h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've been moaning about this on Facebook for five days now, but I'm going to whine here, too.

We're having a hot spell here in Chicago. It's been 37-40°C since Saturday, with little or no relief overnights. Humid, hazy, muggy... and our a/c can't cope because we're on the top floor, so it's 28° in the apartment, which is quite more than my comfort level and too uncomfortable for sleeping well. I've been tired at work, cranky at home. The kitties hate it, I haven't been able to cook all week and all we've had was take-out (except for a veggie sort of nicoise salad with potato and green beans I nuked in the microwave). The landlord admits they won't pay money to upgrade the fan on the 2-year-old furnace (which is too small for the flat- they replaced the old one with a cheap one when it died), so we have told them that renewing the lease (I'll have been here 11 years) is no longer an option. They suggested they might look into installing an exhaust fan in the roof or punching some holes in it. We'll see.

Meanwhile, I'm tired and crabby. We had some spicy Thai takeout for dinner, then I took a really cold shower and took my nightie out of the freezer, so I feel OK for the moment. It's supposed to get a bit cooler overnight than it is in here now, so I may get up in the wee hours and open a window to let some heat out. This heat gain is killing me- Chicago a/c is not designed to cope with gulf coast tropical weather...

I'm thinking this weekend may be a good time to see the HP 7.2 film again, so we can bask in the theater's aircon while waiting for it to cool off at home on Tuesday.

Could be worse, I s'pose. We could be without power, or in Africa, or something. But who wants to pay $300/ month for electric to run the a/c just to keep it at 28°C? Especially since my new job pays about 25% less.

OK... rant over! For now.

The cats seem to be holding up all right, at least.

Oh my, that is really hot. Poor you. Hope it cools down soon.

Isn't your aircon adjustable?

*hands PC a frozen iced lolly*

We have central air, so while we can adjust the thermostat to tell it how cool we'd like it in here, we have no control over the blower fan on the furnace which moves the air through the ducts. They replaced the furnace (central forced-air heat) a little over two years ago, and the aircon hasn't cooled properly since, so I am guessing something is too small or too slow for the amount of space. Typical, really, of our landlord, to do stuff on the cheap (or half-assed).

What I will be doing is any time it cools off enough to let some of the heat we're gaining off, I'm going to blast the a/c and get it as cold in here as possible, to give it more to offset once it starts creeping up again.

Frozen lolly- yum! We have a bunch of fruit juice/ coconut milk frozen treats in the freezer, and I made some lemon ice, so that's a little help.

Really I guess I just wanted to moan and whine and garner some sympathy.

Friends less than a mile away have no power (brown out- the electric company switched them off to reduce draw on the grid) right now so I could be in worse shape- at least we have a/c doing *something* as well as several fans. Nothing at all would be worse!

You have the sympathy, hunny

Now is there any chance we (in the UK) will get some of that weather?

We are still so cooooold!

You can HAVE it!!

*throws ball of heat toward the UK*

Send me some of that cold!

(Incidentally- not bad here at all today. 37°C outside and 25° in- just as a Chicago summer should be!)

Hey! Don't throw it to us, we're allergic to sunshine!

Seriously though - 37 Celsius? I don't think it's ever been that hot here.

We've had some days that high during my lifetime, but certainly not for a week or more at a time. I'm assuming it's going to be a more regular thing, though, so finding a new place before next summer sounds like a good plan.

I did OK being out in that this week, I only walk a couple of blocks between my office and the train stop down there, and I can get on a bus toward home right in front of that train station and the bus stop is just at the corner on the other side of the street. I don't think I spent more than a couple of hours outside this week. And no zoo last Sunday. But when the weather follows you inside, what can you do?

We have blue gaps in between the grey cloud... and there is something rather bright and shiney up there!

Yay!

We had a pretty impressive thunderstorm overnight, and a good soaking rain this morning. Now I see something shiny out there, too. It's supposed to get pretty warm out there, but it's very comfy in the apartment today so if we gain a bit, it shouldn't be that bad.

Seriously, I miss the days when we had seasons.

Blossoms and berries are acting really weird this year, over here. To look at the rowan berries you'd think it was around October, and there are some ridiculously early blackberries, too.

I've heard a lot of this year's corn crop has been scorched, so there go food prices (especially bad for meat eaters). I haven't seen any lettuces or radishes or fresh herbs at the farmer's markets this year, either.

I went to the farmers' markets the other day and didn't see anything remotely interesting. Farmers are such an unprepossessing lot when seen en masse.

My birdbath's frozen again. Just thought I'd mention it.

Don't you drain the water out of it before it gets cold? or do you enjoy watching birds ice skating?

I nearly forgot we have a farmer's market this morning... and my in-laws are coming to take us to brunch in a few hours or so. I'd better tidy up a bit now, or we won't get back from the market before they arrive.

It's quite warm here at the moment and, unusually for me, I'm enjoying it. Had a lovely walk into the city under trees and alongside the canal: thinking of making it a daily event whilst I'm on my school holidays.

Of course there was a torrential downpour so we didn't make it to the market yet this morning.

HI, I took a quick peek at your area when I checked out weather for the rest of the day, and it sounds quite nice there. If it's what they're saying it is, that's about my favorite weather for doing outdoors things. It's not too bad here this morning, currently around 23 C, with forecast high of 32. Heat index 35-38C. Obviously I prefer the 23.

It's warm but not hot here - though I was happy to go for my riding lesson in a sleeveless shirt this morning.

And glad I don't have to take the tourists into the still house at the moment - it's usually about 45-50 C (around 110 F) in there, and very humid.

I've been working every day since Sunday and don't have a day off till Friday, but luckily, it's light long enough in the evenings. I bought strawberries on the way home, stopped at the beach, and sat in the dunes for two hours eating berries and reading. Think I might have a sunburn tomorrow, but it was worth it!

The blossoms are still on the blackberries up here, KB And we had elderflowers out till last week or so!

Weird indeed...and someone was telling me they saw house martins and swallows gathering, preparing to scoot back to Africa. That's about a month or so too early, too!

Sorry PC, we're turning this into some kind of wildlife watch.

The birds keep eating the rowan berries, too, despite my advice that they save them for winter.