Dog Days

We're there. The doldrums, the dog days, the days when the humidity is so high that my 9 year old's glasses get steamed up the minute he goes outside. Usually when we're home in the summer, we have the sliding glass doors and windows wide open, and the kids and the bugs (bugs usually in containers) and the dog are in and out constantly. Last week we even went out during a couple of downpours.


This week, with a heat index of 104 and above, I turned the central AC on. We might as well be on another planet, or trapped by a blizzard, but at least I'm not sweating just sitting here, getting increasingly and irrationally irritable.

Cool Comfort: America's Romance with Air-Conditioning is an entertaining read on the history of AC, if you don't try to take it too seriously and you have a tolerance for academic jargon. As much as I agree that porches, sleeping porches, and big windows are wonderful, on days like this I am happy to press a button to cool most of the house down.