Since the beginning of hurricane season, the temperatures have been reaching the mid 90s by the mid-afternoon and dropping down to the high 70s for a few hours at night. The humidity isn’t bad yet. Living on a corner, we have good cross-ventilation. We also bring in the relatively cool morning air into the house with oscillating fans.
But the night after the solstice was bad enough to wake me up about an hour after midnight, and the morning offered no relief. The wind (and fans) blew warm and sticky. It helped to suck on ice cubes. Standing in front of a fan was of some relief but only for the first few seconds. I thought of what Cody Lundin would do in our situation. So we drank water and stayed put. The sun shone and baked our cinder block house. Stripping off our clothes was not an option because the mosquitoes would eat us alive. That evening, we did our best to sleep. It didn’t help that the babies were waking up every hour and a half.
On Tuesday morning, after the babies woke me up for the tenth time, I stayed awake to record “Between the Lions” on the local PBS station. Everyone else started waking up early, too. I thought we could go for our walk earlier than usual, which wouldn’t have been a bad idea because the heat tends to get worse as the day goes by, but the skies were gray. The weather was obviously unstable.
As quick as you can say, “Something wicked this way comes,” cold gusts were picking up dry leaves from the ground and swirling them about like small funnels. A wave of cool breezes passed throughout the house. It started sprinkling. After a minute or so, it was pouring big, ol’ fat rain. Lightning and thunder added excitement to our dulled senses. The chill was wonderful. While the weather announcers in the local media noted the change, there are few people who actually LIVED the change.
Today, it’s not as chilly, but it’s pleasant. When we chose to go without modern marvels such as air conditioning, we are blessed with the great fortune of fresh air.
