy virtually all the time. The air is heavy with humidity. It is so thick with unshed rain and mosquitos; breathing is hazardous to one’s health. Of course, not breathing is even more hazardous, so we soldier on with the aid of life support- air conditioning. I know some people who do not  leave their artificially cooled compartments for months.

Thunder does not rumble; it crashes and pummels. Rain does not pool in my yard; it oceans. So far this summer, we  have been pretty lucky in that we have not yet had multiple consecutive days of catastrophic rainstorms. Often,  we will have thirty rainy days in a row… or more. One summer, I counted sixty-two consecutive rainy days. Even Noah and all those animals only had to cope with forty. People will say, “yes, it does rain every day, but it is only for half an hour in the early evening.” These people are purposely misleading you. To be fair, it does rain for only a brief time on some days. Most days, the rain is much more significant. Some days, I feel like I should not leave the house without a hairdryer… for my clothes and shoes. I will never forget the year I acquired smurf feet because I walked from the car to the grocery store in blue shoes.

Summer is also growing season, which sounds very nice and idyllic. However, growing season in my household simply means weed season. Any plant I try to grow intentionally tends to die in the summer, even if I have kept it alive for months, because the heat is so intense that the leaves incinerate spontaneously. The weeds, however, seem to have no such delicacy. Max and I pull weeds and trim the bushes early every Saturday morning. In the winter, this task means putting on a sweatshirt and leggings. It means about 10 to 15 minutes of easy work. There is little need to bend over or squat because almost all the weeds have succumbed to my weekly Round-up application. In the summer, it is already about a million degrees when we start work at 7:30. The force of the heat and humidity compresses my skeleton into my internal organs as soon as I walk out of the door. Even though I am faithfully applying the Round-up, the summer weeds propagate at such an alarming rate that our task takes easily twice as long than in the winter. I can barely stand outside for five minutes, much less bend to pick weeds, without dissolving into a puddle of gooey, humidity-seasoned sweat.

Satan’s sinus cavity feels infected in the summer. There is something like decay that fills the air. And, speaking of sinus cavities, mine does not do so well in the summer, either. Something about the air pressure or about the humidity or the weeds that grow with wild abandon triggers seasonal allergies I never knew I had until I moved to Florida. I have a near constant headache and raw respiratory system. I test myself for COVID way more than should be necessary, but I want to be sure I am not contributing to a worldwide pandemic. Every time I test, it turns out it is just my sinuses raging against the summer machine.

And, this year, I found a fresh new annoyance in the summer repertoire. Does anyone else get more achy during times of heat and humidity? I thought arthritis was supposed to get worse when it is cold. I am nearly 63 years old. My body is aware of this number. I have my fair share of tenderness and pain in my joints, ligaments, muscles, and menisci during the Days of Wine and Roses (November through April). This year, May welcomed in a whole new level of body aches. The discomfort has increased with the passing (way too slowly) days of summer. It feels like all of the bones around my joints are bound within a ring of calcified bone material that is gradually tightening. I do not want to overstate because I know many people suffer much more than I do from arthritis and other age-related health problems. I am, blessedly, pretty healthy. My point is simply that I did notice a significant uptick in my body’s resistance to age this summer.

When I researched this phenomenon online, I learned that there are studies that suggest that barometric pressure, humidity, and various other summer weather phenomenon do have a negative impact on arthritis. Other studies proclaim that there is no impact at all. These studies suggest that the summer, in and of itself, has no impact. The problem is that the uncomfortable conditions make the patient cranky, thereby reducing their tolerance to pain.

I will not argue with that. Cranky sounds about right.

So what’s the weather like where you are? What season do you find most difficult to endure and why? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Have an unsticky day!

Terri/Dorry 🙂

It’s Not The Heat; It’s The Humidity

Summer has different associations for everyone. Some people think of beaches, vacations, school being out, longer days, picnics, or the smell of fresh peaches.  I sometimes think it is my goal in life to change your core association with summer.  When you think “summer,” do you think “time for Terri’s annual whine about the Florida weather?” Yes? Then I’ve succeeded.

The other day, I saw a post on Facebook that said, “Lord, whatever you are baking out there- it’s done.”  It seemed highly appropriate.  The temperature zipped up to the mid-nineties this past week, with little fanfare or buildup. The term “baked” was spot on.  It was more of a California kind of a mid-nineties heat than a Florida heat.  The sun glared. It took little or no time to start to feel hot as Max and I tramped around an outdoor shopping mall.  Strangely, the weather seemed really bearable to me, though.  It was dry and quiet.  The sky was clear and clean.  It was easy enough to feel immediate relief from the heat. All we had to do was simply step out of the sun into the shade. 

The day is coming, any time now, when this will all change.  The sky will darken, the air will sog, and the moisture in the atmosphere will be impossible to escape.  At any given moment, the angry, painful-looking clouds that are obscuring the sky will crack open and furious rain will accompany the heat.  There will be thunder so loud you have to shout to be heard over it.  Chain lightning will be a daily occurrence.  People who try to make the best of things will tell you that the rain is really good because it brings the temperature down.  That may be accurate, but I’m not sure.  The temperature may go down, but the humidity is so heavy you can’t really tell.  In fact, it is sometimes difficult to know when a storm has passed because the rain is followed by steam.  The only clue that the storm may be over is that you no longer have to yell over the sound 0f rain brutally assaulting the roof.  

This past week’s heat has been dry and clean, like a towel fresh out of the dryer.  No one likes a towel fresh out of the dryer being stuffed over her nose and mouth, impeding the ability to breathe.  If the weather gets so hot that you can’t draw air without scorching your lungs, then that isn’t a good thing.  However, I think there is a pleasantness to having that warm towel close to my face.  It harkens back to childhood and safety and helps when I have a sinus headache.  On the other hand, a towel dipped in super-heated water stuffed, sopping wet, into my personal space, is not my idea of a good time. I think we are getting ready to take the towels out of the washer very soon now.  Breathing in dense, wet, terry cloth has absolutely nothing to recommend it.  Breathing the hot, humid summer air in Florida is pretty much like that. 

You see, its not the baking; it’s the boiling that is the problem with Florida summers!

Update:  I wrote this a couple of weeks ago.  Rest assured that, since then, we are out of the frying pan and into the crock pot.  God is making a big tasty batch of Florida soup and I fear it is going to be simmering nonstop until November.  Any suggestions on how to stay comfortable while slow-cooking in a pot of soggy atmosphere?  Please share your perspective by leaving a comment.  In the alterative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com. 

Hope you stay out of hot water today!

Terri/Dorry 😊

P.S. I seem to be a week ahead of myself.   When I posted last week’s piece, I was convinced that Fathers’ Day was on June 9th.  I learned I was wrong last Friday.  Therefore, I’d like to wish all you dads a happy Fathers’ Day NOW that the correct day is this coming Sunday.

And the Rain, Rain, Rain Came Down, Down, Down

Summer in the American southeast!   The snowbirds have gone home and I don’t have to arrive at church half an hour early to get a seat.  I don’t have to plan on eating dinner at 4:00pm in order to avoid waiting in a restaurant for several hours. 

 On the other hand, the summer weather has hit.  The temperature and the humidity are the same number on an almost daily basis.  And that number starts with a “9.”  As Max says, we live in God’s hot tub.  You don’t so much breathe the air as drink it.  They say ladies don’t sweat.  Horses sweat.  Men perspire.  Ladies glow.  If that is so, I believe I glow brightly enough to be seen from space. 

 We eat dinner to the dulcet tones of the weather alarm radio, squawking dire warnings at us about the damage that can be done by winds over 50 miles per hour.  I wondered if there would be lightning bugs in this area.  I haven’t seen any lightning bugs, but I have certainly seen lightning.  In fact, the thunder and lightning regularly convince me that someone finally invented the Way-Back Machine and we’ve landed in World War I France. 

 As someone who grew up in a place where we barely knew what rain was, it is interesting to live in a place where rain- in fact an abundance of rain- is just the way things are.  No one seems to have an ark in the driveway, but it certainly feels like one will be necessary at any time.  The thing about this state is that it CAN rain any time and, sometimes, it does. 

 Now that the summer is here, those “sometimes” are much more frequent.  We have a thunderstorm or two in our general vicinity almost every day.  They last from five minutes to an hour or so.  The other day, I went out to get my nails done.  As I left the nail shop, I got caught in a cloudburst.  In the time it took me to get to the car, I was so soaked that the dye from my blue suede shoes had steeped into my feet.  Not only did this deluge ruin my shoes, I looked like a smurf from the ankles down for the next two days.  I remember the first time I was out when I actually felt unsafe driving because of the weather.  I would have pulled over, except I couldn’t see anything in any direction.  I felt it was only slightly less likely I would run into something directly ahead of me than that I would run into something if I moved to the side.  When it isn’t actually raining, I often think of the weather as “oozing.”  The air can’t hold all the moisture and dampness seems to be literally seeping from the atmosphere. 

 Where I came from, people called in absent from work at the first sign of a raindrop.  Here, people do arduous outdoor work, soaked in rain and sweat.  If they stopped for weather, nothing would ever get done.  When there is lightning, the workers cover what they are doing, sit in their vehicles for a while, and are back at it immediately as soon as the sky is quiet again.  Supermarkets keep a supply of loaner umbrellas so people won’t get wet if a shower starts while they are in the store.  I believe the region’s economy would come to a standstill if rain stopped anyone from buying groceries at any time.

 When it rains, people don disposable ponchos and continue whatever recreational activity they are doing.  They consider it an imposition to get out of the pool or off a lake, despite the desperate warnings of that weather alarm radio screeching about lightning strikes.  Here are some famous potentially last words I heard at the pool earlier this week- “That isn’t really thunder.  It isn’t loud enough.”  I was listening to the news one day and the weather guy cautioned that there was going to be thunderstorms on the Fourth of July.  He went on to inform us that the rain might be over by fireworks time, so people should go ahead with their plans and just bring an umbrella.  Great…. A bunch of people sitting in a central Florida storm holding their own personal lightning rods. Fireworks might not be the only thing lighting up those displays.

 We are in “hurricane season” (not the most comforting of monikers, admittedly).  We live pretty far from any coast, so actual hurricanes are rather rare in our community.  However, whether you call it a hurricane, tropical storm, thunder warning, or just precipitation, it is more rain than I’ve seen in forever. 

 I have to admit the thunder is a bit unnerving.  It can actually rattle our very solid little house, even without a hurricane.  I remember parents telling frightened children that the thunder and lightning were “just the angels having a party up in heaven.” 

 I beg to differ.

 Those angels are pissed off. 

What do you think?  Is summer where you live a nightly light show?  Or do you have other impressions of the seasons?  Please share your perspective by leaving a comment.  In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.  Have a great day.  Stay dry!

Terri 🙂