The Unchilled Life
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The Unchilled Life
Pull out a chair for her, turn on the air for herAnd just cool out, cool out and listen to her
--I Used to Love H.E.R., Common
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The photographer told me today, "Yeah, they used the silliest picture, huh?" Right-o. He couldn't have sent them one of the glamour shots, could he?! But I am delighted that when you go to their online homepage, it's me and the Dalai Lama, side by side.
I don't know if that happenstance shall ever occur again.
Labels: lisa in new york times, the unchilled life
posted by Lisa at 9:04 PM
12 Comments:
So the picture shows the real you - slightly disheveled, sweaty, and melting - it caught your smile!
We have a $16 floor fan, but it doesn't get near as hot here as it does there.
Yup -- I knew what they were after. Makeup would've just melted right off. If you really knew what I schlepped around in, it wouldn't be fit to print, so I figured tank top and shorts would give an essence of the thing. . .
There must be thousands of folks living without AC in hot climes. How did they find and pick you?
They probably wanted demographic diversity, and probably not too many are in mine. (An acquaintance turned me on to the reporter contact.)
Makes sense. They would want someone sorta normally demographic rather than all poor black people or white trailer trash, by which I do not mean all people who live in trailers by any means.
today in the imperial valley it was 118° with 57% humidity. the AC was run. we have a dual unit, on days when it's totally dry we run our swamp cooler, which both cools and humifies.
i can handle just about anything, hell, i'll go out and ride search and rescue (which is in the urgent season, folks can die in less than twelve hours out in our desert) in temps over 110°. but, there comes a time when you just simply gotta have AC to live here.
the pioneers of imperial valley used some pretty ingenious stuff to cope with the temps. they would set up water wheels in the canals to run fans inside their fly walled tents. they would also soak down the canvas sheets that made the walls and have an early version of a swamp cooler.
other folks would dig "submarine" houses with the first story sunk about 8 feet below ground.
i don't know if i could take florida. if you open a window there's all them there bugs and stuff.
Congratulations, Lisa!
For years I've fought with my hubby regarding air conditioning control. Summertime, I do not enjoy wearing a sweater inside our home! He's unemployed at this time, so we've kept the air off and acclimated without 'suffering'. Home design makes a difference as two-story homes retain a great deal of heat upstairs which makes sleeping a bit uncomfortable, but ceiling fans help tremendously. Fortunately for us in the upper Midwest, temps have rarely risen into the high 80's this year.
MB,
Yes, it can be brutal, a jungle of sorts. (I awoke the other night to very strange 6-inch preying mantis sort of bug on my kitchen floor the other night. Thank goodness it was slow-moving.)
Long-time RN,
Thanks. Few people realize how a/c contributes to global warming, but it is a big contributor.
If temps stayed in the upper 80's, I would be delighted. It is when they creep above 95 with humidity that it is tough. We recently had two straight weeks of 100+ (110 heat index), and that was unlivable. It has tempered out since then.
Here in the Northwest we are getting a little taste of the unchilled life, with temperatures in the high 90's this week and no a/c. At least it cools down to something respectable at night so window fans keep my upstairs apartment from becoming too unlivable.
Rezdog,
I didn't know it got that hot up there. As you say, the night is for celebrating.
Congrats Lisa!! That's cool. yeah bad pun I know.
Thanks, Terrible!
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