Heat is a Cat

I find it virtually impossible to believe that I spent several years of my life in the Middle East, when I was very young.  Not because of the geopolitical and religious conflicts which plague the region, but because of the damned heat.  Based on my reactions as an adult, how in the world did I ever survive 110^oF when I was a kid??

We're in the middle of a heat wave now.  Well, maybe not the middle; they promise the temps will lower tomorrow.  I certainly hope so.  The heat has driven me to drastic and unnatural measures, such as rising at 6:30AM to get chores, errands, etc. done before the oven kicks up and tries to kill me every time I leave my nice air-conditioned home.  I let the dogs out early so they can play in the yard for a few hours in relative safety, as I can only assume that having thick black fur makes the whole heat thing just that much worse.  The kitties are also biologically attuned; despite the artificial atmosphere of our home, which keeps them cool (they are indoor cats), they are being unnaturally spunky at 6:30AM, and spend the afternoons (previously a very popular playtime) in something approaching kitty comas.

My combative relationship with heat goes way way back.  According to my mom, I wasn't even that thrilled about it as a small child, so I think my body just rejected the whole concept right from touchdown.  Bliss came my way when we moved to a mountain town in the Rockies, where I got to spend the vast majority of my youth before leaving for college.  Average annual temperature there:  35^oF.  Up to 75^oF or 80^oF sometimes in the summer, rarely hotter, and subzero in the winter on occasion.  My idea of heaven.

Why I chose to move to New Mexico after that is anyone's guess.  I mean, sure, the university looked cool, I wanted to experience a really different life, thought the stucco and adobe was exotic (remember:  mountain town!  everything was made of wood!).  By the end of my second year of college there, I hated the city, hated the school, hated the state, hated stucco and adobe, and particularly hated the heat.  My next two moves, up to Montana and then out to the California coast, were much more logical, and much happier times for me.  Moving back to the Rockies was another example of my maturing enough to quit bucking the natural order, and return my corporeal being to its natural habitat.

I have noticed, however, that heat seems to be like cats.  You know how cats are magnetically attracted to people who hate cats, or are allergic to them?  In a roomful of cat lovers, they'll make a beeline to the one guy in the corner who's hoping to avoid any contact with them.  Well, I think heat is feline.  All these people I know who love heat, who bask in it, whose metabolisms seem to thrive on being heated to furnace levels,  well past the criteria for hospitalization for severe fever... all of these people flock to the hot zones, and are forever telling me that the temperature is unseasonably cool.  A glance at the weather map will show, indeed, that the high there was only 97^oF, instead of 117^oF.  If I should visit, however, they will suffer record-breaking highs.  Trust me on this one, I have witnesses to verify it (all of whom find it vastly amusing and will tell you tales of my suffering through snickers and guffaws).  I visited Phoenix in late October, thinking, foolishly, that it would be survivable.  What happened?  Record-breaking high of 110^oF, the entire 3 days I was there.  I did not find this as funny as some other people did.

So here I am, surviving a summer in Colorado, in which June broke heat records all over the place, and July is trying to keep up with June.  Triple digit heat should not happen in Colorado, not even in the summer, sorry, no way.  But yet, there it is.  I plan a weekend up in the mountains to escape it, eagerly anticipating temps around 75^oF, and what happens?  Heat wave rolls in, it's in the 90's, even up there.

Damn cat, keeps following me around...