I haven’t been feeling bloggy lately, but I started reading “Just a Geek” by Wil Wheaton tonight and it stoked my need to kick out a post. Don’t get me wrong…I’m not comparing myself to Wheaton. Dude has a huge following with thousands of people who read his blog. I’m not interesting and only have about five readers. However, that doesn’t really matter, as sometimes it’s just nice to get some words down. Even if they are boring to most everyone in the blogosphere (yay, buzzwords).
Side note: the book is really good. I may do a Goodreads review on it and post it here.
Summer 2013 is a hot one, made worse by the fact that our second story apartment has no air conditioning. I suppose that’s not entirely true. We have A/C. It’s in the form of one unit located in the back bedroom. Turning it on makes the back room and about half the hallway fairly cool. That chilled air barely reaches our living room and never touches our bedroom.
There was a moment of hope when the landlord cleaned the air filter, but it was short lived. The air just doesn’t move that far. We’ve tried fans to push the air further, but that doesn’t even work. There was one day where I sat back there with the AC on, but it still didn’t keep me cool, maybe due to the sun coming in all the windows? Or maybe I should have shut the door? I don’t know.
The upside is that by not running it, we’re saving forty to sixty dollars per month on our electric bill this summer, and that’s kind of nice for some extra spending/travel/bill money. Yes…yes I did put “bill” money last in that sequence. I’m a responsible adult, but I don’t want to go too far. The downside is that we sit in hot, sticky, sweaty grossness any time we’re home. We have two fans: one is a tower fan that’s semi-effective. The other is a small mini fan that usually sits on Jon’s desk to blow air in his face. Again, semi-effective. Half the time, they’re just blowing hot air.
Cold showers have become a daily occurrence. Ice packs have been useful, as well as chilled drinking water. You know what the best solution has been, though? Avoiding the apartment. Or at least trying to. Today, for example, we went and sat at the library for two hours, just reading in the super quiet reading room (one of my new favorite places). Then we took a walk in the park, because being outside in the heat is still better than being in the heated apartment. Bonus on that walk, we got to commune with nature and see baby birds and a frog. It was pretty awesome.
Moving isn’t currently an option since we don’t want to get into another lease until we know what we’re doing at the end of this year after Jon graduates. We could get a new AC unit for one of the other windows, but again with the higher electric bill. I don’t know. At this point, I think we’re destined to just “survive” the heat and make the most out of the situation. Someday we’ll remember this summer fondly….or we’ll be extra grateful of the ac/central air/igloo situation where in at that time.
On a good note, this coming weekend we’re doing some housesitting for some friends…friends who’s house has AC. I’m looking forward to two comfortable evenings on a ground floor.
A.
The Romance Factor 