Heat Wave

7/10/2017

10:30 pm. Finally a long day's heat wave abated, giving way to a breezy night. Except for the humming air-conditioning noise from the neighbor and the occasionally dim airplane sound in the distance, it's quiet outside. I am sitting in the backyard, my favorite place in the home, enjoying the nightly cool air after a blistering day.

 

Southern CA is known for its dryness, and rarely have we experienced such a humidity at around 60%. When I stepped out of the air-conditioned building for the lunch today, the heat wave greeted me with the warmth, too warm that I felt myself like a lobster taken out of refrigerator and put to the heated wok, sizzling red instantly. I walked briskly in the scorching sun to the car. Though prepared, I still frowned when I got in the sweltering car. The wheel, after being exposed to the sun for a morning, was very hot to touch. I opened the window trying to let some hot air out before turning on the air-conditioning.  It was of little use. The air coming in was just as hot, if not hotter.  It was like living in a heat dome. Humidity, like the glue that cements any possible crevice, intensified the heat, leaving us without any escape but to be wrapped in. 

 

It was actually only 87 Farenheit, equivalent to 30 C.  Born and raised in the southeast of China, I was once so used to high 30 C summer days .  In my childhood, there was no air-conditioning, no refrigerator, no electric fan but a fan made out of dried palm leaves. I remember that we loitered away many summer nights, strolling aimlessly on the street with friends,  treating ourselves with ice bar, or a cup of iced sour plum drink, once in a while.  Some nights,  we'd sat in the bamboo chair, fanning, chasing away the mosquitos, and listening to the radio in the big open front yard, which was shared by more than ten families. We survived those old hot days without air-conditioning, refrigerator, TVs, phones, etc.

 

But now I was complaining about the minutes long heat, after sitting in the air-conditioned building for a whole day,  and before we can turn on air-conditioning in the car and at home again. Seriously?  I am spoiled.