Some like it hot

 Some like it hot.

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Not me, though. I live for layers. Sweaters, sweatshirts, long sleeves? It’s possible that my semi-annual wardrobe “change-over” - where I drag the summer tote bin from the closet and swap the clothes inside with the winter togs from my dresser - is almost too subtle to be noticed as having taken place at all by the other folks who live in my household.

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“Oh look, mom is wearing her summer parka,” scoffs my son, to which my daughter laughingly responds: “I win the pool! I said we’d see the summer scarves just before the fourth of July.”

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“If she were to go where the weather suits her clothes, she’d have to live in the ice box,” rejoins my husband. “Hey, do we have any Popsicles left?”

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My eyes float into a standard upward gaze before their lids flutter back down and squeeze tightly closed. “You laugh, but it’s hard to go from the weather-lessness of the house, the outdoor world’s over, to the arctic chill of the indoors world.”

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Thing is, I’m not sure how to gauge this heatwave. I can barely compare it to my childhood. I don’t know if I can really trust my memories of the winters being snowier or the summers having fewer days of swelter.

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I do remember my mother joking about how I’d stay in the water until my teeth would chatter and my lips would turn blue. My kids can hardly remember a pool that didn’t feel like bathwater.

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Somehow, I feel like I’ve managed to adapt.

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I have adopted the verbiage I’ve gleaned from television weather people, pointing at a blank screen that only the viewers at home can see, explaining about the stubbornness of heat domes and how the sibling rivalry between El Nino and La Nina can make it all seem worse.

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I heed the warnings.

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I wake earlier to complete shortened runs; I walk slower in the shadows of trees and sprint through the streaks of sunlight. I drink more water. I draw the curtains during the day and do my gardening at night.

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Anything seems possible if you have no better options.

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The weather records allege Troy’s most extreme temperature - 108ºF -  occurred nearly 100 years ago on July 22, 1926. I can only imagine how they must have coped without the modern wonder and widespread usage of portable air conditioning units. I picture horse-drawn carriages delivering ice cut from the river in winter and stored in an ice house until summer. But I have no one to ask who might remember the experience first-hand.

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Comparison from memory doesn’t do us any favors.

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A part of me worries we don’t really suffer enough, not with the comfort of modern conveniences adding infinitely to the making of our modern dilemma.

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We adapt to the discomfort like slow-cooked toads.

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It seems we’re all waiting with bated breath for Mother Nature to finally have had enough of our shenanigans and make good on the promise to crank the wheel and turn this car around.