Crazy From the Heat

[Background Music:  “107 In the Shade” by Alex Bugnon]

On the way home from work today, the readout in my car for the outside temperature read 102 degrees (38.9 C).  Earlier I’d looked up the temperature online and it said the heat index was 117 degrees (47.2 C).

If there had been any doubt in anyone’s mind that summer was here, it was removed today.  The doubt was literally baked out of them.

This is the time of the year when Dallasites (and Texans in general) become hermits.  I mean, honestly, what can you do outside when it feels like 117 degrees?  What can you do that won’t kill you or make you wish you were dead?  I can’t think of anything.  There are no sports, no hobbies, no chores … nothing that I would care to do when it is 117 degrees.  Absolutely nothing.

Speaking of bizarre activities, it is not unusual to see people out jogging when it is well over 100 degrees.  Jogging!  I can only conclude that they are insane.  The heat probably made them snap and they just tore off their clothes (luckily they were wearing jogging outfits underneath) and just took off  running down the road like madmen.  I feel sorry for them.  I think the city should drive around in buses and when they see onw of these poor, unfortunate souls, they should get out the tranquilizer gun, tranq them, and put their unconscious bodies in the back of the air conditioned bus to cool off and regain their sanity.  Once they’ve regained their senses, they can be set free in a mall or big-box store somewhere where it’s air conditioned.

And, just for science, perhaps they could tag their ears and track their migratory patterns.  Since there is science involved, there may be grant money to be had.

 

 

 

 

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Hello Summer, My Old Friend

And by “friend”, I mean “Bane of my Existence”.

In Simon and Garfunkel’s classic song, when they sing “Hello Darkness, my old friend“, you can hear the despair and resignation in their voice.

I feel the same when I welcome summer back to Texas.  From the very first time the thermometer hits 96 (35.6 C) … as it did today … you know it will not be going down again for at least 4 more months.  It will only be going up.  There might be nights when the temperature will creep back down into the mid to low 90s (34 C), but that will be at 2 o’clock in the morning.  It’s not like I’m going to get up in the middle of the night just to go outside just to enjoy some air that is only slightly cooler than it was at noon.  Even if I did, the mosquitoes would carry me away and inject me with a cocktail of West Nile, Zika, Chikunguny, or Dengue (dealer’s choice).

Tomorrow it is supposed to be 98 degrees (36.7 C) with a heat index of 108 (42.2 C).  And it’s only mid-June, folks!  There’s lots more summer fun on the horizon.

I really need to move further north.  I wonder what property values are like at the North Pole.

Caution: Angry Weather Ahead

If you are a regular reader of my blog (and modern internet triangulation techniques may have located this individual who is living in a small hut in the Azores), you know that I complain quite a bit about the weather here in Texas.  It’s hot.  It’s cold.  It’s dry.  It’s rainy.  It’s hail-y.  It’s tornado-y.  And it is often all of these things in the same day.

For example, while I was outside mowing the yard today, it was 87 degrees (30.5 C) at 60% humidity.  It was miserable.  And the ground was dry as a bone and hard as a brick.  This heat persisted until about 6:00 when the temperature suddenly began plummeting.  Within an hour it was down to 63 (17.2 C), which was a drop of 24 degrees (13.3 C) in an hour.  And we are on our way to a low tonight of 50 (10 C).  Rains have rolled through and soaked the area.

Also, again, if you are a regular reader of this blog (or, I should say THE regular reader of this blog), you know I have a weakness and an affinity for flea markets.  For the past several weeks we had been planning a trip over to Canton, Texas, home of the First Monday Trade Days, the largest flea market in the region.  Since this is the weekend of the first Monday of April, it was this week.  However, for one reason or another, we decided not to go today.

Imagine my surprise and horror when, later in the day while our local temperature was plummeting 24 degrees, Canton was being pummeled by tornadoes!  We watched the TV in horror as the very place we might have been standing was strafed by a very large tornado.

It just reminded me that, no matter how much I might dislike the weather here in Texas, there is always someone somewhere else in Texas having a worse go of it than me!

 

Poor Biff’s Almanac — Friday Roundup

It was a good week in Biff-land.  Most of it was spent within the bosom of the taupe-colored walls of my office at work.  However, elsewhere June was busting out all over, even though it is only early March.  Apparently June was misinformed and, eager to get an early jump on things, decided to bust a move. Unfortunately, she is just going to have to gather up her skirts, reload, and prepare to bust out again at a later date, because it is far too early in the year for that sort of behavior.

As I drove home from work today, I passed a hill (just an embankment, really) and it was already lush green and dotted with crimson clover, bluebonnets, firewheels, and other assorted Texas wildflowers.  It was a very beautiful sight!  I was nearly tempted to pull over to the side of the road, get out of my truck, and recreate the opening scene from “Little House on the Prairie” in which they are all running down the hillside of wildflowers while dodging the scrolling credits.  However, I may have mentioned that this is Texas and the sight of something gamboling down a hillside in spring may have resulted in gunfire because something huntable is always in season here.  And anyway, gamboling is illegal in Texas.  One must go up to the casinos in Oklahoma for such debauchery.  (And so now you know about my gamboling addiction.)

The weather chappies (and chappettes) a few days ago promised us a weekend full of rain.  I awoke this morning to a dense fog (one that was not all in my head this time) and so things were looking promising.  However, that burned off quickly and we were left with a warm, sunny day.  It is beginning to look like our weekend of rain is going to get … well … sunned out.  (Can rain be rained out?)  This is disappointing to us all, for the sprint is on to get as much rain as possible between now and mid-May to fill up the lakes before the giant taps in the sky are turned off and we are forced to endure the next five or six months of extreme dryness.

Be all that as it may, I am going to try to force myself to enjoy this beautiful, gorgeous, extremely clement weather.  It will be difficult, but I will do what I can.  No promises, though.

 

 

Poor Biff’s Almanac — Down the Rabbit Hole (of Weather)

Tonight after dinner I went for a walk around the neighborhood.  The fact that it was pitch black outside at 7:00 in the evening was the only thing that reminded me that we are still officially in winter.

But this is Texas.  When it comes to weather, north Texas is like a rabbit hole and we are all like Alice.  Bewildered.  Disoriented.  Perhaps a little cross.

As I walked through the neighborhood, I was nearly deafened by the sound of a thousand crickets singing their mating songs to one another.  Bunnies darted hither and yon as I got too close to them.  Birds were singing (even though it was dark).  There was just enough light to see that flowers were blooming, grass was greening, and trees and bushes were making an ungodly mess all around them as they engaged in fornicating as only trees and bushes can.

I walked along without a jacket, but just  a long sleeved shirt.  About halfway through the walk, I wished I’d worn a short sleeved shirt.  It was probably about 78 degrees outside (26 C).

Back at home I flicked on the air conditioner because it was a little muggy in the house.  It is not unusual this time of year to run the heater in the morning and the air conditioner later in the day.  Or to have to wear a coat to work, but to come home with the coat off and ones’s shirt sleeves rolled up.  Or to drive to work with the car heater on, but to drive home in the evening with the windows down.

We are truly down the weather rabbit hole.

Curiouser and curiouser.