Hot, hot, hot

 

John is more adventurous than I am in the record-breaking heat, but for awhile on Monday, he agreed to wear a towel-wrapped icepack and take a break in my semi-cool basement lair. He wouldn't snooze on the futon I lay on the floor, though, preferring the 40-degree living room for his nap.

I’m skeptical about weather-scare stories – too many heavy-rainfall alerts and polar vortexes have blunted their impact – but I have to admit somebody was right about the heat wave. When the back-porch thermometer reads 30 C at 7 a.m. and is still stuck at 40 by 7 p.m., yup, it’s extreme weather alright.

John and I react differently to scenarios like this. I hunker down in the basement, the only semi-cool space in the house, working at my computer or reading. I make only necessary forays into the swirling heat of the upstairs rooms, where open windows and fans only push the furnace-temperature air around. I don’t go outside; even our shady back yard is a sauna.

For John, it’s an adventure, a challenge. He walks from room to room with the thermometer, reading out doom. He walked up to Dunbar street, where the heat was bouncing from sidewalk to store and pedestrians were only there to scurry into air-conditioned stores. He concedes to wearing a cold, wet towel or icepack around his neck, but I caught him sleeping on the living-room couch this afternoon with the sweat trickling down his face. The temperature was nearly 40.

It’s racing weather, he says, and it’s true he raced motorcycles in California at temperatures like these. But I remind him that was 30 years ago, and he admits I may have a point.

After three days of extreme heat – just like the forecasters predicted – we’re supposed to get some relief soon. I really hope they’re right. Again.

I wouldn't swear on the accuracy of our back-porch thermometer, but this is the first time I've ever seen it register 40 C. Canada's hot spot Lytton had us beat, though. It was 46.6 Sunday, and 47.9 on Monday, the highest temperatures ever recorded in the country.