It's 87 degrees outside with 49% humidity. It feels hotter; it feels dreadful. I've lived through much, much worse days, but even the puppy doesn't want to play outside today. I throw his soft pink frisbie and after standing indecisively for a few moments he jogs half-heartedly over to it, collapses on the grass and gnaws on it.
Last time we went outside I tried bagging some pruned vines, but as soon as I felt myself began to perspire I was swarmed with mosquitoes, and puppy and I made a mad dash for the house. If I were God, drinking Jose Cuervo would add a natural insect repellant to one's sweat.
I've lived in Phoenix, well, Tempe actually, and this heat does feel different from the dry heat of the desert, but I hate hearing people say "It's not the heat, it's the humidity," because it suggests that if the humidity is low, the heat is tolerable, and it's just not true. As an undergraduate at Arizona State University I lived for a year in a dorm with huge swamp coolers at either end of the hall, and I remember returning to the dorm from the oven outside and standing, arms spread wide, head tilted back, in the damp cool breeze of the cooler. It brought relief only within a radius of about 10 feet. The heat was headache inducing, appetite killing, energy draining, intolerable. Much worse than anything I've experienced in the fifteen years I've lived in Virginia. It's not the humidity, it's the heat.
Ah but Mary, 87 degrees is nothing. Warm, sure but VERY tolerable if the humidity is low. Back when we were in the dorms together (and boy do I remember the swamp coolers there!), you were facing 105-115 degree days. And that's gawdawful whether the humidity is low or not.
From traveling around the country and facing the sticky, clothes-clinging humidity w/ 85-90 degrees, I'll take my 85-90 with low humidity ANY day.
I do have to say, though, that as I've been getting older, those 105-115 degree days here in Phoenix are getting harder and harder to take.
Liz
Hey Liz! Good to hear from you. Sure, dry 85-90 is better than wet 85-90, but wet 85-90 is better than dry 110, don't you think? I suppose it's apples and oranges, but what I was trying to say is that the bad days here (85, humid), are easier to take than the bad days in Tempe (110, dry). I know it's a matter of opinion, though. Then, of course, in Tempe you throw in the occasional sand storm...
Hey I keep checking your sff site hoping to catch you online, but I haven't even come close. CONGRATS on the people's choice award at the Con!! Must have felt VERY good.
Mary
Okay, I guess I can conceed that wet 85 is easier to take than a dry 110. However, it only seems bad (to me) early in the summer when we've been having lovely 75 degree days, maybe 85... then WHAM suddenly it's 100 and feels miserable.
By the end of the summer, feh! 110 is just irritating, not miserable.
Glad you made it over to the site. I'm on erratically (mostly when I'm at work, shhhhh), and it's not all that active, so I'm usually hanging out at other people's newsgroups when I'm on sff.net at all.
And yes, winning that award was verrry sweet.
Liz