Hot town, summer in the city

Last Friday, the first day of an intense heat wave, I got out and did the stuff I needed to do early. I got to the gym, to lunch with an old friend, then back home (walking through the lots-of-shade Boston Common) to cool comfort before things really began to blaze.

Later in the day, I realized that I needed to  head out once again. By this point, the Big Stifle had set in. I only had to go about a quarter of a mile, mostly through the lots-of-shade Boston Common. And I was dressed for heat: sandals, loose-light pants, a loose-light linen shirt, a big floppy hat and shades that make me look like a refugee from The Hamptons, and a cooling bandana – purchased just last weekend from REI, in anticipation of the upcoming scorchers – around my neck.

I walked slowly to my destination: FedEx Kinko’s, where I needed to make copies of a document and overnight one to a fellow condo owner. FedEx Kinko’s was plenty AC’d, but once I was back out on the street. Yowza it was hot.

I did a slow stroll back through the Common, delighted to see the kiddies still splashing away in the Frog Pond wading pool. A lovely summer sight!

Saturday was predicted to be absolutely dreadful. Upper 90’s with quite high humidity and a “real feel” – the summer equivalent of wind chill – of well above 100.

Forget it ain’t the heat, it’s the humidity. It’s both.

I pretty much stayed in all day, venturing out only after dusk to mail a letter. The mailbox is about a two minute walk, but the air was so close, it was difficult to breathe. I can only imagine how someone with any respiratory problems would have struggled.

Last Sunday was almost as bad as Saturday. Slightly less humidity, but still a heat index about 100.

I didn’t stick my head out the door once. I barely looked out the window.

But summer does have its rewards, and on Sunday evening I ventured into the kitchen to turn on the stove to cook up a couple of ears of corn.

The beauty of an induction cooktop is that it doesn’t heat up all that much. But boiling water is boiling water, so the kitchen – a greenhouse room with a western exposure, so a real hot-box – was a bit hot.

But that corn…

It was from the grocery store, not a farm stand, so not exactly fresh picked. And I’m not even sure if it were native – I have heard that there is some native corn around, but there was no source on the sign. But it was native of somewhere – Connecticut? New Jersey? – and whatever its provenance, it was pretty darned good to have the first corn of the season.

Really, is there a finer summer repast than a couple of ears of corn loaded up with butter, salt and pepper? Other than the nasty-ish garbage it produces, there’s nothing better.

Except maybe a fresh-picked tomato, either on a sandwich (lettuce and bacon are, of course, pluses) or eaten while leaning over the sink, salt shaker in hand, juice and pips running down your chin. Yum!

The fruit has been okay, too. Cherries have been fine (and a lot more reasonable than the are in the dead of winter, when sometimes I do breakdown and buy them even if they’re $8.99 a pound…) Watermelon, too. And I actually had a peach the other day that wasn’t half bad. Peaches are so risky… A couple of weeks back, down the Cape at my sister’s, we had delish strawberries that – get this – actually tasted like strawberries.

And – at least on the days when it’s not to hot to venture out – I am enjoying having the evening light, the absolutely best part of summer.  Especially when the Red Sox, our boys of summer who performed so brilliantly last year, are at best mediocre and at worst abysmal. Sigh. Nothing that, as a Red Sox lifer – baptized a Catholic, but born a Red Sox fan – I’m not used to. Still, it’s distressing and watching their games (I tend to turn on at least an inning or two) has been no great pleasure this season.

Anyway, last weekend’s hellish weather yielded to more seasonal temps, and even a most welcome coolish, rainy day.

I really hope we don’t have any more of those ultra-hot days. But as I watch the heat maps and weather reports, it sure looks like these days are a harbinger of things to come, and that more frequent sweltering temps (and more frequent violent rain storms: there was a lulu here the week before) will become the new normal.

I’ve been trying to be a good doobie on the AC side, keeping the temp in the low 70’s during the day, and the upper 60’s at night. (I used to do 70 during the day and 65 at night, but I’m now conserving a bit.) Next heatwave around, I’ll put it up higher during the day and just stay in my downstairs rooms, as it’s nearly impossible to cool the living room and kitchen. I know that cold air falls, but there’s not a lot of cold air falling from the living room registers, perched as they are close to the 12 foot ceiling.

Meanwhile, it’s now more or less seasonably, reasonably hot.

Still, it’s hard to forget the weekend of our thermal discontent, when the ear worm of the day came courtesy of the Lovin’ Spoonful.

Hot town, summer in the city. Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty. Been down, isn't it a pity. Doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city. All around, people looking half dead.
Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head.