For the past couple of hours I have listened to distant thunder rumble. In a spirit of prayer, I have breathed in and out – please.
The sky darkened. A few large raindrops fell. The deluge began.
It’s a wonderful rain. It’s the kind of rain they record for those nature CDs one is supposed to listen to for calming of the spirit and mind.
I have the big white floor fan parked in front of the patio door and myself parked 6” in front of it. I am not nauseated by heat for the first time in days. I am also drinking my first cup of coffee in this house of the past 8 days.
Oh yes…there’s almost a chill in here. Almost.
To keep the heat down as much as possible in the house, I have kept lights off and appliances (especially the dryer) off. The house is very dark and I finally turned on the dragonfly lamp the better to see my coffee cup lest I dribble coffee on the keyboard.
It’s been a bad technology week and I don’t need Something Else. During a fit of heat stroke, I had a tantrum upon calling my DSL provider and what with one thing and another scissored my DSL connection. It was an accident. In the hideous heat that was yesterday, I dangled out the second floor of my window running new DSL line. While I’m very tickled at my ability to figure out how to do this (seemingly correctly), I am very ashamed of my tantrum. I seldom lose such control of my emotions and the venom I spewed all over the woman at Frontier Communications was unprovoked and undeserved. The accidental scissoring of my DSL connection was, I’m convinced, instant karma.
The rain has already slowed down. I was once told that big raindrops heralded a fast, intense storm. I hope that is not the case; otherwise this storm will prove to just make conditions worse.
Deep breath.
Please.
The sky is clearing and the rain has stopped. I can still hear distant thunder.
Please.
I cannot bear much more of this heat.
I have solaced myself by telling myself everyone used to live without air conditioning. And did so while wearing unbelievable amounts of clothes. I have consoled myself by telling myself that millions still live without air conditioning. I have chided myself for not doing yoga because it’s too hot when the practice originated in a country that is the Mother of Hot. I have read myself the riot act for my incessant whining about it. I have told myself this is the last July 25th I will spend without air conditioning.
I have had quite the conversation with My Self. When it’s all said, there is me and there is heat. We’re going to have to learn to live together – at least for another month or two.
I can still hear thunder, but the sun is shining and the fan that just a moment ago nearly chilled me is now merely circulating hot air.
I can still hear thunder.
Please.
Addendum: My DSL connection is not fixed. My original assessment, prior to the tantrum, was correct. Everytime it rains, my DSL goes out. I was no sooner ready to upload this post than it went out again. I have a dozen or so posts sitting on the hard drive that never got uploaded due to my intermittant DSL problems. I called Frontier, kept my emotions in check, and went through the long ugly history of my whole-house filter, line noise, and inability to reach Cyberia when it rains.
As for the rain. It petered out and then a gentle misting replaced the storm of a few hours ago. I’m using the time of comparative coolness to tackle laundry. The dryer is heating the house to nearly the temperature it was prior to the rain. I hate being a grownup.
W. Va. Fur and Root 
I hope you begin feeling better.
No don’t chide yourself, our pain is our pain. Other examples of pain do not take away our own (told to me by a very compassionate MD after I chided myself for whining to him when he asked me how I felt).
It will be cool before we know it. . . but you can’t whine when it gets down to 20 below this winter else I’ll resurrect this post and hit you over the bloggen with it.
In the immortal/persistent/obnoxious/answer to everything words of one of my wife’s yogina friends: “You’re just not doing enough yoga.”
If you were resourceful, you’d dig back through my winter postings where I vowed not to complain about the heat this summer. I hadn’t counted on (a) record heat and (b) hot flashes.
I’m a malcontent. I didn’t used to be. Evidently I need more yoga.
I have been watching the weather reports and have noticed a lot of heat in your area for a while. Having grown up in southern Missouri, I can sympathize with you.
But, we know what that is worth.
Hang in there, Kiddo.
Southern Mississippi sympathy I can take. Y’all know how humidity ratchets up heat.
I’ve set up more fans and because of the rain it’s cooler than it has been. I can have a thought or two before more of my cerebral cortex melts and slides down my spine.
The post-thunderstorm chatter of crickets, frogs, toads, peepers, assorted insects and small mammals is unusually loud this evening. If I hear monkey chatter I will be convinced I’m not in West Virginia any longer.
Sitting here on the Northwestern slope of the Rockies… I recall from my youth hearing drink cold when its cold hot when its hot. It was 90 here today… drank a hot hazelnut Latte felt great walking home six blocks in the heat. At this elevation I guess it isnt fair that its 55 out as I type this at 12:27AM.
55! 55 and I could really get along about now.
Welcome.
I enjoy your posts on facebook were friends via Tom Robbins page, when I saw that you Blogged I gave it a peek. I enjoy it. Thanks for sharing. My Blog is artlight21.wordpress.com.
I’m the product of a milltown up bringing where we were still taught Newtonian Physics, because they still believed the world was flat. If you choose to read my blogs keep that in mind.
We just retired, and moved to New Hampshire. People ask us how we’ll deal with the snow….. they think we are crazy to move to a cold state. We say, if you are retired, who cares if it snows…… we don’t have to go anywhere!
We are delighted with our choice, but even in NH, it has been hot this summer!
I like snow. I don’t like walking my hill. I’m thinking if I get a 4×4, winter may become a favorite season. But then again, traditionally we don’t get much snow. All this whining of mine may come to a halt once I get the new heating and air. Oh, who am I kidding. Whining is part and parcel of who I am.
What’s important is to be delighted with where you love. I love this place beyond reason, but it can be trying.
Hot it has surely been. Miserable. I’m in Elkins this week and it’s hot here too, where usually it is quite comfortable in summer. Your DSL issues–I believe you that rain can cause problems. They’ll deny and deny, but somewhere underground there is a bare wire, one that a groundhog has chewed or a rock has gouged. We had those problems with our phone lines. I’m envious, though–we’ll never have DSL in my lifetime on the ridge, I bet. Satellite can be a total pain.
Yesterday dawned sunny and hot, but the humidity is far lower than it was. I’m going to live – at least for a few days. I believe I spent part of the night UNDERNEATH the sheet.
My tale of woe with Verizon is lengthy. I could not make an out-going phone (I was on dialup at the time) without first calling my home phone from the cell. I don’t know why that would work, but it did. It didn’t always work. It’s accurate to say that for more than 50% of the time I could not make an ongoing phone call for the better part of 3 years. If it was raining, I could go days without a phone that worked. And since my cell doesn’t reliably pick up a signal here, it was A Problem.
No amount of tantrums with Verizon worked. Several times a week I filed formal complaints – for years – with them, the Public Service Commission and the Attorney General. For years I didn’t know what my monthly phone bill was supposed to be, because I was constantly credited with days and days of no service (after separate phone calls to the billing office). I couldn’t even get them out here to look at the box.
They finally offered me DSL. I was all over that because (1) I was dying for DSL and (2) I would have a Verizon technician at my house where I could demonstrate my phone problems.
The two guys were here for HOURS – several days in a row. It took a month and they never did figure out the cause, but installing a whole house filter and shooting all the DSL to one jack solved both DSL and phone problems. Then Frontier bought Verizon’s stuff and on July 1st, give or take, when it rained, I had a static-y line and no DSL.
When that first Frontier woman suggested the problem might be on my end, I just went ballistic. She wouldn’t talk to me until I ran outside in the rain with a corded phone to see if the static occurred on that jack as well. My phone box was covered with vines and finally I had to allow as p’raps the problem was on my end. Removing the vines, I scissored the line running from the box to the DSL jack. I raged.
I re-wired and things worked perfectly. Until it rained.
I’m home this morning waiting on Frontier to come look at the box. It’s not raining. I’m not optimistic of hearing anything other than “Lady? It’s working. What do you want me to do?”
But maybe they’ll surprise me. They did when I called the second time and started the conversation with, “Please listen to me all the way through before you interrupt me. You might want, if you have access, to pull up my Verizon Tech Support records.”
Since part of the reason Frontier owns Verizon holdings now is because Verizon had a tantrum when McGraw’s office finally did get involved in Verizon’s statewide customer service problems and mandated millions in infrastructure improvements, Frontier may not be so stupid as to continue the legacy of nonresponsive tech support. But of course they were stupid to buy the mess, so who knows?