It’s come down from a high of 102 degrees as I sit in the livingroom ready to defend the decision to not have air conditioning. There’s no need: I am the only one home.
My family has fled. The children – armed with pleading brown eyes – wrangled invitations to a swimming pool. The long-suffering husband (LSH) has gone to the house of friend to play music – certain that the friend has air conditioning.
We’ve spent the last few days seeking air conditioning. I sent the nanny and kids to see “Zookeeper.” The nanny – hating the idea of being at our house – brought one kid to hers and kept her overnight. I let her, and went to work early to an office that is air conditioned to an Arctic chill. In the evening, we take to a movie theater again. Never mind you can rent the “Pink Panther,” we paid to see it at the AFI with the kids. And had movie popcorn for dinner since it was too hot to eat. Anyway the house smells like fried cat box so I’ve no desire to cook.
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It's so hot that the corks in the wine we bought for vacation are pushing out of the bottles. All of them.
It’s so hot that the cats – who usually start demanding dinner at 4:30 – have yet to ask to eat fully two hours after dinnertime. One is sprawled on the cool earth under the drying laundry on the line outside. The other is under the kitchen ceiling fan.
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It’s so hot that while I usually try to fob the grocery shopping off on LSH, I did it happily this weekend. The store is air conditioned and I linger.
When I bought my house, it was January and the two bedrooms had a single window each. Each window was plugged up with a giant window air conditioner, which meant it could not be opened to let in sunlight, breezes, or the buzzing of cicadas. I wrestled the behemoths out of the windows, onto a rug and dragged them into a storage area so I could throw open the windows and feel the outside air.
But the rooms – which have no cross breeze – get undeniably hot. Like the inside of a bread machine hot. Like bicycling next to a bus hot. Hot. On days like these, the child-free me would sleep in the sunroom which has a ceiling fan and windows on three sides to let in any cool breeze. On extremely hot days, I slept in the basement.
Fast forward 10 years and three additional people in the house and climate change that Republicans don’t believe in. The kids have claimed the sunroom and look angelic since they’re asleep. The basement bedroom is torn up. LSH has thrown a sheet on the couch, pointed two fans at it and is snoring.
I lie on the bed in our hot bedroom and sweat, eventually falling asleep from sheer exhaustion. But at 1:40 a.m., I’m wide awake. It’s hot. I lie still and am still sweating into the white sheets. I think about how yogurt is made by warming milk to 170 degrees. I know how that milk feels.
There’s only one solution. I go outside where there is a cool breeze. Okay, not cool but not panting animal breath hot. I slink down into the hammock chair and stretch out. The air moves, and it’s nice. There’s silence and then a train goes down the track by Jequie Park. There’s a huge slam like a thick metal sheet careened off a freight train and slammed into asphalt. I listen to cicadas. I listen – oh, irony – to the hum of the neighbors’ air conditioners.
The next noise is the thump of a newspaper landing on the grass as LSH wanders outside for the paper, with 11-year-old obese cat Buddy sprint-waddling with him.
Son, who has always loved luxury, wakes and tells me he’s saving his allowance for air conditioning. That day, in an Arctically air conditioned office, I make reservations to go to the beach. We’ll be back when the temperature comes down.
