Tag: sun | A Banana Peeled

Dog days of summer

Posted on July 31, 2023 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

I hate summer.

Have a nice day!

No, that’s not the end of it–it’s just the start.

I hate summer, and I hate it even more every year. That’s because of climate change, obviously. It’s getting hotter and more brutal every year.

My comfort zone is under 60F. 60-70 is ok, and anything over 70 makes me unhappy. Over 80 and I get very grumpy. If we hit 90, I am going to be actively angry. Especially if there is humidity as well. But, don’t tell me “at least it’s a dry heat” if we’re over 90 because it’s still fucking hot.

That’s what people would tell me about Las Vegas when it got up to 110 and above. “But it’s a dry heat.” That’s still nearly twice the temp that is comfortable for me. I do undrestand that at a certain point, it’s just fucking hot. It’s the same with when it gets really cold. -10 and -20 don’t feel that much different, really.

The thing is, 90 and 100 may not feel that different, but they both suck. This last week, we had ‘feels like’ 110 or so. It was hotter here than in Taiwan, which is astounding. I went to Menards the other day (first time driving on the freeway in almost a year! It was better than the last time, but I still have periphery issues), and it was like wading through a sludgy swamp.

I have a mini-rant on trying to replace my kitchen sink faucet handle, but I’ll save it for another day.

One reason I will not move somewhere else is because we have winter for six months of the year. That’s a slight exaggeration, but not much. We start having winter-like weather in late October, and it can go through April. Sometimes, even May. It’s usually March, but that’s still six months.

Today, it’s only 74 degrees. It’s still too hot for me, but it’s a relief after the 90+ we’ve had in the past few days. I’ve been blasting my air at 75 degrees. That feels luxurious to me, but apparently, I am in the minority. In a recent Ask A Manager thread, there were people who were adamant that setting the AC at 74 was torturous. (Too high). That really surprised me because even though I don’t like it that hot, I don’t like AC at that temp, either. Fake cold air all day long is not good.

But.

When I’m doing my Taiji routine in the morning, I have it at 75. When I go to bed at night, the same. Otherwise, I have it at 78. I think that’s reasonable.

The heat is on

Posted on June 21, 2022 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

It’s hot. It’s 87 ‘feels like’ 94 before 10 a.m. hot. Tarzan couldn’t take this kind of hot. A slight paraphrase, but factual. It’s so hot, it hurts my feelings. It’s so hot, I have the air on, which I try not to use*. Normally, I use the air a few times in a season. This year, however, it’s been really hot in the house, even when it’s not that hot outside. I don’t feel that bad about using air because I don’t use any heat in the winter.

I have been tagged as the elite of the elite when it comes to being eco-friendly with the furnace/aircon, which pleases me. My brother and I have had discussions about this because environmentalism is his passion. So he’ll sometimes point out ways I can save more, but he doesn’t push it. Why? Because I’m bare bones already.

I have my air at 78 and my furnace at 62 (day)/60 (night). I have one light in the kitchen on most of the time and then the light in my living room when I’m in it (which is most of the time). I’ll turn the light on in my computer room when I’m there, but that’s an LED. So is the one in my kitchen. I have a hybrid car that before the pandemic, I filled the gas every three months or so. Now, it’s every six months or longer.

I do have a cat who has a carbon pawprint, but I have no kids. That’s the biggest thing. I do laundry once a month or so. I do eat meat. I’m trying to cut down on that, but it’s slow-going. The more I do Taiji weapons, the more meat I want to eat. I noticed several years ago that my meat intake was increasing. I mentioned it to my Taiji teacher; she explained that it was probably because I was upping my Taiji routine.

This is more an ethical matter for me than an environmentalism one. Meat comes from animals. They are living and breathing creatures. Factory farming is brutal and not animal-friendly (to vastly understate it). It’s hard for me to sit comfortably with that. I would prefer to eat non-meat protein, but there is something just so satisfying about meat.

My brother and I have this ongoing conversation about environmentalism. He does EV car shows and has a passion for EV cars. I do not begrudge him this, but he has a hard time seeing how niche it is. And how far out of the norm it is. A few years ago, he stated he thought that maybe 50% of cars on the road were EV. Well, maybe not that high. I can’t remember exactly, but it was a high enough percentage that even I knew he was out of line–and I know nothing about cars. Nor do I care. I’m going to say he said 25%. That seems like a reasonably high number.

Hating everything…including myself

Posted on July 29, 2019 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

I hate the summer. I hate everything about it. I hate it with the intensity of *irony alert* a thousand burning suns. I’ve tried to describe how much I hate summer, but it’s hard to find the words to do my feelings justice. If I were to try to use my words without filters, it would just be a stream of curse words whenever I think of summer. I know I bitch the most about the heat because I am a delicate fucking flower who wilts in anything above 70.

Side Note: On Friday, one of my taiji classmates said that we could go to the lovely park on Saturday for class. Quick context: we had been going to her condo and using the rec room for the last few Saturdays, but it had already been booked for this week. That’s when she said we could go to the park (my teacher offered her house, which was where we met on Friday as well), and I said with a laugh, “You can, but I won’t be there.” It was supposed to be ‘feels like’ 95 on Saturday, and while it ended up more like ‘feels like’ 89 or so, no way in hell I was going to do anything remotely physical in the heat. Right now, the ‘real feel’ is 81, and it’s not even 11 a.m. yet. I know I sound like I’m whining when I bitch about the heat, and I am. It has such a great effect on me, however, that I can’t even think after a minute or two of being in the heat. On the way back from taiji Friday, I stopped at the gas station to buy some snacks. That’s another post for another day. I step out of the car, and–by the way. The A/C on the driver side is broken. Only the driver side. That’s how I know there is no god.

Anyhoooo. Two minutes in the heat, and I’m a wreck for the next hour. Not only am I exhausted and sweating profusely, I am angry. Not just irritated, but actually angry. I’m enough of a bitch as it is; I do not need the hotness to shorten my temper. When I’m in the heat, I’m acutely aware of how miserable I am. It’s all I can think of, and my whole world has narrowed to how fucking hot it is. Earlier, I said that anything over 70 starts that miserable feeling, but if I were going to be real with you, I’d say 65 is really the upper limit of my comfort zone. It makes it interesting for me to read debates on hot vs. cold because even the cold people are more like ’65’ is perfect. I have my heat set for 62 during the day and 60 at night (in the winter). Some of the cold people were saying that 68 was good. That’s considered cold? That’s me shorts and a tank top if I have to be civilized.

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