Take This Heat And Shove It!

Excuse me while I whine...

I have lived in the DC area my entire life, so I really have no room to complain here, but I will anyway. After facing several mornings last week that dipped into the 30's, and a couple of days that didn't make it out of the 50's, we are now facing a third straight day of temperatures in the 90's - with a fourth on the way.

I had originially hoped to be able to open up the house and ratchet up all of the ceiling fans, but by lunchtime Saturday it became obvious that, between the rising heat and the hazy film of yellow pollen on the cars, the window option was not to be. I literally switched the thermostat from "heat" to "cool". The "off" switch, which in good years gets at least a little bit of welcome use, was of no use to me at all.

Spring is a fickle bitch in the DC area... Some years, we manage to eke out a couple of weeks of mild weather, but more often, we have these wild temperature swings, making it tough on both the electric and the gas bills. Autumn, on the other hand, remains by far my favorite season, because we tend to have more predictably mild weather. The air conditioning usually can be turned off by the third week of September, and in good years, we don't need the heat until Halloween.

Switching from cold to hot takes some getting used to... I have not slept well the past two nights, because after spending the past several months sleeping in a cold bedroom, I've had to adjust to a much warmer space. It's been a couple of nights of tossing and turning. Instead of adjusting the blinds and the shades to let the heat in, I'm keeping everything drawn and making the house darker to keep the heat out. And everything in my dresser is being moved around as the sweats make way for the shorts.

Summer's coming ... just much faster than I'd like!