We’re smack dab in the middle of summer here in the Pacific Northwest, and that means certain people have started complaining about the heat.
By “certain people,” I mean my mother, who believes that if the temperature gets above 70 degrees Fahrenheit, it’s a heat wave.
Her grumbling is all the more mystifying when you take into account the fact that she is from the Midwest, where it is far hotter in the summer.
All these years of living in Washington state have apparently eroded her tolerance to hot weather, and she has gone soft.
Our summers here in the Pacific Northwest are comparatively mild to other parts of the country.
Let’s take, for example, Arizona (state motto: “Conveniently located just a quarter-mile from the sun!”), where temperatures routinely hit the 100 degree mark and above.
Thankfully, though, Arizona does not have high humidity, although that’s probably of little comfort to those who live in a place where you could fry an egg on the sidewalk.
High humidity, of course, makes it feel even hotter, because of all the moisture in the air.
The hottest place I have ever been in my life is Houston, Texas, a city I visited in August of 1990.
To say that it was hot is an understatement.
With temperatures at or over 100 degrees and a humidity percentage that wasn’t too far behind, I found it difficult to breathe outdoors.
Simply walking somewhere had me weezing like a smoker trying to jog for the first time.
Another pleasant side effect is that you start sweating as soon as you go outside, so you fill really grimy all day, not to mention that lovely feeling of your skin sticking to leather furniture.
Needless to say, I tried to spend most of my time in Houston in one of two places: 1) an indoor location with a functioning air conditioner or 2) a swimming pool.
By the time I left, I was convinced that Houston was built over hell.
So see Mom, we have it pretty good here in the Pacific Northwest. Hopefully, she’ll keep that in mind when she decides to tell me that it’s way too hot outside.
Then again, it probably won’t matter, because when the fall comes, she’ll start complaining about the rain.