It's currently 104,000,000 degrees Fahrenheit outside. OK, not literally. I'm exaggerating by a factor of 10^6, but it is pretty damn hot outside. It's hotter than Debbie Harry circa 1979.
And it's been like this for over a week now. That's the crazy, sucky thing. You basically have to live from air conditioned building to air conditioned building. Our home air conditioner isn't great either. I mean, it's fixed now, it works, but it doesn't really blast our house with cold air. It's not very efficient. My dad said we need to insulate our ducts, and I do plan on doing that (or rather paying somebody to do it, it's not like I can do it, myself), but I don't think that's the real problem. It's just not an efficient design. It's central air, but we only need it for a few rooms, so for instance, it's getting our basement, but our basement is already cool. Also, the main vent is in the living room -- which is good since that's the room we hang out in the most -- but it's on the only wall long enough to put a sofa, so our sofa blocks a lot of the air flow.
Still, I guess we should be happy that we have an air conditioner at all (and it's not like a week of above-100 degree weather is a normal occurrence), and that we never lost our power for longer than a few seconds last weekend. The derecho that came through here really wrought havoc on our area of DC, but somehow not on our neighborhood in particular. If you went just a few blocks in any direction the power was out, but it was on at our place. It was weird. Fortunate for us, but weird.
It would have been really awful to lose power too, because S is already in the too-big-to-be-comfortable-no-matter-what stage of her pregnancy, so sweltering heat is especially unwanted. And because my family (parents, sister, brother-in-law, two nephews) were all visiting, so I don't know what we would have done. We'd probably would have had to have a big slumber party in our basement. It's the only way we could have kept from melting.
We made the remarkably foolish-in-hindsight decision to go to the Lincoln Memorial last Friday when this heat wave just kicked in to full force (S didn't go, she had to work, and we aren't that foolish). It's over a mile walk from the closest metro station, so it's nearly three miles round trip. It was a sweaty, painful jaunt. I was wearing a baseball cap and whenever I saw a sprinkler, I'd take off my cap, soak it in the sprinkler, and put it back on. It felt super good, but only lasted a few minutes before it would be completely dry again. The sun was relentless. Plus, I did a lot of the trip with one of my nephews on my shoulders. The heat and the distance was too much for them.
It was too much for my mom too. She started feeling sick on the return walk and my dad took her back to the metro station (where it's always cool, because they have air conditioning and it's underground), and eventually back to my place, instead of to some museums with the rest of us. I was slightly worried. Not to sound morbid, but every summer you do hear stories about healthy seniors dropping dead in severe heat. Obviously, I don't think we were anywhere near this happening, but I'm sure that's what everybody thinks... until it happens.
Anyway, my little nephews (6 and 4) loved the American History and Natural History museums. We spent more time at the latter because there is more "cool" stuff to look at there. If the choice is between a display commemorating William McKinley and a display of a giant squid, which one do you think kids are choosing? They were particularly interested in a diorama of a caveman burial. I think this is because it was somewhat gruesome and intriguing and because you could see the dead caveman's naked butt. They are at that age where butts and poop and penises are funny. Oh wait, that's all ages.
In other news, I've started watching too new TV shows. One is Louie which is pretty funny so far. It reminds me a lot of Curb Your Enthusiasm in that it's one man always getting into awkward situations, and in that it's hit-or-miss. Most the episodes are really funny, but sometimes a bit just doesn't work. But even when this happens I usually see what the intent was and get why it could be funny -- the execution just failed.
[By the way, the end of this clip makes no sense even in the context of the entire episode. One of the things about this show is that every now and then he just throws in some random, unrealistic, unexplainable event.]
The other is Downton Abbey. I like it well enough, but I'm not super into it. If I had to quit watching right now it wouldn't bother me that much. I'm not dying to know what happens. The episodes are about 15 minutes too long, and they start to drag for me toward the end. But it's mostly an enjoyable watch overall and it's something S and I can watch together which is always welcome. It's much better than Teen Mom, that's for sure. In fact, we are going to watch an episode now (of Downton Abbey, not Teen Mom), so I'm officially signing off.
Until next time...
And it's been like this for over a week now. That's the crazy, sucky thing. You basically have to live from air conditioned building to air conditioned building. Our home air conditioner isn't great either. I mean, it's fixed now, it works, but it doesn't really blast our house with cold air. It's not very efficient. My dad said we need to insulate our ducts, and I do plan on doing that (or rather paying somebody to do it, it's not like I can do it, myself), but I don't think that's the real problem. It's just not an efficient design. It's central air, but we only need it for a few rooms, so for instance, it's getting our basement, but our basement is already cool. Also, the main vent is in the living room -- which is good since that's the room we hang out in the most -- but it's on the only wall long enough to put a sofa, so our sofa blocks a lot of the air flow.
Still, I guess we should be happy that we have an air conditioner at all (and it's not like a week of above-100 degree weather is a normal occurrence), and that we never lost our power for longer than a few seconds last weekend. The derecho that came through here really wrought havoc on our area of DC, but somehow not on our neighborhood in particular. If you went just a few blocks in any direction the power was out, but it was on at our place. It was weird. Fortunate for us, but weird.
It would have been really awful to lose power too, because S is already in the too-big-to-be-comfortable-no-matter-what stage of her pregnancy, so sweltering heat is especially unwanted. And because my family (parents, sister, brother-in-law, two nephews) were all visiting, so I don't know what we would have done. We'd probably would have had to have a big slumber party in our basement. It's the only way we could have kept from melting.
We made the remarkably foolish-in-hindsight decision to go to the Lincoln Memorial last Friday when this heat wave just kicked in to full force (S didn't go, she had to work, and we aren't that foolish). It's over a mile walk from the closest metro station, so it's nearly three miles round trip. It was a sweaty, painful jaunt. I was wearing a baseball cap and whenever I saw a sprinkler, I'd take off my cap, soak it in the sprinkler, and put it back on. It felt super good, but only lasted a few minutes before it would be completely dry again. The sun was relentless. Plus, I did a lot of the trip with one of my nephews on my shoulders. The heat and the distance was too much for them.
It was too much for my mom too. She started feeling sick on the return walk and my dad took her back to the metro station (where it's always cool, because they have air conditioning and it's underground), and eventually back to my place, instead of to some museums with the rest of us. I was slightly worried. Not to sound morbid, but every summer you do hear stories about healthy seniors dropping dead in severe heat. Obviously, I don't think we were anywhere near this happening, but I'm sure that's what everybody thinks... until it happens.
Anyway, my little nephews (6 and 4) loved the American History and Natural History museums. We spent more time at the latter because there is more "cool" stuff to look at there. If the choice is between a display commemorating William McKinley and a display of a giant squid, which one do you think kids are choosing? They were particularly interested in a diorama of a caveman burial. I think this is because it was somewhat gruesome and intriguing and because you could see the dead caveman's naked butt. They are at that age where butts and poop and penises are funny. Oh wait, that's all ages.
[From a baby shower / house warming party while my family was in town.]
In other news, I've started watching too new TV shows. One is Louie which is pretty funny so far. It reminds me a lot of Curb Your Enthusiasm in that it's one man always getting into awkward situations, and in that it's hit-or-miss. Most the episodes are really funny, but sometimes a bit just doesn't work. But even when this happens I usually see what the intent was and get why it could be funny -- the execution just failed.
[By the way, the end of this clip makes no sense even in the context of the entire episode. One of the things about this show is that every now and then he just throws in some random, unrealistic, unexplainable event.]
The other is Downton Abbey. I like it well enough, but I'm not super into it. If I had to quit watching right now it wouldn't bother me that much. I'm not dying to know what happens. The episodes are about 15 minutes too long, and they start to drag for me toward the end. But it's mostly an enjoyable watch overall and it's something S and I can watch together which is always welcome. It's much better than Teen Mom, that's for sure. In fact, we are going to watch an episode now (of Downton Abbey, not Teen Mom), so I'm officially signing off.
Until next time...
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ReplyDeleteYesterday we took the boys and Grannie to the Baltimore Aquarium (air-conditioned, learned our lesson) and we all thought the tropical rainforest exhibit (heated to about 85 degrees) was not that hot. THAT's how hot it's been.
ReplyDeleteSeriously. It's supposed to break a little bit tomorrow. Fingers crossed.
ReplyDelete