Al Fresco

My childhood memories of my mom during the summer are of her being miserably hot for the entirety of it. At no time did I ever hear her declare a love for that season – she was an unabashed fan of winter. Eventually her and Dad got a window unit air conditioner for the family room and since that was also where the washer and dryer were that’s where she would be most of the day. At night we would go to sleep with the windows open and the attic fan cooling us off like old-timers.

Summer temperatures back then were not as high as they are now but there were also very few homes that had central air conditioning. Being outside during the day under the shade of a tree was a far better option than being inside the stifling house. Now the climate has heated up and what has been inherited and brewing for years has come to fruition.

I am my mother’s daughter. I hate summer.

While I’m surrounded by summer lovers, I am a stewing in my own sweat waiting impatiently for a predicted cool front to move through. When it finally does and the temperature drops four degrees and the humidity level goes from 69% to 63% I AM APPALLED. A cold front? That’s a why-you-playing-me front. I want that Lake Michigan thunder and lighting show that rattles the house, keeps you up half the night, drops the temperature thirty degrees, makes you grab a sweatshirt the minute you wake up, and has your mom joyfully saying over a cup of steaming coffee, “Thank god.”

For reasons I do not understand, summer people think that eating outside is a given when the temperature climbs. In the meantime my hair grows like Fred Flintstone’s thumb when he smashes it with his bowling ball. This has been my reality for as long as I can remember only this year my big, fat, humid hair decided it wants to be in on the sweatfest. While I’m sitting on a lawn chair with a beer and a burger it’s hard to distinguish if the sweat is dripping from my face or my hair onto my paper plate. Good times.

Inevitably someone will say something dopey like, “It’s not bad out,” or “Can you feel that breeze? Now that’s what I’m talking about.” Are you really talking about that one branch that ever-s0-slightly moved two inches one way and then another? For that one time? Cuz what I’m talking about is that we cross the threshold into that air conditioned house to keep cool instead of being out here like a bunch of martyrs waiting our turn to be charred at the stake.

One of our local tv stations has something called the EOI during their weather report- the Eat Outside Index. In spring and early summer there are many days that are a 10 which is no surprise. That’s when everyone wants to be dining al fresco including me. They haven’t even had the EOI in the last month because eating outside would be at your own peril. Ya ding-dong.

So far this summer I have googled heat exhaustion, heat headaches, heat deaths, neck fans, and a real Hail Mary – Are Old People More Affected By The Heat? Yes. Yes we are. Then I googled heat anxiety because I swear on the cool side of my mother’s final resting place that when I’m sitting with a group of people who say they’re hot but aren’t sweating it makes me anxiety sweat.

Dining al fresco in the heat and humidity of the Midwest looks nothing like the pages of Have Your Best Summer Ever! magazine. It is beat red faces, mopped brows, pitted out shirts, stinging eyes from sweat dripping into them, slapping bugs, and barely being civil to each other because everyone is hot, cranky, and sitting on the opposite side of the most amazing invention.

A temperature controlled environment.