I used to scoff at people who declared, “But it’s a dry heat!” whenever the temperature in the PNW climbed higher than 85 degrees or so. Hot is hot, I figured. Even without humidity.
OK, fine: I was wrong.
Heat is one thing, but add humidity to the mix, and it’s like you’ve descended into the seventh circle of hell. It’s a sauna with a broken OFF switch. It’s lava telling fire “top that!” and the sun muscling in, going, “Hold my beer.”
This isn’t just me being dramatic (though it’s that, too). It’s a scientific fact: humidity prevents sweat from evaporating efficiently, trapping more heat within the body. Humid heat is more uncomfortable and more dangerous. If you live anywhere east of the Rockies, I’m probably preaching to the choir.
That’s how it’s been around here this week. Hot and humid since Sunday. You know it’s bad when the forecast starts including dew points, heat indices, and feels-like temperatures. Highs around 90°, feels-like temps close to 100°. And the summer solstice just began today. Could be a long three months.
But we’ve got A/C, and the basement is so much colder than the rest of the house, I’ve had to wear slippers while working from home.
Hot as it is, at least the sun hasn’t been beating down constantly like it did last year. There have been showers and thunderstorms at times, and today it rained all morning. The other night, Tara woke me up and told me to look out the window. A thunderstorm was passing by a few miles to the northeast; we couldn’t hear any thunder, but the lightning was flashing constantly and lighting up the cloud from the inside. We watched for a good 10 minutes, completely mesmerized.
Worse than the heat is the bugs. The mosquitoes are bad enough; I made the mistake of wandering around the yard for a few minutes last night in flip-flops, chasing after the fireflies like a freakin’ little kid, and ended up with a dozen fresh bites (I should know better!) – but the earwigs are an even bigger problem. They’re out of control, eating their way through every garden in town…including, sadly, ours. The locals are saying they’ve never seen such an infestation before, the result of a mild winter followed by a wet spring.
They’re inside the house, too. (The earwigs, not the locals. That would be weird.) One night I got up for a drink of water. I had no idea there was an earwig in the cup until I felt something hard and crunchy in my mouth.
#*&^$!
I have never spit anything out faster.
They’re a nuisance in the house, but I really don’t want all of our hard work in the garden to be for naught. Our tomatoes have been spared for the most part, but the peppers and cucumbers haven’t fared as well. Tara’s taking proactive steps like planting marigolds and nasturtiums and laying out traps filled with vegetable oil and soy sauce.
If that doesn’t manage to kill ’em, at least we’ll have the ingredients for a bitchin’ stir-fry.
At CheeseGov, every agency is managed by a department secretary. Not the kind who wears short skirts and fetches you coffee and answers to “sweetheart” or “honey” – relax, I’m kidding, Mad Men was way before my time and I’m a feminist anyway (and a smartass)! – but one who is appointed to this leadership position by the governor following senate confirmation. It’s the same process at the federal level; take Janet Yellen, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, for example. She was nominated by President Biden and confirmed by the Senate. If you took a high school government class, you probably already know this.
Unless you slept through the legislative process lecture.
Anyway. I happen to work in the secretary’s office for CheeseGov, and in fact, am responsible for a lot of his communications. Which is pretty cool, actually. It’s no West Wing, but it’s also no TobacCo.
Fortunately, I get along pretty well with our secretary. While politics have something to do with this (our governor is a Democrat, after all), we really bonded over Wordle.
Shortly after stepping into the role, our secretary addressed the department and, after introducing himself, mentioned his fondness for Wordle. He said he was closing in on a one-year winning streak.
Well, what do you know? I’m also fond of Wordle. Tara and I play every day, and because it’s usually at separate times, we often share our results over text. A significant majority of images I delete from my phone are Wordle screenshots, ha. And like our secretary, I haven’t lost in almost a year. We’d never discussed it before, but earlier this week, I asked him whether his Wordle streak was still alive and well. Next thing I know, he’s shoving his phone in my face, showing me his stats. We’re practically twins; he’d solved 346 consecutive puzzles, and I was at 344.
Wordle, man. Don’t underestimate its power. I bet it could end wars.
The secretary also plays Connections and Strands, as do I, so I suspect we’ll continue to get along very well.
Have you been dealing with a heatwave, too? Are earwigs the bane of your existence? Ever eat or drink a bug? Do you play Wordle, and if so, what’s your current streak?
Mark My Words 
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