This day has the potential of being less than nice. I’ve been around enough years so that I have the right to not only complain about the cold, which I do all winter and early spring. Therefore, I have that same right to complain about the heat. If this day is anything at all like the weather gal on Channel Six says it’s going to be, I could be complaining a lot today.
From the temperature change from when I went to my Senior Fitness session this morning just until I left there an hour later, I think I’m very glad I have early sessions. The temperature climbed more than ten degrees between leaving home and arriving back. The session itself went very well and I did accomplish all the routines I set out to accomplish, but I might not be happy with the rest of the day.
There’s just something plain unfair about a week that goes from frost warnings on Monday to temperatures possibly hitting the 90s on Thursday. Now we who live near the coast probably won’t get quite that high, but you who live a little inland where the frost actually hit could. But even the 80s, especially the high 80s, could make this day uncomfortable. We have an excellent chance of hitting a record high today. The current record in 87 set in 1992.
I’m among the first to say, quite frequently actually, that those fancy computers that today’s weather folk use aren’t always too accurate. This week, however, they’ve been rather consistent in telling us that all that heat being generated in the Midwest will arrive here today. The good part of that for me is that I’m retired and can stay home, now that I’m back from my senior fitness session, for the remainder of the day.
Wife Gator says we don’t have any pressing work situations, either, so once she gets home from one of those trips no one likes to make, we’ll just spend the day taking it easy. The air conditioner is also ready to be put into service if the weather calls for it today. We didn’t need it the last time the temperature crossed into the 90s back in April.
My Fearless Friend arrived home from Florida last night. I don’t think there’s been a day go by in the last few weeks where I didn’t get an email from him complaining not only about the heat in Central Florida but also the air quality. Both he and Mrs. FF were suffering big time. So they get back to Maine and today’s possible 90 degree temperatures greet them. I don’t think they’ll find the air quality as bad as that in Florida, but they’ll certainly be reminded of what they left. Welcome home, Mr. and Mrs. FF.
Speaking of Florida weather, I doubt I’ll ever forget it. When I was pretending to be a student at the university, I worked summers for a building supply company. The company not only sold construction stuff, it also provided installation. I became a windows expert, both installing and fixing broken mechanisms in already installed ones. You can believe me when I tell you that being outside in the summer sun working with windows with the sun reflecting off the glass was a far cry from being a picnic.
It paid off for me once, though. When I took GW there for the first time for her and my parents to get to know each other, we went out to a nightclub one night. We got home rather late and my parents had already gone to bed. I had forgotten a key and the doors were locked. I hadn’t forgotten my time working with jalousie windows, they’re the windows with four inch slats that open and close with a crank, and had a door open in less than a minute. My parents were shocked the next morning to find us sleeping in our bedroom. They never knew I had maneuvered the window, we came in, and I fixed it.
My dad wasn’t surprised as he knew I knew how to do it.
I love telling those little stories out of my past. There’s a difference, though, in this old man telling long ago stories. I can still remember yesterday.
Oh, that trip GW had to make today. An old friend of hers is about to leave this world. Cancer. GW needed to say, “Goodbye.” She got the “it’s time” call from her friend’s family a day or two ago. They thought two of us might be too much and we respect that so GW is making the trek herself.
Let me stop today’s ramble with an often given admonition: If that heat does indeed reach us today, remember your elderly relatives and neighbors and check on them occasionally. Drink lots of liquid, preferable non-alcoholic, and keep yourself hydrated.
GiM
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