Tag: Heat Wave

Surprise Joy

Joy

When you start looking for something, you start to find it more and more. Or maybe you just notice it more. I’ve been trying to find a little joy in my life. Just starting out I didn’t find much, but it’s starting to show up more and more.

Portland has been having a heat wave for the past week or more, with temperatures in the high 90s and even reaching 100 a couple of days. Since Portland is not built with high heat in mind, unlike say Phoenix, so folks are generally miserable unless they’ve been able to spend the money to upgrade. I’ve got a single window air conditioner unit that I install when the temperature goes up, and it works OK.

The office I work in has decent air conditioning so my work day is covered. I tend to buy lunch so I have to leave to get food, but there are plenty of close places for foods. My car, my old slowly-falling-apart mid-90s Honda, used to have working air conditioning but sometime before this summer it stopped blowing cold air, so my commute home has been sweaty.

Driving in the heat does not spark joy, not for me. I’m not a fan of driving in traffic, and being uncomfortably hot increases the stress and anxiety. With the windows down, the noise makes it hard to hear music; music would help, surely.

So there I was, last week, driving home in the hot, hot, heat. This was before my recent confidence boost, so I was anxious and full of self-doubt, trying to talk myself into accepting that this was a good job, that I did fit in, that I could do this. Will I fit in here? I stopped at a Plaid Pantry to pick up some Mexican Coke and a lottery ticket, because a) my dad and I love Mexican Coke, and b) can’t win if you don’t play, right?

Picture, somewhat faded from being taken facing the sun, of a stair and sidewalk that leads between two rows of townhouses. On the sidewalk, in the middle distance, is a five foot tall inflatable orange dinosaur.
This little spot of color made my evening.

I pulled in to my parking lot. I drove toward my reserved parking spot. And sitting on the sidewalk between the townhouses was a splash of bright orange: a 5′ tall inflatable orange dinosaur. A delightful and unexpected sight, putting a smile on my face. Where did this dinosaur come from and why is it here?

On closer inspection, the dinosaur had a hose fitting near its foot, and its mouth had a sprinkler outlet. One of my neighbors had bought this and had been using it (or planned to use it) to keep cool from the heat. I’ve seen the neighbor kids playing with the hose, or water balloons; this was just another sun mitigation tactic. A silly and fun mitigation.

I got a selfie with the dinosaur, because of course I did. Looking at the picture now, I don’t look very happy. I’m good at masking, turns out. I blame the hot, hot, heat for my blank expression, but, reader, inside my heart sang. I was so happy to have this surprise dinosaur outside my apartment, you have no idea.

Selfie of the author, a middle-aged white man wearing glasses, an Adidas baseball cap, and a green plaid shirt, standing in front of an orange inflatable dinosaur. Apartment windows and doors are in the background.
I may not look happy but believe me, I was.

A sign from the universe that says “you never know when something silly will drop in to your life, Brian” which is the kindest sign I could have received. Thank you, universe.

Heated dreams

General

As I write this, it’s 6:17 AM on Tuesday, and my apartment is warmer inside (about 81°F) than the air temperature outside (65°F). My little window air conditioner unit started out OK but has been struggling to keep up with the sustained 90°F and up days. I’ve got my windows open and fans blowing air outside to try to move some of the heat out. That’s how it works, right? If nothing else, the cooler air from outside feels nice for now.

Woke up in a sweat about an hour ago, which is about 45 minutes before my alarm would go off. My dreams were about group activities; sports, for one thing, specifically, football. And it was some odd mixture of American football and what Americans call soccer; sometimes the ball was an egg-shape and sometimes it was a sphere. And nobody on the field had protective gear, just loose clothing, because it was a casual game for fun, not a professional game for money.

The funny bit was, I kept having the most incredible luck. I’d just be walking across the field and the ball would bounce off me, blocking a goal. Or I’d find myself near the ball, in position to kick it away and toward someone else on my team. I wasn’t planning any of this. There was no mastery of the applied physics and geometry that someone who is good at sports would have; just me, wandering around like a chubby old guy, getting in the way in exactly the right time and place to make something good happen.

If dreams are metaphors, what is my brain telling me? My dreams, my most vivid ones, are soaked in emotion. For a long time the emotions I felt the most when I was unconscious were anxiety, fear, doubt. This dream was much lighter in tone. I was surprised and delighted whenever I managed to complete or assist with a play or a goal. I was a little nervous when the opposing team targeted me, but I was able to win them over with a joke.

I do remember a little tension around what I should have been doing. Maybe I wandered into this game to avoid something else? Yeah, OK, that tracks. But am I creating a new plot line now, or am I honestly remembering a plot line from my subconscious mind an hour or more ago? Hard to say.

I am feeling anxiety now that I’m awake, though. I worry that today is the day the 100°F weather is going to make my apartment too hot for my dad. I have to go to work, where the office has air conditioning, but dad has to stay here, with my meagre mitigations for the oncoming Fire Season. But the forecast shows that cooling temperatures are on the way. This doesn’t appear to be a Heat Dome situation, or maybe it is but it’s reaching its end. One can only hope.

There’s a small bit of anxiety about work, too. I worry that I can do this job. It’s a good job, great team of people, doing good things for the community. I couldn’t ask for much more. My self-doubt, though, might trip me up. Don’t want to get in my own way, y’know?