I’m melting. Full-on puddle of sweat on the living room floor. We’ve been in the middle of a heatwave.
I thought I had it all planned. My air conditioner had never worked well since buying this house a few years ago. And original furnaces often grind to a halt in houses of this age. So, in an organized and responsible fashion, as soon as I figured these people were working, I had quotes on replacing them both. I chose a contractor and I scheduled replacement. Piece of cake!
I’m not one to turn on the A/C early or often. I’d rather deal with a little heat, so I can hear the breeze through the trees, and the songbirds that sit in them. We have fans in the bedrooms, so we can deal with a little bit of summer warmth. But that was when I spent most of the day in a frigid office and only had to deal with the heat for a few hours a day.
And then the heatwave came. Day upon day of 40+ humidex values. I called my contractor, but no, no chance of bumping up delivery by a week. I’m sure I could have got a repair done, but that’s throwing good money after bad. So we suffered.
In any other time, we might have escaped to an airconditioned shopping mall to while away a few hours, or a restaurant to eat in. Dinners have consisted of nothing but cold and room-temperature food items. There was no way we were turning on the stove. Even the idea of standing next to a hot barbecue was unpleasant.
For the past week, business attire has gone out the window. Don’t tell the colleagues I’ve been on video calls with, but in addition to all the shoulder-bearing tops they saw, below the waist, it was shorts and short skirts all the way. The worst two days, it reached over 31C on the main floor of the house. I didn’t even want to know what it was upstairs. Even with the fan blowing at me all day I was having trouble concentrating after about 3 pm.
Last night we got a bit of a break. In the evening, the sky went dark a few hours too early and the heavens opened. It poured with rain, which the gardens needed. My neighbour’s kids went out in to the street jumping in puddles, almost delirious with the excitement of it all. It reminded me of when my own kids did the same, one summer day long ago.
This morning, as I sit on my front porch enjoying the still relative coolness, my contractor is unloading ducting, tools and the long-awaited A/C unit (and furnace, of course). I can’t wait to turn it on and get rid of the residual humidity in the house. Because although this heatwave is waning, I see another one not far behind!
