Sunday, August 1, 2010

It's Hot. Damned hot. And (not) Wet (here).

Today begins another week of temperatures in the high 30's.  It is 3:00 pm as I write and it is 40 outside my window.

Tanya and Lena picked the garden yesterday - anything that would cook in the sun.  The watermelons are all picked.  The tomatoes are all picked. Funny picking tomatoes because of heat.  many is the times I have helped pick the tomatoes because of pending frost but heat?

Friends from Kreminchuk are coming for supper and the night.  Five people.  They suggested shashlik.  Yeah, right in this weather.  We bought three BBQ chicken from the deli.  $5 for a 4 lb chicken and we don't have to cook it.  We bought one for Roman and Lena and one for Andrei and Tania too.  It is too hot to cook.

We are selfish.  We will sleep upstairs in the air conditioned bedroom. They can sleep downstairs in our bedroom, the new sofa-hideabed and Andrei's couch which is still in our entry way pending completion of their apartment is we all live long enough. We will leave the AC on in my office which as cold airs settles, keeps the downstairs cool too.

Russia is also suffering from this heat wave.  they have forest fires and peat bog fires going all over the place.  A number of villages have been burned out and at least 30 lives lost to the fire.  The heat wave combined with smoke from the peat bogs has caused a number of deaths in Moscow.  Old people.  And drunks, drowning trying to keep cool where it is unsafe to swim.

In the meantime, Pakistan has the worst floods in memory and China too, is having one in (maybe more than) a hundred year floods.  The Three Gorges dam will show its worth - or not - this year.

Stay cool.  And dry.  Or wet.  Depending on where you are, I guess.

8 comments:

  1. Too hot. Too cold. Too wet. Too dry. Where is goldilocks when we need her? She, at least, was able to find something "just right" three times out of three.

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  2. Time to cut some fire breaks around the town and keep a garden hose at the ready.

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  3. Damn, sam, 40 C is 104 in the scale the U.S. uses! No rain here for at least two months, but that's not unusual in summer.

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  4. P.S. In the interest of full disclosure, I guess I should have mentioned that it's 8 C here this morning. Don't hate me though; I didn't make it chilly.

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  5. Here in Maine we have had one of the warmest dryest summers I can remember. Last year - well, it rained for 2 months. From mud to dust and back again.

    40'C is damn hot for sure. Out hottest day was about 38'C, but we have had quite a few in a row. It's beautiful today, so for that I am grateful.

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  6. We have been warm in the last while about 25 to 29C. We were only over 30C three days so far June 30 to July 2.

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  7. Well, your not in Saskatchewan any more, BF.

    Maybe we could work out some kind of international weather exchange; you get half of our rain, we get half of your heat.

    You're right; way too logical!

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  8. Only good thing I can say for concrete houses is that they don't burn.

    Our guests came loaded for shashlik so we found a shady spot with a good breeze and set up the BBQ. The breeze and 6 litres of cold beer kept us cool. They left this morning at 9:00 and it was 25 already.

    Drove into P'yatikhatki this after noon and it was 39, with a strong wind sucking any moisture out of the land.

    As they say, on the average the world is OK.

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