We’re having a heat wave!

Posted on September 5, 2022 by E.A. Wickham

It’s hot. Hotter than at my home in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona and we are at the beach. It topped 104 degrees in Santa Barbara yesterday. The only cool place to be is in the ocean.

Taking the advice of fellow blogger of Living in the Gap, Cheryl Oreglia, I bought a boogie board. She didn’t say “buy a boogie board.” She asked if we’d done anything spontaneous lately. If you don’t follow her or read her blog, you’re missing out. She has her first book under contract that will be released in 2023. You can find out more from her latest posts.

I haven’t been in the ocean for several years. First it was my knee surgery from a ski accident. That was 2018 and I was sporting the heavy ACL brace you see on NFL players. Not a good thing for the ocean. Then I worried about waves and babied my knee the next year. The following year there were the Great White Sharks.

I watched my son’s girlfriend surf for hours every day while they visited. She inspired me. I remembered the days when I’d ask the lifeguards to watch my kids while I swam out to a buoy or did a bit of boogie boarding. Then I boogie boarded with my kids as they got older.

The other day, I was hot and I wandered into the ocean knee deep to cool off. It dawned on me — my knee is okay. Also, I had cataract surgery. I don’t have to worry about losing my hard contact lenses that I wore from seventh grade to age 59! Woohoo! One drop of water on my eyes and I’d lose my contacts. It really restricted my ocean adventuring.

I decided to rent a boogie board where my son’s girlfriend rented her surfboard — at the surf shop a quarter mile down the beach from where we hang out. $15 for one to three hours. But I was at the grocery store when I saw a boogie board on sale for $15 because it’s the last weekend of summer. Tough choice.

So I did it. I got back into the ocean after four or five years and I feel like a kid again. The perfect end to our beach vacation. Even with the heat wave. Or especially BECAUSE of the heat wave.

I caught a wave! A little one, but I’m back!

Heatwave, Ella Fitzgerald.

Are you having a heat wave? How do you survive the heat?

Have you done anything spontaneous lately? What was it?

I had to turn it off

Posted on July 26, 2022 by E.A. Wickham

sunrise view in Arizona — Sunrise view from my bedroom. It’s going to be a hot day! Again.

This morning I had the news on in the background and I had to turn it off. Between the shark and alligator attacks I finally lost it when a man got hit by a car and people robbed him while he was lying in the road.

I too was hit as a pedestrian. I was lying on the road inches aways from car tires rushing by my bleeding head. At least I wasn’t robbed!

The reporter kept mentioning that it was a hot summer and therefore would be a crime-filled summer. Does hot equal violence and crime?

I decided to look it up. Here’s an excerpt from the first article I found:

Tracking ambient temperature and crime rates, a Finland study used nearly two decades of data to identify a possible connection between them. Researchers found that temperature changes were responsible for 10 percent of fluctuations in the nation’s crime rates — a 1.7 percent increase in criminal activity for each degree centigrade rise in the temperature. More specifically, the study found that increased serotonin levels resulting from high temperature likely contributed to increased impulsivity and a higher risk of crimes.
https://online.vwu.edu/news/environmental-studies/weather-and-crime/

The reasons why hot weather equals an increase in crime included more opportunity. In freezing winter climates, there aren’t as many opportunities for crime. The other reason was that hot weather increases aggression.

I turned off the TV after I started to feel anxious. I don’t need all this sensationalist selling of soap in my life. I’ve got a busy week and want to have a positive outlook.

What are your thoughts about hot weather and crime? Do you think they are related? Does a heat wave make a crime wave? Do people get “hot under the collar?”

Things are going swimmingly

Posted on July 13, 2022 by E.A. Wickham

Things are going swimmingly except for a heat wave. It’s cooler than back home in our Arizona desert, but it’s too hot to hike in the afternoon.

We visited the same week of July in the summer of 2020. In the afternoons, when my husband was done working, we would hike on trails that wind through the ski slopes.

This year, we’re doing a morning walk to Main Street along a tree-lined path with a bubbling creek. We did the same walk in the 2020 mornings, too. This year, the morning walk is the highlight of my day, because the afternoons are too hot for the mountain hikes.

Poison Creek along the walk to Main Street.

Instead of sitting inside reading or watching TV, we’re hitting the pool to cool off.

Yesterday afternoon, the pool was filled with several groups of families and kids. I found a spot along one wall where I could swim. I watched two sisters in the deep end throwing a ring and diving after it. The older sister, a teen, got out when she saw me attempting to swim laps.

“Who am I going to play with?” little sister complained.

“That woman is swimming,” the teen explained.

I thought, “I’m swimming on one edge of the pool. They have most of the deep end to continue tossing the ring and diving.”

My husband decided to sit on the steps. I plowed on determined to get my exercise.

“Little sister” would do a backward somersault right in front of me every time I reached the deep end to turn. I had to swim around her. Next, a nine-year-old boy named Oscar would cut in front of me across the pool swimming as fast as he could. It seemed to be a game for him to push off across the pool and barely miss me.

“Why won’t you join me and swim?” I asked my husband.

“I don’t have the patience you have,” he explained. “I’d end up saying something and look like an asshole to the kids.”

I finally gave up after about 20 laps of dodging little sister and Oscar. We headed to the jacuzzi. Strangely, as soon as we got out of the pool, the kids did too. I guess I was their entertainment. They weren’t having much fun without harassing the middle-aged woman who was trying to swim laps.

I think if I was “little sister’s” mom, I would have asked her to swim and play away from the lap swimmer. The mom and dad were on chaise lounges relaxing. They didn’t say a word.

What would you have done if you were the parent? If you were trying to swim laps, would you have continued like me or not try like my husband and let the kids play?

It’s all about the YETI

Posted on June 14, 2021 by E.A. Wickham

It’s an especially hot week in Arizona — and in Palm Springs — my old home. I’m talking high teens hot.

We splurged this weekend on two things. We rented a boat for a half-day and bought a new cooler.

View from the boat.

I hadn’t heard about YETI until I was writing an article for a trade magazine about top Christmas gifts at hardware stores. Exciting stuff? Eh. I got paid 🙂

I also learned something new. Everyone I interviewed mentioned YETI as a top seller.

“Can you spell that?” I asked the first time. “Can you tell me what that is?”

Then my son, his girlfriend’s family and my daughter went camping last summer in the Redwoods. My son said he bought a YETI cooler, the Tundra — which is the biggie. His girlfriend’s family are seven adult siblings who are athletes. They eat a lot — especially the youngest who is the only boy and is rowing in college. Hence the need for the largest YETI made.

My son said it was unbelievable — both the redwoods and the cooler. He said his ice lasted the entire trip of three days and all the food stayed cold.

I’ve wanted a YETI since he told me that last summer — the summer of lots of camping with his bubble during the pandemic shutdowns.

We rented the boat and invited new friends who are moving here from Seattle. They asked me if there was water around here and I told them about the lake. They currently live by Lake Washington and love the water. I told them next time they were in town, we’d show them the lake. They’re here visiting and we decided because of the heat and hours in a boat it was time to invest in a YETI.

I sent my son the photo of the new cooler and he gave me instructions on how to use it. He said the secret is to cool it down the night before by putting in a block of dry ice. That wasn’t going to happen, so I used ice from our freezer. He also told me to pack the cooler full, no empty space. So, I’m glad a got “The Roadie” model which is smaller than my son’s. The third secret he told me was to make sure anything I put in the cooler is already cooled. For example, if you put in warm water bottles they will absorb all the energy to get cold. To top off my son’s advice, he sent me a YouTube of how to pack my YETI! You’d think at my age, I wouldn’t need YouTube to pack a cooler! It was actually helpful.

We spent four hours yesterday touring Bartlett Lake by boat, dropping an anchor to dive into the water and cool off. It got unbelievably hot, which meant lot of anchoring and swimming. The YETI cooler was smack in the sun, but the sandwiches, water, veggies, watermelon and dips all stayed ice cold.