Is it hot enough for ya yet?
We can’t help but talk about the weather, can we? You’d think that after hanging out on the planet for say, 20 years or more, that we’d get bored with talking about it. It’s either hot or it’s cold or it’s pleasantly in between. It is either raining, snowing, sleeting, sunny, cloudy or foggy. We are all having to live with it.
As I write this, a summer shower has finally hit and I can’t help but hope it will bring a little break in the heat. But you know what we say here in the South, “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.” And it’s true! The dry heat of the Midwest isn’t nearly as oppressive and suffocating as the soggy heat of the South. Or at least that is what we tell ourselves so that we can feel stronger and more resilient for having lived through another day of it.
When I was in college I went on two spring break trips to Ossabaw Island, one of the barrier islands off Georgia’s coast, with the biology departments at Berry and Shorter Colleges. (Yes, it was that long ago that Shorter was still a college.) Both years the gnats were unbelievable. The air was so heavy with them that they were constantly flying into your eyes and mouth and nose. It was terrible!
One day while we were out exploring the island, a shower popped up. There was something so refreshing about all of that water falling from the sky, washing away our sweat and, for a moment, the gnats seemed to disappear. I commented how glad I was for the rain because it would knock the bugs down for a while. One of the professors laughed at me
and said it would do little to the bugs and might even make them worse, but I was convinced it would help! He was right, of course.
Whenever it comes up a good, heavy rain, I am reminded of the hilarious episode of “The Office” when a rainy day prompts Jim to promise to buy everyone hot chocolate if Phyllis uses all 12 of her traditional rain sayings by noon. She uses the phrases so much that the whole team is familiar with what to expect. She makes it through eleven of the 12, just shy of the prize.
Isn’t that just exactly like us humans? We are such creatures of habit that we can’t turn off our Pavlovian responses, right down to the need to state our feelings with our usual phrases, every single time.
I’ve already used a couple of them above, but some of our other usual summertime Southernisms include such golden oldies as:
♦ It’s hotter than Hades.
♦ It’s gonna be a real scorcher.
♦ It’s so hot you could fry an egg on the sidewalk.
♦ I bet it’s 90 degrees in the shade.
♦ This heat is sapping all of my energy.
♦ It’s too hot to exercise.
♦ It’s hot as blue blazes.
♦ Lawdy, it’s hot out there!
♦ It’s too hot to do anything.
♦ It’s a wonder anything can survive in this heat.
♦ This is gonna be a looong summer at this rate.
And so on and so on. It’s kind of like the holidays, isn’t it? We can’t get through Christmas without our standard favorite songs, foods and traditions. And we can’t get through a season without our favorite sayings, foods and habits.
You’ve gotta eat about a hundred tomato sandwiches during the summer because it’s just what you do, but also because your counter always has at least one tomato that needs to be eaten and it’s just too hot to make anything else.
We spent the Fourth of July week at my parents’ house in Virginia and I knew before I even got there that they are puttering along at a good 10 degrees cooler. I only ate one tomato sandwich the whole time I was there, and that was only because the tomatoes and white bread I took with me from my standard meal at home were about to go bad. Don’t get me wrong, we ate a tremendous share of the Southern summer bounty that I carted with me, thanks mostly to the generosity of Joel and Lynn Todino, but we could actually stand to cook for a change, up there.
Fresh corn, squash, green beans, cucumbers and tomatoes graced the table at every meal, but it was nice to feel, from that simple 10-degree difference, like a hot meal was actually in order. The dogs and I enjoyed numerous long walks because you didn’t feel like you were going to melt as soon as you left the house. It was delightful.
Of course, the problem with leaving the heat and humidity is that you have to come back and get used to it all over again. Minimal exposure and minimal cooking are back on my agenda. But again, it begs the question: Why are we ever surprised? It happens every year, we ought to be used to it by now. Monica Sheppard is a freelance graphic designer, beekeeper, mother and community supporter living in Rome.