Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Narrow comfort range
Earlier this evening, our bedroom’s floor-model air conditioner belched water, spewing at least a gallon across the hardwood floor. We moved furniture, trashed a half dozen crappy cloth towels, ran through a roll of paper towels. Best we can figure is, the unit somehow got set on “suck every water molecule from the room” mode and had nowhere else to put Lake Sweat.
The floor is saved. (Not our floor, but we try not to trash our rentals.) Furniture is back where it belongs. And I’m hot.
High school. Something possessed me to interview at University of Michigan in the middle of winter, and that same Something made me think it was a good idea to walk from our dorm to the orientation’s lecture hall, a mere quarter mile away. I wore my brown jacket with the fluffly lining, unpleasantly warm winter wear by Southern California standards.
“Layering” was something my older brother did with his sandpaintings. Scarves were accessories for Toulouse Lautrec models. And I was rapidly developing nasal frostbite.
A passing shuttle took pity on me, saving me from certain Nicholsondom, and I lived to face more interrogation from my teenaged midwestern roommates. Do I know any movie stars? (Yeah, sure. Doesn’t everyone?) Do I surf? (Pshaw! Me?) What happened to my suntan? (Genetic disorder. Pity me.)
That trip redefined “cold” for me. Must have been in the 20s F.
***
Another interview, some years later. My wife was pregnant and my boss had just notified me (by MAIL) that he wouldn’t have money for my position come September of the following year, so I was looking for work . . . in North Carolina. In August.
The same logic trips me up repeatedly: “If I’m thinking of living here, I had better see some of the local turf.” I decided to walk from my hotel to a diner maybe one-eighth mile away.
I made it there without heat stroke, but I was soaked with sweat and dehydrating fast. I ordered iced tea, picked out the mint, took a big swallow . . . and nearly did the Big Spew. Sweet! What is with these North Carolinians, putting sugar in MY iced tea without asking me!?
I don’t remember how I made it back to the hotel.
***
I left for work one morning not too many days ago and had an interesting experience. I was cold. Not Michigan-in-winter cold, but pleasantly cold, the kind of cold where you can relax, let the heat seep out of you, feel the shiver waiting in the wings. I sat in my car, felt a bit too cold, and turned on the heat.
It’s hot again.
D.
i hate the cold. i’ll take all your hot, and give you this shit weather we’re having here, k?
When I was a kid my dad was in the air force, and we lived in a bunch of different place, two of which were Goose Bay, Labrador, and Cold Lake, Alberta.
I remember one snap in Cold Lake (where the January AVERAGE is -12 F) where people talked about -50, although it was hard to tell because thermometers weren’t as good in those days and most of them froze at -35 or so.
There were many broken car windows. The glass was so brittle that you had to watch how hard you closed the car door.
That was cold.
dean wins.
Of course Dean wins. The point was what a thermal wimp I am, not what horrendous conditions I’ve endured ๐
Bottom line . . . much under 60F or much over 76F and I’m miserable. I am a delicate flower (cue Southern belle accent). (Oh, and if you search “delicate flower” to find out where that phrase was first used to describe a person? You’ll find some woman’s 2000+ word diary of her labial piercings.)
Anyone up for live blogging tonight?
That was Sweet Tea you were drinking…a southern specialty I’m told. I like it…as long as it isn’t too sweet.
My cold experience was when I was in Vegas one winter, and it was cold enough to bring tears to my eyes which then froze on my eyelashes. Not pleasant.
Growing up in Nashville,Tennessee we spent the entire summer at the local pool. We got up, put on our bathing suits, went to the pool, stayed all day, came home, ate supper, took off our bathing suits, went to bed. But, it’s not really the heat that is oppressive, it’s the humidity. Heat and humidity = misery.
I don’t like sweet tea, much rather have it straight, but in the south, you get it sweet unless you specifically request otherwise.
As for cold… Bring it on, baby! I actually enjoy winter, most of the time. Much, much better than 100รลกF+ days with a gazillion percent humidity we have here during July and August. I can always add a layer or grab another blanket in the winter, but nekkid and still sweating… that’s about all you can do. Winters here tend to hover within ten degrees of 0รลกF, either way, with occasional rises to at or new thawing temps, but we have gotten as cold as -45รลกF before windchill. If you add in windchill to the temp, it can get really, REALLY low. But we’re used to it. ๐
If you’d have grown up in a more varied climate, you’d be just fine, Doug. In fact, I understand that even you ‘delicate flowers’ adapt after a couple of years. ๐
I’d rather be cold than hot any day of the week, and twice on Sunday. Also… I think I’d go crazy without well defined seasons.
My dream trip is to spend a night in the “Ice Hotel” in Quebec. Having difficulty getting my husband on board though…
I know the type of cold to which Dean refers, having grown up in Newfoundland, and spent four winters in Sioux Lookout, Northwestern Ontario.
Not only does the car glass get brittle, the seats are hard because the moisture in the air inside them is frozen. Once you get your vehicle started and moving, the tires are “square” because there’s a flat part at the bottom where they were resting, and the rubber is too frozen to be supple enough to round themselves out.
But it’s a “dry” cold, so you don’t shiver as much. ๐
Pictures of the Trans-Labrador Highway in April 2004 can be found on this website…
http://www.thedieselgypsy.com/Labrador%20Snow.htm
Not likely a place of interest to a delicate flower.
O.M.G.
Can I visit in a climate-controlled bubble?