August in New Orleans was always sticky, sweaty oppressively hot. One friend compared leaving his apartment in the humid months to walking hard face-first into a body-sized oshibori, a steamed Japanese wet hand towel. I can remember the feeling of what little make-up I wore melting and running in the huge drops of sweat forming on my face in the 5 minutes it took to drive from my house to the chiropractor or the mall — and that was with the car’s A/C running at full blast on high to no avail.
I remember $300 electric bills in the Summer, whether it was the single bedroom on the first floor or the two bedroom townhouse on the second and third floors. I remember feeling the desperate need to strip off every soaking wet garment the moment I got home after walking the block from work. I remember having a headache everytime I was in temperatures greater than 75°F for longer than 5 to 10 minutes, and if there was bright direct sunlight, it was a guaranteed multi-day migraine — except that two year period where I had a constant migraine and couldn’t remember what not having head pain felt like.
My father grew up in Ohio and had the unbelievable bad luck of having lived at the top of a hill while the school house was at the top of a neighboring hill so…he actually did have to walk to school through the snow uphill both ways. He hates the snow and despises cold weather. When I was six months old, he moved my mother and I to Florida, where we stayed for 6 years or so. Then he moved us to New Orleans. So, basically for the first 33 years of my life, except for a few exceptions here and there, I spent the majority of my time in the heat and humidity. I hate hot weather and humidity.
So, the theory that subjects will eventually adapt to their environments cannot be true. My father spent 20+ years with the snow and he never wants to see another day of it. He will not come to Maine during the Winter to visit me. Meanwhile, I spent 33 years in the South not knowing what a real Winter was — people mostly assumed that when the first snow hit the first year I was here in 2004, I would pack up and go back to the South, but I loved it. For four years, I have said that I will take a Maine Winter over a New Orleans Summer any day — even last January when the average temperature was 3°F for the month.
However, the last two weeks, it’s felt a bit like New Orleans August up here.
It’s possible that some of my problem may stem from the fact that the A/C in my car has died. That certainly doesn’t help now that the stimulus package is stimulating all of the road construction on every road leading in and out of Portland, ME so that it now takes twice as long to commute — and the city part of the commute wasn’t nice before.
It’s also possible that I’m just not used to prolonged exposure to the heat anymore. When I first arrived up here, I was shocked to discover that I could not find any apartments with central A/C, a standard everywhere in the South. As time went on I learned that many people never even use the window A/Cs and if they do, those things usually are only needed a few days or weeks out of the year. In fact, I didn’t buy one at all my first year here because it was, in my opinion, laughably cool. I did find it hilarious to see those big mansions with the A/C window units hanging precariously out of their bedroom windows.
For a while this year I didn’t think I’d need to install the window unit. All the way into late July, the temperature highs were in the 60°F’s and it had rained for about 6 weeks straight. However, now it’s all oppressively hot and sticky and whereas before my garden plants were drowning, they are now burning to death. I’ve been sleeping in the living room where my poor precariously installed window unit is chugging away trying to keep near 71°F or 72°F, though the wall thermostat says it’s 75°F to 77°F across the room. The upstairs is too hot to even breathe — or as to half-quote my father, too hot to install the second A/C. I would die of heat stroke if I opened the eave door to pull out the A/C and struggle to carry it over to the windown while keeping the cats and dog from trying to go into the eave or climb out the window.
All I can say is that I’m really looking forward to that first snowflake this year.
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