But It's a DRY Heat!
It will be close to 110 (43.3 Celsius) today and for some reason the heat seems more unrelenting than normal. For this I am glad, the unbearable, unending, constant prescense of the heat wrapping around, into and through everything it touches, is quite comforting to a disdainer of weather that is cold like me. The sun scorches until plants wilt, clay earth cracks; even glass will break when given enough constant battering of sunshine.
Most people don't understand how taxing the summers are in my oasis. The concept of such tempratures is easily within reach, since most folks have expiernced a "humidity index" that pushes the temprature over the century mark with ease. But the constant prescense of the sun and how rays of sunlight beat down upon you for weeks at a time, are what folks don't quite grasp.
A recently penned article signficantly downplayed Florida's claim as the 'sun shine state' listing it as the bottom selection in a top five list of the nations sunniest hot spots (pun wholly intended). My state was top of the heap sporting 252 out of 365 days basking under the giant ball of fire in the sky. More to the point than actual scientific type research, I haven't been subjected to single day where Mr. Sun was blocked by clouds for more then a few minutes at a time since mid-April. The exception, of course, was my vacation to Michigan where it was not only cloudy most of the time I was there, but cold, rainy and humid to the point where I was in a constant state of sticky. In fact there is so much sun here, things like dew soaked fields, babbling creeks and trees that are green (instead of sickly grays, yellows or browns) are images I see on Discovery Travel or the Weather channel. Michigan may be a shithole, but I'll be damned if being subjected to actual weather in May sure was a nice change of pace.
A lot of people couldn't fathom living in such conditions. Unless of course the constant sunshine was on a desert type island, more akin to paradise, with lots of blue water and wait-staff in grass skirts. But never would most people choose to live in a dust choked valley, that has the feel of a giant easy bake oven, instead of something more akin to a tropcial retreat. Tons of people spend one (or just part of one) summer here and flee swearing never to return to the sun-soaked suburban jungle I call home.
Quite frankly, I am almost always happy (there are excpetions, of course) to see them go. I just wish they could convince the other 5.6 million people that stay here to go with them.
Just think, dearest of diaries, even though it's hot enough to fry eggs on the sidewalk, the monsoon and worst part of the year is yet to come. Why is the monsoon worse? Average temprature is 105 (40.5 celius), but instead of 2-10% humidity we get 40% plus humidity; and it still never seems to rain.
**Editors Note: This weekend, provided it isn't cloudy (HAHAHAHAHAHA), I will cook an egg on the sidewalk in front of my abode (with pictures of course) just because you really can do that here and it's not an urban legend. I've also heard tales of individuals cooking whole hams, sides of bacon and even brownies on the dashboards of their cars, but can not substantiate nor be willing to duplicate such efforts because I'm afraid that it's true.
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