I'm no fan of extreme temperatures at either end. I'm always cold, except when I'm hot. I've always been amazed at those people who show up to the first day of school in August in jeans and a sweater and then claim in January that a North Face fleece shell is outerwear. Sweaters are a must for me, but I am constantly taking it on and off.
Given the choice of a cold, cold winter and a hot, hot summer, I'd choose winter in a heartbeat. Why? AIR CONDITIONING.
In theory, air conditioning is pretty cool. And I've grown up with it my entire life. What's not to like about being able to control the indoor environment?
Well, picture this: me, on an average summer day, heading to my internship, probably in pants and a short sleeved blouse. And then putting on two sweaters when I get inside. And sitting on my hands to keep warm.
I can't even wear skirts really. With tights even, that would be pushing it. So much for the fun sundresses I bought in Spain.
There's really no need to control the indoor environment so that snow seems feasible indoors.
Here in Chicago, the summer has been quite cool. Record-setting in fact. However, it seems buildings just have one setting: SUMMER AIR CONDITIONING BLAST. Not good for the sneezing intern, shivering her way through spreadsheets. Not good for the environment (global warming, man). And certainly not good for the bottom line. We are in a recession, you know!
I'm not sure if this cool Chicago summer is worse than last summer in DC. Built on a swamp, our nation's capital is famous for it's humidity. So, this freezing intern experienced quite a shock every day at 4:30 upon being exposed to sunlight and an environment in which it was too hot to even touch a jacket.
I realize that not everyone is quite as sensitive to temperature as I am (last summer someone called a technician to the room where my desk was to test the temperature after hearing me suffer. No difference in temp from the rest of the office), but can't we find middle ground? Turn the thermostat up 2 degrees and give yourself a raise!
In Spain, you really don't find air conditioning many places. Hotels where American tourists stay. Some stores and museums. And I suppose more and more office buildings as they modernize. The humidity is low, so the nighttime temperature drops off blessedly after dark. Even in June, the weather is pretty miserable, and in August the entire city of Madrid is on vacation somewhere near a beach. But, you know what? We were all suffering together! We may have been a little sweaty after we ran to catch that Metro, but we all made it.
Not everywhere in America has air conditioning, either. August 9, for example, was the hottest day on record for the summer. I was in my brother's piano teacher's unairconditioned home for a concert, with minimal fan action. I was ready to go the SECOND the regularly scheduled musical program was over.
You see, I'm not advocating an OVERTHROW of air conditioning. There's nothing quite like it on that hottest day of the year when you wouldn't dream of going outside and the grid is stretched to the max but doing its job.
But PLEASE I will not stop until office buildings can adjust the thermostat. We can't be stuck with the same temperature all summer whether it's a scorcher or barely a summer at all. And, even when the temperatures are outrageously hot, let's not keep it cold enough to need a parka indoors. After all, we've only got three months for our summer wardrobe!
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Thanks for putting up with that. I really needed a forum.
I deleted all but the first line of the poem at the top. The layout looked terrible.
Coming up: Health Care Reform. I've now at least skimmed the first 500 or so pages of H.R. 3200. Surprisingly little of the 1,000+ manuscript is about the so-called public option and the health care exchange, which together are probably the most revolutionary pieces. The public option is probably off the table at this point. That leaves us with a lot of cleaning up things like Medicare (OMG death panels killing Grandma and Palins with a vengeance!). We'll see what happens.
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