Between my vacation and my limitation to one-handed typing for the last few weeks, I’ve missed a few Weekend Assignments lately. But my right shoulder is recovering well, as I Tweeted on Wednesday morning:
“GREAT news at the ortho yesterday: shoulder healing very well & can wean off sling -by next week, just need to wear it at night!”
and later that day:
“I have a new appreciation for typing with both hands – and oh, right-click, how I’ve missed you!”
The timing is good – for one thing, I will not be accessorizing with the Immobilizer at Comic-Con next week or at BlogHer’10 three weeks from now! It’s also heating up outside – temperatures locally are forecast to hit triple digits this weekend – so it’ll be nice not to have to wear something extra on my arm. It also makes Karen‘s Weekend Assignment topic an especially hot one:
Weekend Assignment #327: Beat the Heat!
Summer is well underway now. If you live in the northern hemisphere, the days are long and the sun is on its way to being about as hot as it gets in your particular climate. How do you stay cool when the weather gets hot?
Extra Credit: If you’ve ever relocated hundreds of miles to a new home, did the climate play a role in your decision to move?
One reason that my first husband, son, and I moved to Memphis, Tennessee in the fall of 1991 was because the other job offer he had was from a college in St. Paul, Minnesota. After four years of Central New York State winters during his graduate-school stint, I begged for a more temperate climate. Memphis does have hot and humid summers, granted, but the spring and fall are long and mostly pleasant (aside from the thunderstorms and tornadoes, of course) and the winters aren’t too rough. When I relocated to Southern California ten years later, I chose it because my extended family all lived there already, but I won’t deny that the climate was also part of the appeal.
But unless you’re right at the beach all the time, SoCal heats up in the summer too. However, this is naturally a desert climate, and it’s a dry heat. Don’t scoff at that, because after spending the second half of June in the muggy Northeast, I have to tell you that there really is a difference – and the body adapts more easily to the lack of humidity. Lower humidity means that the evenings are noticeably cooler and more comfortable than the daylight hours, too…and again, unless you’re near water, they’re also less plagued by mosquitoes. Still, even the dry heat is still HOT – it’s just a difference between baking and steaming.
My SoCal-native husband doesn’t take heat very well, so when the temperatures go up, we go undercover and inside. Basically, we avoid outdoor activities as much as possible, and even try to confine travel to the early and late parts of the day, when the car won’t heat up quite as much out in the parking lot. We may go to the movies or do some other indoor recreation, but some weekends we’ll just stay home, playing games, reading, and watching movie marathons on DVD. We are very grateful to have been born after the invention of air conditioning.
Kick back with a cold drink and tell me how you keep your cool when it heats up outside! And if you’d like to tell everyone, join in on this week’s Weekend Assignment!
