Patti and I went on a seven-day Alaska cruise back (Holland America Eurodam) in late May, and ever since returning to this sweaty, steaming, swampy city we call home, I’ve asked our little AI friend Alexa one question each day.
“Alexa, what’s the temperature in Sitka, Alaska?”
“Currently in Sitka, Alaska, it’s 56 degrees. Today, expect a high of 62 degrees. Tonight, expect a low of 52.”
Close your eyes and imagine 56 degrees right now. Feels good, right?
Yet here we are. I turn on one of those national weather forecasts this morning and there’s one of those temperature maps of the United States. You know, blue is cooler temperatures, red is hotter. It seemed like the whole southeastern United States is the same color as a Hot Tamales candy box these days, which aren’t even the doggiest of days we have coming. The map looks like the cover I imagine for Dante’s “Inferno.”
I took my daughter, Hannah, and grandson, Beckett, to the little beach at Navy Point the other day to wade a bit. Nothing like dipping into some cool water on a scorching day. But the water was the temperature of warm soup (or worse; yes, it felt like I was sinking into a urine sample cup. And yeah, I said it. “This water feels like pee.”)
Global warming? I call it global laming.
And I know I’m old, and maybe it’s just how my decaying body is reacting, but I don’t remember it being this hot as a kid. Or suffering through it if it was.
We received heat alerts last week on our phones, warning us of the brutal days ahead, part of something called a “heat dome” that was smothering so much of the southeast. As if we needed someone to tell us that it was hot, and it would continue to be hot.
I don’t remember our Rue Max home ever getting a landline phone call back in the 1970s warning us about the weather. (That would have been weird.) And I don’t ever remember anything called a “heat dome” swallowing up large geographic areas like some sort of comic monster. Or at least a bald, fire-throwing Batman villain.
On July 22, heat index values were at 110 degrees. How are people supposed to live in that? Sure, it’s raining now − July 25 − and that will lower the temperature a few degrees for a while. But give it time and all that moisture will just heat up and make the air swampier, and the index values will soar again. (We’re not even in August yet? We have another two months of this stuff?)
Yes, I’m complaining. The water feels like pee. People can’t get out and do the things they would normally be doing as much. For me, I haven’t hardly been able to play disc golf this summer. I’ve tried playing through the heat before. Two years ago, I had to drop out of an Emerald Coast Disc Golf tournament at the Gator Links course at Pensacola State College Milton campus after about 13 holes because of heat exhaustion. I was pushing it and getting lightheaded, then felt nauseous and ran into the woods. I was vomiting, and worse. (Yes, that too.) I’m too old to push it like that. Patti worries every time I step into the burning air these days.
I’m curious to know what you folks have cut back on this summer. Are the pickleball courts full? Is your garden getting weedy because it’s just too hot to mess with? Has your love life suffered because, you know, it’s just too hot to even think about that?
Domestically, Patti’s pretty much given me an ultimatum. I’ve heard “I don’t know if I can stand another summer here, Troy” a bunch, and I don’t disagree with her.
Maybe it’s just because we’re both older, but it’s hard. Maybe you whippersnappers handle it better?
We love Pensacola. Our families are here. But a few months a year in Alaska would be nice. (I’ve been checking. Alaskan summer rentals are, well, yikes!)
So I guess we’re stuck in this almost literally melting pot of Pensacola and are going to have to make the best of it.
I looked to visitpensacola.com for tips and they have a page with “Four Places to Beat the Heat.” None of them involved sitting in a well-airconditioned room sipping on iced tea. We can sip on iced tea because we’re inside and cool. If not, it’s water.
Their list was: “Dive into Snorkeling” (But what if the water feels like, you know?)
“Paddleboarding.” Aren’t you standing up on the board the whole time? You know, like a sun antenna?
“Escape to Gulf Islands National Seashore.” (Always beautiful, always hot.)
But my favorite was the fourth and final tip for beating the heat.
“Schedule around the Sun”.
OK, let me check. According to the sun’s schedule it won’t begin losing hydrogen for another 5 billion years. So that’s a bust. We’ll all have serious melanomas by then.
You know it’s hot when one of the best tips is “don’t even bother right now.”
Forgive me all. I’m just complaining. Because of, you know, the heat. (And Sitka really was special, Juneau, Ketchikan too. But Sitka got my soul.)
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: You know it’s scorching when a tip to beat the heat is ‘Don’t go out when it’s too hot’
Reporting by Troy Moon, Pensacola News Journal / Pensacola News Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
