Wednesday, July 20, 2011

THE HEAT IS ON...

Hola, darlings!

The last day I spent any substantial amount of time outside was last week Saturday (July 16), which was hot and muggy, but nothing - NOTHING - compared to what visited us last Sunday (July 17).  And has stayed, and stayed, and stayed, and will be staying, so the weather reports are saying, until NEXT Monday.  Today the relative temperature peaked at 107 degrees F, with a dew point of 75.  Now, shortly after 8 p.m., the temperature has dropped to a balmy 101 degrees F with a dew point of 72.  I wish I could say "no sweat."  Ha, ha, that's supposed to be a joke!

Tomorrow it will be - well, who the hell knows.  We've been breaking local temperatures every day since this "heat dome" thing began, and it's covering probably two-thirds of the entire country, from the Great Plains states all the way to the East Coast!  All I know is that I'm very grateful for my central air conditioned home, and my central air conditioned office, and even air conditioned buses.  I just drip sweat everywhere in between.  All kidding aside, this kind of heat is deadly, and many people have already died from heat-related causes.  It's damn scary out there, and I'm petrified.  I seem to have a tendency toward hypchondria and imagine every little bump, bruise, ache, pain, cold, etc., as some deadly disease.  It's horrid thinking that way and I fight it with all my might; so much so that sometimes I actually am actually very ill and ignore it, writing it off to my imaginings!

Since this nasty heat wave started, I've been experiencing problems breathing while outdoors just walking, not doing anything else but walking!  After doing some research and also talking to other people who have to be out and about outside like me sometimes, I was somewhat reassured that my breathing problems are rather normal.  The air is WET - it's saturated with water (that's the dew point).  As I've said before, the moment that dew points creeps above 60 (even 60 is uncomfortable for me), I lose my energy and get-up-and-go.  If I'm uncomfortable at dew point 60, can you imagine what I'm dealing with at dew point 75, which it's been at off and on over the past several days?

Well, relief is in sight (supposedly) by next Monday.  So, that's only Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to get through...

One good thing (is there any good thing out of something like this?) - I've lost weight.  Takes a fricking heat disaster to do it...

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