Yes I know Summer officially arrived only a couple of days ago, but even some of the locals have said that we don't usually see this kind of weather until later in July. It reached 90 today, and forecasters expect temperatures of 90 and above for the next three to four days. The humidity stands at 73%, which doesn't make it any easier to be outdoors. When I went out this morning at 7:15 to make my way to the refectory for breakfast, the humidity hit me like a wall. The refectory windows were completely fogged up because the temperature in the building was cold enough to create condensation.
Why do people insist on keeping building interiors colder than an icebox? Fortunately, I can control the temperature in my office and my apartment. I don't like wearing a sweater indoors during the Summer. The only drawback to setting my thermostats as high as I do is that sometimes it gets stuffy because the HVAC units don't run as frequently. That is easily solved with a fan. It's still less energy than constantly running the three units in my apartment. Which is also why I keep my thermostat set at about 65 during the winter. I do wear extra layers in the winter, but it's still warmer than an icebox.
I've often wondered where that expression colder than an icebox came from. Not so much where, but why. And how many people actually know what an icebox is any more? I remember by grandparents calling the refrigerator an icebox from time to time. It makes sense since iceboxes continued to be used well into the 1930s and 1940s. Carrier developed what we would call an air conditioner in 1902, so I suppose it's not a great leap to figure out why the expression came into use. Another example of how our language maintains expressions well beyond the demise of the objects of their origin. I'm not even going to start on the humidity hitting me like a wall.
But I digress.
It is hot, and it is humid, and it is definitely too early in the year for this weather. Yet I find myself functioning fairly well for someone who lived in more northerly climates for 50 odd years. I may not when we get to mid-to-late-July, but I seem to be adapting. Outside I move a bit slower. I drink extra fluids. And while this weather still saps my energy, it doesn't feel as bad as last Summer.
Even so, I'm still a Yankee. Just ask my new friends and coworkers.
