Posted on 07/26/2013 3:46:12 PM PDT by Kaslin
It's definitely time, past time, to update this annual list of heat-beaters. Feel free to clip and save, mix and match, or add your own.
1. Delete all unwanted emails without opening them. Especially if they're from types who are always a bit hot under the collar anyway. If you must open any, under no circumstances reply. Soon you'll be on their heated level. Last year I heard from a Satanist -- no, actually he said he was a pagan -- and, you guessed it, he was hot as hell.
2. Forget talk radio and 24/7 television news. Switch to the classical musical station. Vivaldi is a comfort, Dvorak about as stirring as you need, Beethoven's symphonies a little too bombastic, and Mozart's perfect -- as always. Listening to the well-named Amadeus is like looking up at the clear night sky out in the country and hearing the music of the spheres. Or get out Miles Davis and John Coltrane's classic, "Kind of Blue." (I hereby nominate Miles Davis -- along with Gershwin, of course -- as the greatest American composer of the 20th Century.)
3. Recall the lightest, most elegant, interesting dessert you ever had. Mine is zabaglione over half a perfect peach. Italians know what they're doing in matters of summer style, and hot summers bring out their genius for creating just the right dish.
4. To borrow a line from the late great Robert Benchley, get out of those sweaty clothes and into a dry martini.
5. Think on the pure, crystalline beauty of the Pythagorean Theorem.
6. Don't try to figure out the infield fly rule one more time; just settle back and watch the game. Linger over the replays in slow motion. Move slowly yourself. No sense hurryin.'
7. Avoid watching sit-coms, playing rock 'n' roll, listening to TV shout shows, worrying about the future or regretting the past. "Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you." --Satchel Paige. Epictetus the Stoic might have said something like that, but not half so well.
8. Decorate with cool, green, leafy things, but not kudzu. Turn your back on it for a minute and it'll cover your house.
9. Take siestas; arrange to live in the early morning and after twilight.
10. Don't hurry back, or anywhere. "Nothing can be more useful to a man than a determination not to be hurried." --Henry David Thoreau. He may have been a Massachusetts man, but he had to be a Southerner at heart.
11. Park in the shade.
12. Key lime pie.
13. Wear a hat. With a broad brim.
14. Give the kids a nap. Take one yourself. Or watch an old Mister Rogers show with a small child; it'll soothe both of you.
15. Sit on the front porch. In a swing. Under a fan. Especially if it's glassed-in, air-conditioned, in the shade, and surrounded by cool greenery inside and out. If you must go out in the noonday sun -- like mad dogs and Englishmen -- stick a handkerchief in the back of your collar. Wear sunglasses. Breathe deeply.
16. Read last January's weather reports, with special attention to blizzards and ice storms. Contemplate Iceland and wonder if Eyjafjallajokull will erupt again. But under no circumstances attempt to pronounce it. It takes too much effort.
17. Take a thimble-sized cup of hot soup before supper to whet the appetite.
18. Switch from big band to chamber music, red to white wine, gin to tonic, cornbread to beaten biscuits, humor to wit. Sit back, breathe deeply, and erase from your mind all thoughts of Rand Paul, Eliot Spitzer, Obamacare, Eric Holder and anything else Fast and Furious.
19. Go fishing. Early in the day. Without fancy lures, rod 'n' reel, and other impedimenta. Pack a picnic breakfast, choose an unfrequented spot off the beaten path, lie down, breathe deep, close your eyes and clear the mind. ("Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after." --Thoreau again.)
20. Have a tall cold one. With a hot dog. At a minor league ballpark. Luxuriate in the nostalgia. See, hear and feel what baseball used to be like. Don't get all involved in who's winning and who's losing. Just root for the team in the field. And never, never refer to it as the Defense. That's heavy, sweaty, bruising football talk.
21. Think tomatoes, the real kind. Like Bradley County pinks. Ripe, sliced thin, maybe on dark bread. With just a hint of a smidgen of a drop of olive oil.
22. Wear white linen and play Great Gatsby to beat the band. Hide your ties till winter.
23. If you get the urge to exercise, lie down at once. If you absolutely must, swim. In cool water. Never run, seldom walk, stroll if you must. Master the saunter. Remember Paige's Law No. 2: "Step lightly; do not jar the inner harmonies."
24. See the movie "Doctor Zhivago." Stay to see snowy scenes twice. This time of year, Siberia in January starts to look like paradise. Watch an old movie, preferably one set in a cold climate.
25. Sweet tea. If you must attend a political rally, make it one sponsored by the (Iced) Tea Party.
26. Contemplate the coming of the next ice age.
27. Read up on the culture of the Esquimaux, Inuit and Aleuts.
28. Plan an expedition to the South Pole. Read a biography of Shackleton and marvel.
29. Stock up on watercress and cucumbers.
30. Carry a bandanna. Maybe two. Mop your brow even when it doesn't need mopping.
31. Walk on the shady side of the street. (Visitors from Up No'th have to be reminded.) Whoever designed those treeless parking lots around shopping malls should have to park in one. Every day. In August. Let the punishment fit the crime.
32. Sigh now and then over the follies of men. Do not judge lest you get all worked up. (Isn't that in Scripture somewhere?)
33. Read "Gorky Park" or some other detective story set in a cold climate. Check out Howard Hawks' arctic and antic sci-fi classic "The Thing From Another World." The scary scenes are particularly funny.
34. Send the kids to visit the grandparents.
35. Grandparents: Send the kids back after 24 hours, then take a week off by yourselves. You deserve it. You've already raised your kids. Alaska would be nice this time of year. If you can't make it up there, Newfoundland is closer.
36. Think what Stockholm must be like. Also Spitsbergen.
37. Go for a walk at dawn, preferably without having to get up at an early hour.
38. Peaches. Especially those from around Clarksville, Ark., where they keep turning out new varieties. Oh, those Ruby Princes! Ambrosia!
39. "Simplify, simplify, simplify." --Henry David Thoreau once again.
40. Don't fret. Why worry about things till you have to? You may never have to.
41. Just one word: Seersucker.
42. Wonder about the Laplanders.
43. Go ahead, try the waterslide.
44. Think on not having to put up the Christmas decorations, cook the turkey or build a roaring fire.
45. Smile in the sure knowledge that the damper on your fireplace is closed.
46. Check out the contents of the fridge at home. At length.
47. Consult the atlas for the location of Novaya Zemlya and the Bering Strait. Read about penguin population patterns. Study up on the Aurora Borealis.
48. Re-read Jack London's "To Build a Fire."
49. Be nice. Act pretty.
50. Take the columnists in the newspaper with an extra grain of salt. Maybe a carload.
There really IS more to San Francisco (and life) than politics. I know it might not seem like that to FReepers, but it's true.
I prefer this weather to the Los Angeles smog. I was in San Berdu (San Bernadino County) and was standing on the side of the freeway...HUGE traffic jam starting there and going all the way to greater L.A. and I could NOT see the other side of the freeway for the smog...so thick, it seemed like fog. You only have to smell the smog to know that it's not the clean, freshness of fog.
I have a good friend in mid-Texas. It's a great place but I don't care for the heat and bugs...especially those dang FIRE ANTS. One bit me; it hurt like hell and the scar lasted for a full year. OW!!!
When I was a girl we lived in Chicago for a year. All I can remember is the COLD. Brrrrrrr!!!! No thanks.
One of my oldest friends if from Fargo, North Dakota. She goes on and on and on and on and on about how wonderful Fargo, North Dakota and the MidWest are....but she is here. The winters drove her here. Hahaha. She doesn't drone on and on and on about the Midwest, North Dakota or Fargo anymore. She found a husband and is happy. What weather??? Amazing how good life is when one is happy. :o)
Excellent selection.
Don’t let LeBron go to the basket.
One bit you? ONE? I did not know that was possible. LOL
My husband and I went to live/work in Saudi Arabia for five years. After two years there we bought a nice 3-bedroom house in Forest Knolls (area in the Twin Peaks area of The City) and paid it off in nine years. I knew what I wanted. He loved me enough to get me what I wanted...a home in San Francisco.
I look out my window and see the green trees of Mount Sutro. I go out to Fort Funston every day for a nice 2.2 mile walk, gaze at the Pacific and the hang gliders...and schmooze with all the doggies--it's a popular dog-walking place.
No mosquitoes, no flies, no gnats. No screens on our windows. I used to think that ONLY Phoenix, where my grandparents lived, had screens and that all cities were like San Francisco. Well, I grew up and saw what an anomaly San Francisco and the Bay Area are. The cost? No summers like everywhere else. :o) If I want to bake I can go 30 minutes north, east or south. In the winter, if I want to freeze, I can to 30 minutes north, east or south.
NO SMOG...because those daily winds (around 3:00 P.M.) blow the smog to Oakland and San Jose.
How NICE it is to like where we live, innit?
We stayed the extra three years in Saudi Arabia and traveled to China, India, Kenya, Egypt (twice), all over Europe. It was quite an adventure for us...not a breeze or a problem...an adventure. I wouldn't change ANYTHING we did. It also made me appreciate what a FABULOUS place this country is.....no other place on earth like this.
That is my reality. 100s for the next week in Austin, before the ‘feels like’ +~10o add-on.
‘Feels like’ is an evil and unnecessary invention. Like we don’t notice what it feels like and need our misery confirmed.
Yes, only one.
After that bite I wore the insect repellent that I used in the middle east (Saudi Arabia) and never got another bite, creepers or fliers.
We DID have camel spiders over there in Saudi Arabia. One got into my closet, jumped out and bit me on the finger. I had to go to the Clinic because my finger turned PURPLE and the PURPLE was moving up my arm.
I got THREE huge shots of Benydril, fell sound asleep and woke up 100%. That wasn't a bad average for five years there. I WAS extremely careful. I didn't want to go through that again.
The fire ants were chump change compared to the VILE bugs of the middle east. I got an amoebic dysentery there that was so bad that it was sexually transmittable so my HUSBAND had to take the THREE medications along with me.
Whoever heard of a sexually transmittable amoebic dysentery? :0(
Six months of wet, six months of dry. That is California weather.
Here it gets down to 48 or 49 at night during the winter. The days are 51-53 degrees with rain. Some years there is more rain than others.
The summer is 51-60 degrees, with afternoon "breezes." It is BONE dry during the summer.
Winds (They call them trade winds for some reason.) every afternoon at about 3:00 P.M. The winds stop at sunset.
If you are out at the beach you can see the bank of fog MILES and MILES westward and you know that it will come blowing howling in about 3:00 in the afternoon. It's no surprise. A hooded, zippered, pocketed sweatshirt will do ya.
I wore the insect repellent that I used in the middle east (Saudi Arabia)
Yark!
Camel spiders are nasty!
Lol. Close. They have SO much money and NO rules that I could get ANYTHING. I got stuff that was DEFINITELY illegal here. But...it killed those bugs!!
My thinking: it's their country and if they think it's okay to have all those DREADFUL pesticides, then ok.
I can remember our camp being sprayed. A HUGE Mercedes Benz tanker truck pulled up to our softball diamond. We had complained about the mosquitoes, so this tanker truck pulled up. We all thought, "Nah they wouldn't SPRAY us...that would KILL us like it kills the bugs."
Well they did spray and we coughed and coughed and coughed for 15 minutes. Geez!!!!! We should have known better. That is what they DO! Rather than 30 women complaining to the company about the mosquitoes...they sprayed -- us too.
Do you remember the cartoons where the bug is sprayed and it drops STRAIGHT DOWN? It was a cartoon, but that is what the bugs did when sprayed with STRAIGHT DDT--illegal here but used there. Lord, it probably shortened my life by 10 years!!
Lived in SF for 10 years. We were always deeply offended when the sun was visible for more than two days in a row and the temperature got to 80. “@#$&*@, if we’d wanted hot weather, we’d be living in LA.”
I got attacked by at least 40 mosquitos including the black ones with white stripes at a party last weekend: I have a stiff neck, sick, probably have West Nile, malaria and God knows what else including heartworms.
I have traveled the world quite a bit and except for New Zealand I have never seen any place as beautiful as the west coast of the US, but I can promise you, inspite of the weather, I will never come to San Fran again. Because my husband's nut case relatives might catch wind of it and if I NEVER see those insane people again I'll be happy.
ya like my writing style do ya well i like ittooit so seamingly suits sanctimonious supercilious sanfranciscans
Hahaha, thanks for the laugh.
Your husband's nut case relatives? Oh dear, there is a genetic component there. I hope you don't have children. Some of HIS nut case genes might sneak in there.
San Francisco is a part of the greater bay area with 7 million people. I SERIOUSLY doubt that you would be noticed.
However, you obviously have no liking for the Bay Area. That is good. We need NO MORE folks here. We have enough.
Lol. You sure are picky. My husband and I lived in Saudi Arabia for five years....for money. People moan and groan about "hot" weather here. You don't KNOW hot weather. This time of the year, July, it was 117 degrees with 95% humidity in the KSA...Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
However, after two years there we were able to buy a nice 3-bedroom house in a nice part of San Francisco and pay it off in nine years. It was worth it.
Also we traveled when we were over there--India, China, Egypt, Bahrain, Syria, etc. It was the adventure of a lifetime for my husband and me.
We also made friends over there, Americans, and GOOD friends. I'm still friends with one lady...after 35 years.
There are no heartworms in San Francisco, Pacifica and Brisbane. Heartworms need THREE WEEKS of CONTINUOUS heat to breed...and that simply cannot happen in San Francisco, Pacifica and Brisbane. Imagine that. Dogs are safe from heartworms in that one area of the planet. Yay, fog.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.