We've had a pretty beautiful summer so far. Most days balmy - 70's and 80's - and sunny. (Actually, too sunny: we're experiencing a moderate drought.) Yes, it's been pretty beautiful. UP UNTIL THIS PAST WEEK. Now, we're having a heatwave, a tropical heatwave. And it's too darn hot.
Some like it hot, but I've never been one of them. As a kid, my parents had to stop me from running around so I wouldn't get overheated. And I was the girl in the third pew who regularly had to stumble out of Mass on a hot summer Sunday when I felt I was going to pass out.
Give me cool, lotsa cool, any old time.
So this last week, when the temperature's climbed to 90+ every day, just hasn't been my cup of (iced) tea.
Oh, I've been able to get my walks in: morning strolls through the Public Garden, which is right outside my front door.
There are plenty of shaded areas and there always seems to be a cool breeze. Plus there's even a bubbler, which is good for those times when I've forgotten to take my HydroFlask with me. When the sprinklers are sprinkling, I like to walk by, hoping that the cool breeze blows a bit of water onto the walkway. A nice little cooldown.
There are also benches to park on for a few minutes, when I'm feeling a bit droopy. Of course, by a certain point in time, the ones in the shade are all taken. And when I do score a shaded bench for a few languid moments, I always feel guilty about depriving some tourist family of a rest, given that, wherever I am in the Public Garden, I'm only a few minutes from my AC'd home.
The drought is more apparent on the Esplanade, where there are large patches of browned grass. But mostly it's a pleasant place to walk.
Generally, the only unpleasant part is the Canada geese wandering all over the places, crapping as they waddle. The paths are minefields. Why don't they just crap in the water? It's not as if anyone's swimming in it.
The other day, there was a different sort of unpleasantness: a homeless fellow, pushing his cart, and screaming unpleasant, nasty, threatening things at people. I heard him from a distance and crossed one of the bridges to get out of his path. Mental illness? Substance abuse? Both?
A young man who he was verbally attacking called 9-1-1, and the Staties swung in, but I wasn't there to see whether they took the fellow away.
I don't blame the person who called the cops. Someone suffering from mental illness and/or substance abuse can pretty easily turn violent.
I never got close enough to the homeless fellow to get a good look at him, but I wouldn't be surprised if I had recognized him from my volunteer work at St. Francis House. Hope he's okay. (Hope he didn't harm anyone. Hope he was just all talk/shout.)
It's never a good time of year to be unhoused, but summer can be especially cruel.
Imagine being outside when it's so sweltering. Places like St. Francis House (and the heat-escape centers the city opens) help. Still...
And it's not exactly a trip to the beech if you're housed, but don't live in a neighborhood that's shaded, a neighborhood where there's a beautiful park in your front yard, and a gorgeous walk along the river just out back. And where you have central AC and don't need to worry about your electric bill.
Not to mention how awful it must be for those who work outside: painters, roofers, gardeners, construction workers, road crews, trash collectors...
Ugh!
Fortunately, we're only having a week of this. (The weather's supposed to break by Monday.) And it's only in the 90's.
Imagine Arizona. Imagine Texas.
I have close friends in Dallas. I was suppose to visit them in mid-June, but that game was called on account of weather already in the 100's. They've now gone weeks with daily temps over 100, and there's no end in sight.
I talk with Joyce every Sunday, and we text all the time.
Life (outside) is unbearable. She and her husband are pretty much sheltering in place. It's even too hot to go in their pool or turn on the grill.
Joyce takes her walks early in the morning, when it's just in the 80's.
Other than that, they're pretty much prisoners, sitting there worrying about whether there's going to be a blackout. And they're among the lucky ones. They're prisoners in a beautiful home, fully air-conditioned. And they can afford the sky-high electric bill that's heading their way.
Summer's hot. We all get that. But most of us also get that climate change, global warming, is making things worse. That one-hundred year events will be occurring annually. That Lake Mead is becoming a mud puddle. That earlier this week it was over 100 degrees in London, of all places. That many places are burning up to the point of uninhabitability. And most of the places that will be hit worst and first are poor. (Why do you think all those immigrants from Central America are heading are way? Sure, there are plenty of reasons, but one of them is that their environment is no longer sustainable.)
And yet, we cannot get out of our own way politically to acknowledge that pending crisis and start doing something about it. Honestly, I don't for the life of me understand how climate change has been so politicized. Don't Republicans (and Joe Manchin) realize it's going to impact their grandkids, too?
It's too darn hot.
And I hate it.
But I don't want to end on a low note, so I'll give you this link to Martha & the Vandella's singing and dancing to Heat Wave, way back in the 1960's, when we weren't quite so worried about the end of the world as we know it. Check it out! Those dresses, those hairdos, those dance moves! Martha Reeves' incredible voice.
How cool is that?
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