Hot, Hot, Hot!!!
Boy, it’s hot. It’s hotter than hot. In fact, it’s hotter than. . .well, you get the picture. That’s what we expect from July, and brother—-July is not disappointing us. If it’s that hot here in Colorado, where we’re a mile high. . .I don’t even want to think about how hot it is back in my old stomping grounds, the East Coast.
I grew up in Arlington, Virginia, a stone’s throw across the Potomac River from Washington, DC. And every summer those hot temps arrived in July AND August. Right on schedule. August was usually hotter than July. In fact, we used to call those hot August days the “Dog Days” of summer.
As little kids, we always enjoyed the heat because we usually went to the swimming pool or played in the sprinklers. We were always outside. But the adults around us didn’t have the luxury of playing all day. They—like us now—had work to do. And those hot sticky day Back East made it veeeeery uncomfortable.
Out here in Colorado, we don’t have the high humidity, so our high temps in the nineties is a dry heat. Still hot. But dry. I find that easier to tolerate than the hot AND sticky humid heat. Since I’ve been living out here, I’ve found it a shock to the system to return Back East in the midt of a hot and sticky summer. It always takes some adjustment.
I’ll get a chance to “adjust” some more next month in August, when I return to the Washington, DC, area to do some research for my Molly Malone mysteries that I’m presently writing. I plan to stay in Washington and be “out and about” all day for two weeks. Laptop in my backpack, walking around, scouting and taking notes. Then, in the afternoon when it’s brutally hot, I’ll simply find a great coffee shop, sit down and pop open my laptop, and write. Lots of us who write novels hide out in coffeeshops. They’re great. Food and drink are nearby. There’s air conditioning. And the shop is usually full of strangers (to you). No one knows you, and they don’t talk to you :)
So—-if you live or work in the Washington, DC, area, take a look around your favorite coffeehouse some afternoon. I bet there will be at least one writer holed up in there. Who knows? Maybe it’ll be me.