In which it is hot

[zeborah]

It's midday, and already 33°. Forecast for 36°. Australians may laugh, but 32° was the highest I ever knew through my teens; we've maybe had 34° a few times since; 36° is “Wait, what? Here?" The air is thick and heavy to breathe

My painter, who I swear told me he could use plastic to pull my plants away from the house himself, has now left a message that I need to trim them back. I got the message last night and thought “I guess that's what I'll be doing tomorrow afternoon," but it looks like I won't be doing them until evening at least.

Doing my grocery shopping, I picked up an ice block and ate it in gulps waiting for the bus. it was a five-minute bus trip home, during which time I heard the bus radio dispatch guy gives instructions to two bus drivers about cooling down their engines. My bus driver wouldn't open the roof hatch (apparently some of them end up blowing off) but drove with the doors open instead.

Currently I have my curtains closed, and a damp cloth wrapped around ice around my neck. (This is far more effective than my method, last hot day, of differing the cloth in a bowl of water and ice: the cloth's water evaporated and the ice melted. This way the melting ice keeps the cloth wet and cool.)

Comments

[zeborah]

Hopefully everyone had the sense to stay inside, but even so it was sweltering. I heard more sirens than usual since the quake; I wonder if it was fire engines, because a lot of quake-damaged houses have let their lawns grow long enough to be a fire hazard.