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Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Keeping cool.....?

We're in the midst of the worst heat-wave in my Seattle memory. 'Excessive heat warnings' and 'stagnation advisories'. I know humid mid to upper 90 temperatures are the norm for many during the summer, but given that it is not here, many of the residences, schools and older buildings (including my house) are devoid of air-conditioning. A hot day or two here and there are quite manageable, but when there is a long string of them, everything heats up and all these un-air-conditioned interiors cannot cool down.

We've been trying to go on outings during the hottest part of the early evening so that we can escape the heat of our own house and enjoy the cool of elsewhere. Harry Potter made a very nice, long, cool and dark interlude. We dawdled at the restaurant, where I sketched in my Moleskine after dinner, until they wanted to kick us out and ready the table for someone else.

I am currently sitting in a dark studio, eating Trader Joe's Caribbean Flo frozen fruit bars, with two fans pointed at my face, but it is still too hot to do anything work-related (you know, like turn on a light so that I can draw...?) I think I must give up until at least midnight when hopefully the temperatures drop low enough to bear the heat of lightbulbs for sketching...?

15 comments:

Sandi McBride said...

I was shocked when I saw on the news that Seattle was suffering from a heat wave! And little rain? This is what I heard...hope you get through the heat unscathed!
Sandi

Christine Mercer-Vernon said...

oh tara, i feel for you... we're just barely topping 90 and it's high humidity and i'm dying, but at least i can stay inside in the a/c. you poor thing. when my brother and i were in art school, we were broke of course, and had no A/C so we would take kitchen towels and wet them, squeeze them out really good, then lay them flat in the freezer until good and frozen. then we would stick them up the back of our shirts, on our necks, where ever we needed cooled down. it was a nice temporary relief. :)

tlawwife said...

When we lived in Missouri near the Mississippi river we would come out to Kansas and people would say "It is sooo humid" and we would laugh. Now we say "It is sooo humid." I understand.

When my daughter's A/C went out she put ice in a bag and put it on top of her head (and mine while I visited) and amazingly it helped.

Hope it gets better.

d. moll, l.ac. said...

May creative heat coping methods will emerge from this....you seem to have found some of them. Sending cool thoughts from our Marine Layer.....

Unknown said...

Maybe it's a good time to practice drawing (in the dark) with your wacom tablet! Here's to finding some ingenious ways of getting through the hottest day today... I like the idea of sticking an icy frozen towel up your shirt!

cindy said...

at midnight our bedroom (upstairs) was still 94 degrees, so we slept in my work room (lower level) on the sofabed!

andrea said...

I've been trying to come up with ideas that don't cost anything, but staying submerged for hours at the beach and hanging out at the mall just aren't cutting it...

paintandink said...

Good luck... I am supposed to be "used to" the heat and humidity after 10 years on the east coast, but I am not, so you have all my sympathy! I am guilty of summer hibernation.

Tanja said...

I had just started working outdoors at Six Flags as a summer-time portrait artist during the 100+ degrees heatwave in Texas back in the 1980's. To keep cool we'd poor ice water in our shoes. It was so hard keeping sweat off the paper! Now that I'm in Arkansas, they're saying that we haven't had so much rain nor such a cool July since the 1890's. And it's raining again today. My sympathies for your lack of cool air-conditioning!

Anonymous said...

Amazing that is so hot for so long. Lived in and around Portland Oregon first thirty years of my life, so I know that when it gets hot it gets sticky . . .

Here's to cooler weather soon!

Northern Beauty Seeker said...

It's awful isn't it.

We used to fill the bath with cold water and let it draw the heat out of the air as the tub water warmed. It seemed to make a bit of difference. Of course, you can always get IN the tub of cold water if nothing else is working :)

Chris.P said...

I'm finding it hard to relate to your conditions as Summer took a left and has avoided the UK this July:¬(

The weathermen revised their 'BBQ weather' forcast for August down to 'unsettled.'

I do remember being in the Spanish 'desert' one summer and having to cool down by sitting by the fridge with its door open.

Ruthie Redden said...

oh my tara, i dont think i would cope very well with such heat! here a cool 70's is the hottest! its a thought all this unsettling unusual weather around our poor old planet. we ventured to see harry potter just last weekend, now we have to wait for the next one to come out! hope things get a little cooler soon x

Britt-Arnhild said...

Great sketch.

Anonymous said...

We can always count "the weather"
as a topic, no matter where in the world!
I feel for you, Tara, as it will be only a matter of weeks and this freezing southerly will have vanished and we'll all be paddling in puddles of sweat!
What has the heatwave done to your garden???