It's cold up here!

We're in the great white north (OK, really it's green) for a few days, doing some visiting and celebrating and commemorating and other things that end with 'ing' because that's downright festive and verby.

So far one amazing thing has happened: It is 73 degrees right now. At 11:30 in the morning! Freaky!

In NC, it's probably like 100 degrees already with 90% humidity. The 73 is easy to get used to, but the young feller at the check-in desk said it's going to get hot soon, like, all the way to 85! Oh noes! 85? I might have to put on a jacket!

Silly Michiganders, with their warped notions of what makes a day 'hot.' See, maybe they don't understand that it's not really hot unless you sweat while standing still, in the SHADE. It's not really hot until you'll give up 50 close parking spots to find one under a tree. It's not really HOT until you come in from the outdoors, think 'my, it's awfully cool in here' and then see the thermometer is set to 80 F. That, I believe, is the North Carolina definition of hot.

After a while, you can't help but just get used to that brand of long drawn out hot. There is nothing you have do about it but complain, which is what we do a lot of, as there's nothing else to do about it or in it or with it or for it. Just, complain.

Not too enthusiastically though. That might make your sweat sweat, a look that doesn't work for anyone. Not even for tall glasses of iced tea or Richard Simmons at his most ebullient. Nope - best to keep the complaining down to monosyllabic phrases, like: 'hot out, huh?' and 'dang it's hot' and 'if it was more hot we'd all be fried.' I'm sure there are many a darling Southern phrase about heat, and how it scrambles your brain-pan, but usually when it's very hot, in a North Carolina kind of way, the transplants like me can't do much more than pant out an assent at statements of meterological obviousness, then get back to trying to breathe in such a way as to not scorch a lung. We leave the chatty to the natives, who have adapted through years of sweltering summers to be able to remark on things and sweat and not FAINT all at the same time.

But, to get back to the point, it's in the 70's in MI right now. That's a temperature at which I can feel my mental facilities loosen up. Might be that I'll mosey outside and breathe deeply for a few minutes, just to say I did that in June.

And then take a nap. Because, dang. Been up since 3 a.m. (mostly awake) and it's time. Doesn't matter HOW hot it is, if I'm up for 9 hours I'm wanting a nap.

Hope y'all are well, and that this Flag Day is being good to you!

Tiff out.