Northeast Summer
This week marks the one year anniversary of our move to Connecticut. I think we moved in on the hottest day of the year – it was something like 97 degrees as we lugged our stuff up four flights of stairs into our un-air conditioned apartment.
I am currently sitting on my couch trying to touch as little as possible to bare skin, my hands sweating into my keyboard. It’s 93 degrees, but feels like 100. With our window unit, it’s still 85 degrees inside.
I grew up in Florida and spent seven years in balmy Virginia, so I know what heat feels like. But Northeasterners are strangely averse to air conditioning. I would say it’s eco-consciousness, but I think it’s stubbornness and pride. And good for them. Maybe I’ll learn to grin and bear it some day.
Yesterday a friend came over for a social distance hangout, so we sat outside in scorching weather for a couple of hours. That feeling of being overheated was familiar. It made me remember childhood afternoons playing with the neighbor kids barefoot in the yard, and the time, after heartbreak in college, that I roller bladed every afternoon in the heat of mid-summer.
What I’m saying is that I guess the heat isn’t so bad after all.
I live in the Northeast. When I visit in-laws in the South, I realize that, as long as you have an inside job, it feels cooler there because most places are air-conditioned. I don’t think we are eco-conscious. I think we are cheap. We have older building stock, and it is expensive to retrofit AC in the buildings. We figure it’s not worth it because our summers are relatively short. If it keeps going like the last few summers, though, and we may change our minds.
The cost of installing AC makes a lot of sense. So much of Florida is new build that central air is installed automatically.
I love how your trousers match your hair!
Thank you!