Life In The Oven...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas | Morning rose nicely this sun-splashed Saturday, with temperatures in the low-80s until about 9:30 AM. The afternoon was to again be a sweltering oven turned on to 101 degrees. That'll slow-cook you if, say, you hit the tennis court or golf course at about that time.

Weatherboys across the state are predicting 102-degree temps through next Wednesday, with a slight chance for rain and a high of only 98 degrees that day. It's been a heat whammy for the Lone Star State now going on four weeks.

Reported NewYorker.com on the slow burn: [ . . .What has kept the current heat wave in Texas from being a mass catastrophe is that, so far, the state’s electric grid has held up - in part thanks to increased investment in wind and solar energy, which have been providing up to a third of the state’s power - even as air-conditioning use pushes it to the limits.

Staying inside is harder, though, if you are, say, a member of the road crew dispatched to repair the entrance ramp to the I-10 East Freeway in Houston, which buckled owing to the heat. The Texas Department of Transportation said that ten roads in six counties had succumbed in similar ways. ] 

So far, there has been no major, weather-related calamity in the Rio Grande Valley, although long-face frowns are more visible lately. That and seeing sun-reddened people arriving as if out of gas at restaurants, coffee shops and grocery stores, all of them with the now-familiar wet perspiration spots on their backs. It's a common, ugly sight, especially in women.

The next 10 days, according to weather forecasters, has McAllen experiencing only 5 days with temperatures of 100-degrees. The other 5 are in the upper-90s range, not a real change but a change in readings.

Still, all of us who live in this subtropical climate know that a respite is just that - a mini-break. Summer will exact its everything. Heat is heat is heat. Monthly utilities bills will rise alongside temperature readings and locals will pay the increased costs, most of them doing it without the pathetic whimpering you hear when the price of eggs goes up at the grocery store.

You and I know it'll all be forgotten by Thanksgiving.

That's who we are down here, a peoples slavish to air-conditioning at this time of the year. Wear that same cooling linen shirt, if you're a dude, or flowery cotton sundress, if you're a dame, all week long.

 You'll feel better.

And, really, no one will notice or care.

Set the thermostat at 78 degrees and leave it on all day and night. The believed savings you get by setting the AC on "Energy Saver" is minimal.

Get a drink at the first inclination of anger...

-30-