Holy crap, we're having a heat wave. I THOUGHT I was hot yesterday, but today proved yesterday down right nippy. And it's supposed to be over a hundred degrees through Sunday.
That guy never fixed my swamp cooler, but at least he dropped off some pads.
Well, a young woman picked me up hitch hiking earlier this week. She cares for her mother who lives in Solomon Estates, where I live. I recently watched "Skins," filmed on the Pine Ridge Lakita reservation. Except for the fact that THEY have a lot more trees and grass, Pine Ridge sure looks a heck of a lot like Solomon Estates! Ancient single wides, rusted out cars & trucks, piles of trash & scrap lumber to burn for heat, scary dogs, cows in too-small pens, shanty shacks, piles of tires, weeds and litter along the roads.... A lot of social services types actually MOAN when I tell them I live here: Not middle class enough for their tastes, I suppose.
Anyway, the young woman dragged her fiance over tonight. They had tubing, pressure fittings and even stuff I don't really need, plus a tall ladder. He and I got the air conditioner working as she stood in the yard and hollered back and forth between us, giving instructions from one to the other.
They came back a few minutes later with this alien robot thing. It looks like a Japanese washing machine or something: large small appliance. But it comes with two weird, fat flexible hoses and a flange thing that goes in the window.... a portable air conditioner! I mean, real, REFRIGERATED AIR!
Hold on; Miss Thing's stealing my cheese. Just found out she loves cheese. Who knew?
So, my modem, computer and monitor are actually COOL TO THE TOUCH!
I have the swamp cooler on in the kitchen and the little air conditioner on 3 feet from the bed and computer stuff.
I am nude, under a fan. My skin is cool to the touch. Cats have reappeared from under the house and 2 are actually in bed with me & Weasel (dog).
I have the air's fan on low, with temp. set at 75 for the night. I'm sucking in as much cold air as I can while it's night time, to cool the walls and ceiling as much as I can. I won't run the swamp cooler tomorrow and will set this thing at eighty degrees.
It pulls juice. I flipped the breaker to the living room twice tonight, trying to set everything up. I finally ran a utility extension cord to a bedroom, to lower the drain on the circuit breaker that operates my computer.
I got really sick today from the heat. I drank tea ALL DAY, lay in bed with a spray bottle of water, under my fan, nude. Every time I came back to bed, the sheets and pillows were so warm, they felt like I'd just taken them out of a dryer! My metal bed frame was as warm as a meal. I kept shutting off modem and monitor, whenever I left the computer, but they never cooled completely.
Finally, I put my sprinkler into the end of a ten foot piece of pvc pipe, strapped it to a shelf on my front porch and sprinkled the roof and walls from 2 pm 'til about 5 pm, but things were still warm in the living room. BUt the bedrooms, where the water didn't go? EVERYTHING in them was HOT, even with windows open.
As the young woman and man worked on my swamp cooler, some guys pulled up with some ripped trampoline canvasses, two of them.
I'd made a shade cover for my stock pond/fountain from one I'd found in a dumpster. A local kid saw it and I guess he told his family, cuz he'd told me they had some, too. So, I can make more shade tomorrow for the new dogs and maybe even a cover for my front porch, which gets western sun in the afternoon and reaches temps of a hundred fifty at times, baking the wall behind my head as I lie here in bed, even with a piece of styrofoam insulation betwen my pillows and the wall!.
It finally feels good in here. My heart rate and respiration are back to normal. I feel less in danger of a nose bleed that threatened all day. I can see better and my eyes don't sting as much.
I have to remember to start eating salt. I don't like salt; grew up without it. But I'll be in bad trouble if I don't start sprinkling some on my food. Think I need some bananas and potatoes for potassium, too. I was getting chest pains today from the heat, for some weird reason.
This new air conditioner will be used to cool the living room, only. I'd put blankets up to block the hall on one side and the opening to the kitchen on the other, to try to keep it warmer in here last winter. They'll help me keep it cool in here now, without having to cool everything.
I was in BAD shape today from the heat. Now, I'm eating cheese, rye crackers and as much watermelon as I want (I've still got another uncut!). And drinking my wonderful iced tea with ginger, cardemom Earl Grey, green tea, stevia and just a dash of sugar. I could NOT hydrate enough today. It was scary.
http://rogiriverstone.com
Too Small to Fail!
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