In Which Heat Takes Over My Life by Nancy L. Eady

Today is the last day of July, and the weather here in Alabama reflects it, and then some. Even when the temperature sounds reasonable, the humidity makes it unbearable. Last week, because of rain and clouds, we had a high of 82 one day. The weather people cheerfully informed us that the heat index on this supposedly mild day would make it feel like 102. They were right. 

Heat is not, of course, endemic only to the southeastern United States. I have known people who traveled to Phoenix, Arizona in the summer when the mercury there climbed to 120 degrees. Here in Alabama, we say that it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity that makes things uncomfortable. The people returning from Arizona solemnly informed me that there, it’s the heat, only the heat and nothing but the heat. 

Once, my husband and I went to Boston in late June, and the weather was so beautiful, it blew us away. Highs in the low 80s, beautiful blue skies, refreshing breezes and the type of air that just begs you to drive around with your windows open. When things get too unbearable here, I close my eyes and try to bring those feelings back to mind. 

Normally, in my life here, the heat is an outdoor inconvenience only. I endure it as I travel from my air-conditioned house to the air-conditioned car to the parking garage at work, and then into the office. However, last Saturday, our air conditioner died. And yes, I mean the three-month-old air conditioner in the three-month-old house that we took possession of in April. To say that I was perturbed was an understatement. It also happened to be the hottest weekend leading to the hottest week we have had all summer. 

With the help of four portable air conditioners, we were getting by—one in each of the bedrooms where people sleep, and two in the big main room. Then, beginning Sunday night, the replacement portable air conditioner in our bedroom started malfunctioning. The display kept showing a symbol which meant that the drip tray needed to be emptied. We would empty the tray, and then at vanishingly small intervals the symbol would reappear. By the time the air conditioner quit at 12:30, my husband had moved into the den. He was trying to be chivalrous. When he left the bedroom, he was leaving the room with better air conditioning for the big room which was just squeaking by. My daughter, who had entered my bedroom to get some medicine, helped me empty the thing one more time for the 12:30 a.m. round. When the drip tray sensor tripped again at 2:00 a.m., I gave up and opened the window to get what little night air I could. My husband hadn’t slept well for several nights running, and I didn’t want to wake him up. When the alarm went off at 6:00, I had managed about two hours of sleep for the entire night, which my Fitbit cheerfully documented by telling me it looked like I had had a rough night. It doesn’t do any good to swear at a computer, but it made me feel better. 

The air conditioner repair people arrived by 8:45 Monday morning, and fortunately the new home warranty covers the whole repair. Living through the weekend without our normal air conditioning did make me wonder how our pioneer ancestors managed it, especially considering the amount of clothes the women had to wear. The fortitude they had to persevere and settle in an area of the country where it stays this warm for months at a time is something those of us in the modern world cannot appreciate. And the restraint they showed in not murdering each other while under the influence of hot, humid weather is admirable as well. My regular even-keeled temper stayed on the razor’s edge of raging bull mad as long as the air conditioning was AWOL. 

I have one last piece of advice for anyone stuck in a heatwave sans air conditioning—find someone with a Ford vehicle and get them to take you for a long drive. We have had several Fords, including one now, and Ford air conditioners can freeze you out within 60 seconds of entering the vehicle. I’m not sure what their magic ingredient is, but it works. 

So, here’s to the end of July, and hopes for a cooler August, or at least an August during which everyone’s air conditioner works.

Long Months by Nancy L. Eady

The two longest months of the year are February and July. February is a long month, I think, because it is the dreariest of the winter months and the bills from the December holiday, having dribbled in during January, all become due, so no matter how you try to budget it, the income for that month has to stretch farther than it does for any other month. 

July is a long month because I spend it in Alabama. Today is July 18. These first eighteen days feel like thirty-one. When we first married, we lived in North Carolina for three years. July wasn’t as long then because it wasn’t as hot there as in Alabama during the same month. The daily temperature in North Carolina was two to three degrees cooler. You wouldn’t think it would matter, but it did. 

The July heat crashes into you as soon as the month arrives. There are places and seasons where the weather likes to ignore the calendar. Alabama in July is not one of them. (An Alabama fall or winter, on the other hand, can have four seasons in one week, maybe even one day, but that’s a different post)

Whatever poets waxed eloquent about the halcyon days of summer do not live where I live. I read a line from a poem about the “whispers of cicadas.” Our cicadas don’t whisper. Their song constantly undulates from a dull shout to a cresting wave. It’s even louder when the thirteen- or seventeen-year batches hatch. 

Outdoor recreation, unless it involves water and shade, grinds to a halt until after 6:30 p.m. at night. I spend my time hurrying from the air-conditioned house to the air-conditioned car to the air-conditioned office or store and back again. Because of the vagaries of the building where I work, I end up having to wear a sweater while I’m in the building, a terrible waste. The controls are building wide; we don’t get to regulate the temperatures in our individual office suites. Ten seconds outside is enough to banish any lingering chill. 

August is also hot, but most Augusts have a “cool” wave about the third week, which makes August shorter than July. Down here, school starts mid to late August, so that breaks up the month as well. 

What months seem long to you?

Summertime by Nancy L. Eady

 Summert-i-i-ime, and the living is easy…. “Summertime” by George Gershwin

Summer officially arrived last week. Unofficially, at least in Alabama, summertime has been here since Memorial Day weekend, since most of our schools close for the year by the end of May. Often in May and early June, the temperature is already soaring into the 90’s. But this year, unlike some years, the weather has behaved itself by restricting its upper limits to 91  at the worst. That changes next weekend, when we have a forecast high of 101 on Saturday, July 1. It’s been nice while it lasted.

However, summertime living isn’t any easier than any other time of year, really, except for traffic. My morning and afternoon commutes are a lot easier when school is not in session. It always amazes me what a difference it makes. There is less traffic, and what traffic there is moves much more smoothly.

There are two main ways to get to and from work. One involves taking interstates almost the whole way, and the other involves some twisting, scenic backroads but takes about 15 minutes longer. I’ll take my back roads over the angst laden interstate any day. I wind my way through what is technically the center of a major metropolitan area on a two-lane road where tree limbs stretch over the road from each side to form a cathedral ceiling of dappled green or mottled reds, yellows, and oranges, depending on the time of year. Usually, there’s at most one car behind me if anyone is at all. So I arrive at work or home, depending on the direction, peaceful, with my batteries recharged and a sense of well-being I wouldn’t have any other way.

 And hopefully, with my mind having that free 35 minutes to wander down whatever labyrinthine avenues it desires, ideas for my writing too.

Do you have any spots in your daily routine that give you a sense of peace and well-being? Does it help your writing, or do you recharge your batteries in some other way?

VACATIONING WITH MY MUSE

by Korina Moss

Recently, one of my yet-to-be published writer friends asked me what the biggest difference was in my writing life since getting published. The answer came to me while I was on vacation… and working on my book.

I used to wait for my muse to show up before even opening my laptop. Was I feeling creative that day? Did I have several free hours in front of me to write? Sometimes I’d get started, but if the words weren’t flowing from my fingertips, I’d find myself playing virtual solitaire or scrolling through social media. Hence, it took me years to finish a book. The quickest I'd finished a manuscript before starting this series was ten months, and that was only because my agent was expecting it.

Being under contract, I no longer have the luxury of waiting for my muse. Now I summon her, even if I only have thirty minutes and not the whole afternoon. Still, she doesn’t always show up, but I can no longer let writer’s block stop me in my tracks. I must climb over it and put words on the page. They are usually very awful words that look like I’m writing a first grade primer—SEE SPOT RUN. But I’ve found even clumsy thoughts contribute to my progress by advancing the plot and keeping the story in the forefront of my mind. And they invariably turn into better words on another day when my muse has decided to make an appearance. She’s fickle that way.  

Since I’d handed in my third book in May and my editor gave me a date when I’d get it back with suggested revisions, I booked a last-minute trip for my son and me to celebrate his high school graduation. With only three weeks until our cruise, I was certain I’d have no impending deadlines – it would be smooth sailing! 

But as I’d written about in a post last September, “The Juggling Act of Being an Author,” there are many stages in a book’s production. And sure enough, I received the ‘first pass’ pages for my second book, Gone For Gouda, which would be due while I was away. ‘First pass’ pages are when your book has gone through the copy editing and proofreading stages and is now formatted. It’s the last chance to spot any errors—not something I could rush through in the week of chaos between my son’s graduation and our trip. Hence, Gone For Gouda was not gone for good—it came with me. Luckily, a cruise vacation has plenty of down time and I was able to finish it days early and without much interruption of our fun. I even started outlining my next project while onboard.

Not every writer is the same. Many can write more quickly than I can or have better organizational skills or have found a better work-life balance than I have thus far. However, something we all have in common is deadlines, which means if you become a published author, your muse just might have to go on vacation with you.  

  

Readers: Are you able to successfully leave your cares behind when you go away on a trip? 

It's Hot, Y'all! by Nancy Eady

This past Saturday in Montgomery, Alabama the temperature reached at least 95 degrees. On September 28, six days after the official start of fall. I am formally registering a protest with the Weather-Powers-That-Be as soon as I find out who they are. I get that I live in a state known for its heat and humidity in the summer and that summer extends from late May through early September, but at this point in the calendar, even here in Alabama, we’re entitled to lower temperatures. Nothing drastic, mind you, just temperatures topping out in the mid-80’s instead of the mid-90s. A little less humidity would be nice, too, but I’m trying not to be greedy. And to add insult to injury, apparently Yellowstone is being treated to an early snow storm!

I know for a fact that we hit at least 95 degrees yesterday because I took my daughter and her friend to the Montgomery Zoo. It was by far the worst trip we ever took to a zoo we enjoy.

I think the lions had the best idea—the two lions, one male and one female— found a shady spot in their enclosure and sprawled out sleeping, the male one lying on his back. Other animals looked at the people passing by and you could just tell they thought we were idiots to be out in the heat. I was tempted to agree with them.

The fashion industry runs on a colder clime’s schedule. This is unfortunate, since few of us are in the mood to buy winter coats, wool long-sleeved sweaters and mittens when it’s in the mid-90s outside. Now if they were selling swimsuits, shorts and short-sleeved shirts and T-shirts, that would be another story. I keep waiting for a fashion designer to discover this, but they haven’t so far.

So please do me a favor, if you’re somewhere with more seasonal weather—step outside, take a deep breath of the crisp air, view the deep blue autumnal sky and send prayers and good thoughts our way for your weather to arrive down here soon.

Summertime by Nancy Eady

Summer began Friday, June 21. Technically, summer is an astrological event, beginning on the longest day of the year (as in, the day with the most sunlight in the Northern Hemisphere). More specifically, summer began precisely this year at 11:54 a.m. June 21 when the North Pole reached its maximum tilt toward the sun.

Here in Alabama, however, summer (as in the hottest time of the year) began at the end of April. That’s when the humidity and the temperature both began creeping up their respective scales. By Friday, the day that summer started astrologically, we reached temperatures in the low to mid 90’s. The humidity hit 150% before Memorial Day and stayed there.

I normally don’t mind this too much, since air-conditioning is a fact of life down here. (My family once was told by a car salesman that in Alabama, he wouldn’t buy a bicycle without it.)  Our house is air-conditioned, our cars are air-conditioned, and my work is air-conditioned. Between Memorial Day and August 31, I plan my day so that, as often as possible, I am going from the air-conditioned house to the air-conditioned car to the air-conditioned office or store or restaurant.

But we went to the beach for Father's Day weekend. And when we got home, the air conditioner definitely had stopped working. Which wouldn’t have been so weird, except that the air conditioner in the condominium we rented for the weekend at the beach had also gone out during the night. Not to worry, we thought—we purchased a home warranty so people will come fix things when they break. Until I called the home warranty people early Sunday afternoon and failed to reach a living breathing human being. Instead, I discussed our service needs with a decidedly unsympathetic machine that informed me that the soonest a repairman could get out to our house was Tuesday between 8 and 6.

That Sunday and Monday turned out to be the hottest days in the year so far. Even with two room air conditioners going the best we could get the house at during the day was 95. We reached the chilly temperature of 80 at night. (Why do we have two room air conditioners when we have central AC?  That’s a post for another day.)

Suffering through those two longest days of summer (even though technically it was still spring) reminded me that time is relative. The parts of those two days spent at the house stretched on forever, while the hours spent elsewhere in air-conditioning moved at a normal pace. Time is a matter of perception.

Which is a very good thing for readers and writers. Without the human mind’s ability to compress and extend time, writers wouldn’t be able to sweep their readers into fictional worlds for a day, a week or a lifetime. So even on a hot summer’s day without air-conditioning, I still had a way to leave my present circumstances and travel far away—through a good book.

When does your summer start?  What is the hottest summer day you’ve had so far?  What are the books you reach for when you want to escape into another world?

A Sort of Summer Storm

It was a dark and not-yet-stormy night, but the radar map and the Weather Channel both agreed—the storm was coming. I could see it flickering at the southeastern horizon, cloud to cloud lightning, a mild incandescent light show.

I knew I needed to put the chickens up before it hit. They’d already gone to roost, but I still had to latch the doors and close the nest boxes behind them, and I didn’t want to do it in the rain. I opened the back door, urged the dog to get his business done too, but he didn’t want to go out. This was not unusual—our dog hates nature in all its forms—so I shoved him out bodily and left the door open for him to come back inside.

And the door slammed itself shut behind him.

I hadn’t touched it. The wind must be getting up, I thought, and opened it again. There was no wind, however. The trees were still and silent, not even a rustle of breeze. I stepped onto the deck just as the dog shot back into the house.

The door slammed shut behind him, yet again.

I headed for the chicken house in my bare feet. I started off walking, but then I realized how deep the silence was, as if the air had thickened. As if there were no animals, no night birds, no insects. Just this dull cottony silence broken only by the sound of my footsteps.

I started running. My imagination shifted into overdrive, and I had the sensation that I was about to be sucked into the air, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. So I ran faster. I hastily locked up the chickens—silent too, hunched inside their roost—then galloped back inside and shut the door behind me, breathing hard.

And then the wind rippled to life, and the first rain pattered down, and the heavy air dissipated.

My family has a complicated relationship with wild weather. We thrill to thunder and lightning, crowding onto our porches to watch storms coming, retreating inside only when the rain becomes horizontal and the sizzling bolts too close for comfort. My mother, however, has lost two homes to tornadoes, and she tells me that the feeling I had was probably one passing overhead. Or if not a tornado exactly, a pressure system of some sort, the eye of a meteorological black hole, dense and sucking and dangerous.

She is probably right. It is a reasonable explanation. But I am Southern born and bred, with ancestors hailing from the coasts of England and Ireland. We know that some nights are darker than others, that some winds don’t come from the compass directions. We remember the old tales of the Wild Hunt, and the Fey, and the Banshee. We understand that sometimes it is best not to think too hard about doors that slam themselves shut.

It is a bright morning as I write this. The breeze is still cool-ish, not yet warmed by the baking sun. The birds fight the squirrels over the sunflower seeds I have put out, and the chickens make crooning noises as they scratch and peck.

But there’s another summer storm coming tonight. And I plan on being safely inside when it does. With a candle lit against the darkness. Just in case.

*     *     *

Tina Whittle writes the Tai Randolph mysteries for Poisoned Pen Press. The fifth book in this Atlanta-based series—Reckoning and Ruin—was released last year. Tina is a proud member of Sisters in Crime and serves as both a chapter officer and national board member. Visit her website to follow her on social media, sign up for her newsletter, or read additional scenes and short stories: www.tinawhittle.com.