Return From a Hot Climate

So apparently Philadelphia has become a tropical city.

We just got back from a week visiting my parents – about which there will be several new blog posts in the near future, rest assured (with pictures!  Because there were a lot of those.  Pictures, I mean) – and it was a grand time.  Family, food, company – what’s not to like?

But when did my home town trade climates with Rangoon?  It was hot and muggy, you could break a sweat simply by opening the front door, and every day for about half an hour the skies would open up like an upturned bucket and suddenly you couldn’t see across the street.

And let me tell you, when it occurs to you about five minutes into the first one of those that you still had this odd notion that Philadelphia sat on a more temperate latitude and therefore you could leave your car windows down, that is a tremendously sinking – and ultimately rather soggy – feeling.  Honestly, once I got the windows up I just sat there in the car for a while rather than brave the deluge to get the thirty feet back to the house.  It was relatively dry there.  Or at least there was no new liquid getting in.

I am not made for the tropics.

I am made for places that have autumns and winters, where jackets are normal pieces of clothing and you can drink hot cider and strong black tea all year long. 

But if the tropics have come to my family, then I shall go to the tropics.

Set the A/C to “preserve” and off we go!