(no subject)

[camwyn]

Almost slept in the bed last night, instead of on the couch. That's how much the temperature had dropped compared to the past few days. I wound up sticking with the couch because it was there and I wouldn't have to make the bed, but if it's that cool tonight, it might be nice to sleep in my actual bed again.

There was a guy in the paper I get in the mornings, New York Metro (it's a local free paper), who was complaining about how he disliked home air conditioning. Luxury's one thing but freon filled boxes in the window turning the home into a refrigerator are a deceptive luxury, he said. Summer ought to be a time to slow down and do things more casually, he said. Sit on the steps, not do as much, etc. There's lots of people who don't mind the heat and we ought to consider emulating them because we might find out we like it too, he said.

To that gentleman, I should like to say this:

When I was five, my mother, grandmother and I visited Disney World, in Florida. At one point we went to the riverboat restaurant. My grandmother tried to get me to eat the stone crab claws and I refused because 'I didn't like them'. I got the usual spiel about 'you can't say that if you don't try it', and since I was small and completely outmassed by the adults at my table, I wound up trying it. I informed Grandma that I still didn't like it.

"One day, when you're twenty-five," she said, "you're gonna go out with your friends and someone's gonna get this stuff for you and you're gonna say 'oh, it's wonderful, what is it'. And your friends are gonna say, stone crab claws. And you're gonna call me and say, 'Grandma, why didn't you tell me about this wonderful stuff?'."

When I was twenty-five, I was exposed to the crab claws again. I still didn't like them, at all, and I told Grandma so.

I don't like the damn heat and you can't make me.

Comments

[derien.livejournal.com]

He's a silly person. It's really a long way between bearing the heat, not minding it (because you have no choice) and 'liking' it. I hate heat. Over 80 and I'm just done, I can't think. (It doesn't take much, I'm just barely able to think at the best of times.)

[camwyn]

I have TRIED the relaxing. I have tried the dealing. I have driven a car with no a/c since 1998. I've been in both dry-heat and wet-heat parts of the States during high summer.

Open minds do not help. The heat sucks. Heat is God's way of saying 'what will it take to get you to move to Canada, camwyn?'.

[anaid-rabbit.livejournal.com]

Hey, give that guy a one way plane ticket to Moscavide, near Lisbon, Portugal, right here, right now. Let`s see then if his rationale stands. Somehow, I think he would be on his knees thanking me for our oh so luxurious home air conditioning.

[anaid-rabbit.livejournal.com]

Not to mention, my Grandma, who would probably be suffering from severe breathing problems caused by the heat, if it weren`t for the luxurious air conditioning.

As well as several elderly people and young children who would suffer from health problems - and some do, because they don`t have the luxury - caused by the concentration of heat in the city, which grows specially hot during the Summer.

[camwyn]

Oh, I don't think he minds for medical reasons. I think he minds because he's one of those people who think the iPod people are causing the downfall of western civilization by wearing visible indicators of how little they want to talk to strangers on the subway. "isolating themselves in the refrigerators they've turned their apartments into" is how he put it. That, to me, sounds like he's one of those 'woe! We are Isolating Ourselves!' types.

(Admittedly, I think too much customization in everything in our daily lives has made Americans much less willing to deal with politics in the real world, because we have come to expect everything, EVERYTHING to suit us personally, but still.)

[vaspider]

I like pretty much anything that once lived in the sea, incidentally, and I don't like stone crab claws. They taste spoiled to me.

[mephron]

as a Gentleman Of Magnificence, I can tell you: I go outside when it's warm and I will pretty much start to shut the hell down fairly quickly afterwards. The heat/humidity stuff we had the start of the week made me nearly unable to function in a meaningful manner.

Last night I slept with the windows closed for a different reason than the other nights. The others was to keep the cool air in. Last night was 'crap it's chilly!'.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

No- what will it take to get you to move to the Yukon, maybe. I live in southern Canada and the heat here sucks mightily.

[camwyn]

If that's the question, then I can tell both you and God that the answer is 'a little more heat and a lifetime supply of industrial strength insect repellent, but not much more than that, really'.

*chuckle

[argonautilus.livejournal.com]

I would think that anyone who knows you would know that getting you to change your mind about something simply because they 'know better' is wasting their breath and probably risking a knuckle sandwhich..or an arrow depending on the range.

[(Anonymous)]

"isolating themselves in the refrigerators they've turned their apartments into" is how he put it. That, to me, sounds like he's one of those 'woe! We are Isolating Ourselves!' types.

No, no, he's right. Clearly the solution is to put our cities in air-conditioned domes so that people don't want to rush indoors to beat the heat.

[pandoras-closet.livejournal.com]

Is this the same guy who thought iPods were desteroying communication with our fellow man or something?

[camwyn]

Nah, just his spiritual sibling, as far as I can tell. The column about the iPod people was nationally syndicated, but this whiner writes for the local newspaper and that's it, so far as I know.

Re: *chuckle

[camwyn]

This was a newspaper columnist, not someone addressing me directly. Which is good, because I've had better conversations with subway crazies than I could have with someone telling me a/c in the home was Bad For Society after a week like this.

[pandoras-closet.livejournal.com]

Eh, they're both morons. I admit that the first guy might have had a point of sorts, but this guy is just one of those heat-lovers. I can't sleep if it's hot, and I don't sleep much as it is. So damnit! I will turn on an AC or a fan if need be!

[tibicina.livejournal.com]

Y'know. My boss also doesn't let me have a siesta in the middle of the day.

Clearly this guy needs to be lumped in with the mad dogs. I'm keeping my air conditioner, thanks. I have lived without air conditioning. I *really* don't recommend it. The air conditioner is my /friend/.

there's heat and then there's heat

[chaos-wrangler.livejournal.com]

I'm known for liking heat (or at least dry heat) and didn't have air conditioning where I lived until I was 27 (and not in my bedroom until I got married and moved in w/G), and I was complaining about the heat this past week.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

I was in Toronto and the Cottage Country of Darkest Ontario (http://maps.google.com/maps?q=%22shelburne,+ontario%22&ll=44.227919,-80.170841&spn=0.015499,0.027251&hl=en) for Wic-Can Fest (http://www.wiccanfest.on.ca) last week, where it was in the high twenties to low thirties all week.

Whenever it threatened rain and the wind came up, even a little, I stood in the middle of the field and screamed, "BRING IT!"

It was never brought. Bah! Bah, I say!

...I miss thunderstorms.

The nice folk of Ontario miss their early June weather, too, and wishes the States would take theirs back, plskthx.

-- Lorrie