Summer is here. Our first summer in south Florida. I know what you’re thinking! “Aargh! The humidity!” And you’d be right! It’s not like we were unaware. We’ve been here before in the heart of summer, but we’ve never been here for the duration where it begins to sit heavy on your chest, back, and legs like an elephant who has decided it’s time for you to give him a ride! Movies like Mosquito Coast, Apocalypse Now, and African Queen come to mind. Do you have a visual yet? Even the plants seem to groan under the weight of the Florida summer sauna.
I’ve noticed it take longer to get from my car into the store. I feel like I’m walking in slow motion, slogging through thick quicksand and the store is a mirage that keeps getting farther away the closer you get. You step outside for a few minutes and the ability to take a deep breath has evaporated! That’s the only thing that has evaporated!!! This isn’t Phoenix you know, where everything evaporates and you can’t even tell you’re sweating! Here you know you are sweating, I think! I haven’t decided if I’m sweating or it’s just that the water in the air has found a place to puddle…under your eyes, on your shirt, behind your knees. You get the picture. Don’t even bother hanging a beach towel over a chair outside to dry. It could take days for that to happen, perhaps even an entire season! You step back inside and suddenly you’re freezing! It’s not that the A/C is turned too cool. It’s that you’re wet!
I was here once in August helping my daughter move. By the end of the day I thought I was shrinking. Simply melting into a puddle on the ground. I had to be, because my t-shirt was now down to my knees. I could have been wearing it as a dress! Who moves furniture in a dress? What was happening!? It was that trip where I made a side excursion to Phoenix on my way back to Colorado. I was actually excited about the experiment I was about to set out on. An opportunity to see what was more uncomfortable, 92 degrees with 87% humidity, or 112 degrees with 9% humidity? I couldn’t tell. It was just different and equally miserable!
My husband often walks outside and exclaims, “It’s not too bad!” I haven’t decided if he’s making an observation or trying to convince himself it could be worse. It definitely could be worse and it just might get worse! I don’t want to jinx anything just in case Mother Nature overhears and decides to let me see just how bad she can be!
Thank goodness for air conditioning and swimming pools! I grew up in the Valley of the Sun without climate control in our house or in our car. I was in the 5th grade when we bought a house with central air conditioning for the first time! The lap of luxury that we now come to expect and take for granted. That’s right! I was tough! Now I’m spoiled! I have a car with air conditioning, a home with air conditioning, stores with air conditioning. I can hopscotch from one to the other and if that is not enough I’m off to the pool or the beach. I’m good with being spoiled!
Which is better or more miserable, depending on how you look at it? A dry heat or a humid heat? I feel for my family in Phoenix. It’s been 113 degrees, plus or minus all week long! That kind of heat is intense! It’s hot, sizzling, scorching, blazing! This time of year Florida is hot, sultry, sweltering, steamy! Feel the difference?