O night and storm and darkness
Jul. 19th, 2011 01:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pameladeanWell, that was exciting, if all things to do with weather excites one.
I woke up at seven a.m., fed the cat, got a glass of water, and noticed that the air conditioner in my bedroom had temporarily lost its battle with the supersaturated air, and was spewing a thin mist into the room. The unairconditioned parts of the house did not feel as much like an ill-run sauna as they had earlier, so I just turned the air conditioner off so that it could get rid of its accumulated moisture, and went back to bed. I was joined by Ari, who made himself very long and tried to push me across the bed with all four feet. I did manage to get back to sleep around nine, after a lot of restless thought encompassing yard work, taxes, the novel I'm supposed to be writing, the general state of the publishing industry, hot-weather cooking, the hideous state of Minnesota and national politics, whether they had actually opened the state parks yet or would have to wait until they had finished their wrangling (they haven't, but hope to do so by the 23rd), why my tomatoes aren't blooming, taxes, which of my sweeties I'm neglecting and what to do about it, and the novel I'm not writing.
At eleven-thirty, when I was starting to feel weird because I was late taking my medication, Raphael brought Jordan in, on the grounds that it was too hot for her in Raphael's bedroom. I got up and checked the Weather Underground site. Eighty-nine degrees, heat index of ninety-nine, do not want, but the new normal.
It was very dark, and about five minutes later a thunderstorm blew through. My ancient weather radio that lives in my office is showing signs of finally breaking down altogether, so I looked at Weather Underground again to see if there was a severe thunderstorm or tornado warning. Not for this part of the county, but it was 84 degrees. If it gets down to 80, I thought, I am opening ALL THE WINDOWS. Five minutes later, it was 81, and about fifteen after that, 73. I ran around up and downstairs, opening windows. I changed the sheets on my bed. It is of course possible to perform this task while the window air conditioner is running, but the sheets were in the dryer in the basement, and the back staircase, which has two south-facing windows and one east-facing window that must, must, must be left open for cats, and in any case has no climate control of any kind, acts like a chimney and is even more like an ill-run sauna than the unairconditioned rooms. Also, squirrels destroyed the screen in the upper window, so it's no longer possible to put a fan there to pull the hot air outside. If I can get the screen out, the hardware store will repair it, but I have a nagging fear that, once there's a new screen in the frame, it will be the wrong shape and I'll never get it back into the window. This is a very old house, the storm windows were never any good and have not improved, and none of the windows is exactly lined up at right angles any more. Since the window is useless anyway, I should take the screen out as soon as the weather breaks, if it ever does for more than an hour.
It's 81 again, and I have to go close the windows. But the hourly forecast for today said it would be 94 by now. Hahahaha, take that, heat wave!
Perhaps I need a cool compress. I hope you are all surviving whatever the day provides you with.
Administrative note: LJ will still not let me post in Opera. It also at complete random refuses to let me comment in people's journals. I have commented successfully in someone's journal, gone in a few minutes later to make another comment, and found that the Post button is suddenly inactive, although it worked five minutes ago. I'm going to post this with Firefox, but firing up Firefox for a one-line comment is sometimes more than I am up for.
Pamela
I woke up at seven a.m., fed the cat, got a glass of water, and noticed that the air conditioner in my bedroom had temporarily lost its battle with the supersaturated air, and was spewing a thin mist into the room. The unairconditioned parts of the house did not feel as much like an ill-run sauna as they had earlier, so I just turned the air conditioner off so that it could get rid of its accumulated moisture, and went back to bed. I was joined by Ari, who made himself very long and tried to push me across the bed with all four feet. I did manage to get back to sleep around nine, after a lot of restless thought encompassing yard work, taxes, the novel I'm supposed to be writing, the general state of the publishing industry, hot-weather cooking, the hideous state of Minnesota and national politics, whether they had actually opened the state parks yet or would have to wait until they had finished their wrangling (they haven't, but hope to do so by the 23rd), why my tomatoes aren't blooming, taxes, which of my sweeties I'm neglecting and what to do about it, and the novel I'm not writing.
At eleven-thirty, when I was starting to feel weird because I was late taking my medication, Raphael brought Jordan in, on the grounds that it was too hot for her in Raphael's bedroom. I got up and checked the Weather Underground site. Eighty-nine degrees, heat index of ninety-nine, do not want, but the new normal.
It was very dark, and about five minutes later a thunderstorm blew through. My ancient weather radio that lives in my office is showing signs of finally breaking down altogether, so I looked at Weather Underground again to see if there was a severe thunderstorm or tornado warning. Not for this part of the county, but it was 84 degrees. If it gets down to 80, I thought, I am opening ALL THE WINDOWS. Five minutes later, it was 81, and about fifteen after that, 73. I ran around up and downstairs, opening windows. I changed the sheets on my bed. It is of course possible to perform this task while the window air conditioner is running, but the sheets were in the dryer in the basement, and the back staircase, which has two south-facing windows and one east-facing window that must, must, must be left open for cats, and in any case has no climate control of any kind, acts like a chimney and is even more like an ill-run sauna than the unairconditioned rooms. Also, squirrels destroyed the screen in the upper window, so it's no longer possible to put a fan there to pull the hot air outside. If I can get the screen out, the hardware store will repair it, but I have a nagging fear that, once there's a new screen in the frame, it will be the wrong shape and I'll never get it back into the window. This is a very old house, the storm windows were never any good and have not improved, and none of the windows is exactly lined up at right angles any more. Since the window is useless anyway, I should take the screen out as soon as the weather breaks, if it ever does for more than an hour.
It's 81 again, and I have to go close the windows. But the hourly forecast for today said it would be 94 by now. Hahahaha, take that, heat wave!
Perhaps I need a cool compress. I hope you are all surviving whatever the day provides you with.
Administrative note: LJ will still not let me post in Opera. It also at complete random refuses to let me comment in people's journals. I have commented successfully in someone's journal, gone in a few minutes later to make another comment, and found that the Post button is suddenly inactive, although it worked five minutes ago. I'm going to post this with Firefox, but firing up Firefox for a one-line comment is sometimes more than I am up for.
Pamela
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-07-19 08:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-19 10:32 pm (UTC)I think people are justifiably unhappy with a lot of things, but have no idea what's behind them, so they just latch onto the people who tell the best lies.
P.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-19 09:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-19 10:30 pm (UTC)Oh, man, I remmeber temping in a Nebraska summer, riding three or four busses and walking half a mile to get to suburban jobs, in pantyhose. I hated that so, so much.
Formality comes with far, far too many evils and discomforts for me to ever mourn it. Too many gotcha games, too much oneupmanship, and way too many scratchy clothes.
P.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-20 12:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-20 01:44 am (UTC)P.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-20 01:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-20 04:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-20 04:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-19 10:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-20 01:45 am (UTC)P.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-19 11:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-20 01:46 am (UTC)P.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-21 04:09 pm (UTC)I hear you on the windows -- our apartment building isn't that old (I'd guess late 60s, early 70s, based on the wiring and the original decor when I moved in 20 years ago), but the windows are all warped beyond belief. It's always a major struggle to get the storm windows down in the Winter, and up in the Spring -- we generally wait as late as possible in the season, so that we only have to move them once. (The drafts around the frames are incredible -- if the landlord put in new windows, he'd probably recoup his costs in heating bill savings (included in our rent) within a year or two...)
I've taken to running Firefox and Opera concurrently on my machine at work (Windows, alas) -- I use Opera for email, but do all my web browsing in Firefox. Opera was just giving me too much trouble on too many sites.