Hot as heck

We’ve had a bit of heat here in Kirikiriroa-Hamilton lately. The days have been beautiful, with blue skies, sometimes with puffy clouds, sometimes with none, and often with a gentle breeze. However, the daytime temperatures have been 5 to 7 degrees higher than is normal for this time of year, which, to use a typical understated Kiwi phrase, is not ideal.

I’m not going to sugar coat this: It was pretty miserable at the end of this week, from Wednesday onward. This is because I have no air conditioning in the living area, and it gets hot in there from early afternoon, and doesn’t get better until early evening.

Here’s what I mean: On Friday, it hit 25 degrees (77F) in my neighbourhood, which is already reasonably hot by our standards, but, worse, it hit 29 (84.2F) in the living area of my house, and that was awful. The next day, it hit 26 (78.8F), but it was “cooler” inside: 27 (80.6F) . Today it was back to 25 outside, and still 27 inside. I learned my lesson, and by Saturday started closing the curtains when the sun hit the stacker doors in the living area. 

I’m well aware that this is the sort of thing that some people derisively call “First World Problems”, and I’m also well aware that what I’m experiencing is nothing compared to heatwaves that people experience elsewhere, however, I’m not there, and I’m acclimatised to this area, not elsewhere, and by those perfectly reasonable standards, this has been rough.

There have been times in my life when I had no air conditioning, and I dealt with that using fans or whatever else I could think of. I spent one summer in Southern Illinois, and it was utterly brutal, far worse than anything I’ve experienced—before or since. I used to walk to the air conditioned Student Center to sit in the cool, possibly the only reason I got any studying done that summer.

This year, in this place, I have fewer options. I put an oscillating fan on high (no help) in the living area, plus a more powerful fan on the floor in the hallway, blowing air toward the living area. I’d noticed the hallway was cool, and figured putting a fan there would draw cooled air from my bedroom, and it did, but the cool didn’t actually make it into the living area. I suppose that at least I got a nice cooling breeze when I walked down the hallway to my bedroom.

Fortunately for me, my bedroom air conditioner is working well, and the past couple days I went back there to cool down (I knew Leo would follow me to cool down, too). But I also have things I want and need to do, and I didn’t want to stay in my bedroom all day. And so, I cooled down when I could, and endured the heat when I needed to.

All of this has reminded me of what I experienced much of my life, but an experience that time and technology eventually made uncommon. Now, after all these years with cooling, I find it very hard to do without it. At the same time, the weather is becoming more intense due to climate change, and that includes high summer heat and bitter winter cold. I’m aware that as I continue to age, temperature may well become a bigger problem for me. Still, where I live the winter cold is not as severe as the heat in summer sometimes is (so far…), and I’m thankful for that.

And yet, adaptations are necessary for us all. Many of the changes I’ve made to this house—the solar panels, window coverings, and even the patio cover and the ducted air conditioning—are to make the house comfortable even with harsher weather and temperatures, and to look after me as I get older.

I also recently did something unusual (for me) that helped. Last weekend, when the temperatures were still okay, I took a pair of jeans with holes in both knees and made them into cut-offs, the first time in around 50 years I did that (I think). I wanted them to wear around the house, not sure that I actually would, but having them as an option definitely helped.

Too much heat is exhausting, but I’d forgotten how true that is. With some luck, I’ll be able to forget again.