The weather is hitting us every which way but loose. And yes there is the abundant heat index issue, but at least with all the rain we don’t have to worry about wildfires, even those from shooting off fireworks, and if my second-story apartment floods, better build an ark and hightail it for the Mississippi … but wait it gets even hotter as you trek south and you also pass through middle America tornado land, which might blow you back to Wisconsin.
But my own saga concerning the cataclysmic climate conditions starts with where I live, so it hits home. I had a few days where I had to pull out all the stops to stop from getting overheated, so part of this post is a how-to primer.This is the short backstory, and the backdrop is carbon monoxide level … I got really sick from a still unknown source, and it was on the same day that I for the first time in living where I’m at for 15 months ran the air conditioning frequently. At the same time, I thought to be safe I’d do a google search, with air quality being the obvious connection, and selected carbon monoxide. It turns out that according an online medical search an air conditioner cannot cause CO poisoning, but I had at least a dozen symptoms of it, so there had to be some cause. An ER hospital test confirmed that I had very high CO levels, not to mention dehydration, and they said swear on a Bible and the heat it brings to wayward souls, do not run the AC until you get it thoroughly checked by a pre-qualified Heating Activity Zinger Management Associate Technician (HAZMAT?) OK, actually the local utility company. As far as CO presence? That was, a couple of days after some kind of apparent exposure, at a reading of an absolute zero percent. More on that juxtaposition later.
So, like many of us, I needed to be creative on how to beat the heat. Mostly, by just getting out of the apartment. But where to go? And during which hours?
The Hudson Public Library is nextdoor, and I joked with the attendants, having read the writing on the wall, that there that this could be a crucial source of AC when it is hard to find, and they are usually open to 8 p.m. but closed on The Fourth. They said yes, cranked well at that moment, but the previous year they too had experienced some kind of malfunction of the heat, and the temps rose to near 80!
(I joking referenced that great episode of Married With Children where the crew took to the nearest over-supercooled supermarket and camped out with lawn chairs in front of the (frozen) meat section I think it was, but wore out their thin welcome when trying to nab too many free snacks and frosties, and then try to flag down the clerk for even more. I further joked that I might be wearing out my welcome at the library by subjecting them to too many such tales of the cold. They quickly countered with me that I could stay, but not until December.)
Mid-block at Mallory’s, AC on except maybe on the rooftop patio, the word from Lori the bar manager was something like this: Remember when a fair amount of heat, such as say 93 degrees, was just viewed as business as usual, and it had to be right at 100 to be seen as a real problem?
So, the local and suddenly cooler convenience stores are open to 11 p.m., but to get to the ones further away that are open 24 hours via taxi and have it not cost the price of a dozen coolers, by using the much cheaper public transit ride — still with frosty AC — you have to go by 7 p.m. Bars are open until 2 a.m., so then tough it out in the apartment until 7 a.m. and convenience store openings. There is also my local pharmacy, open at 8, but I could make many more trips than needed to buy aspirin and vitamins. But I did take one to a couple of grill and bar places up on The Hill, and the jokes flowed like cold beer. The cabbie said I could cool my jets by throwing back a cold one (or two), and made a motion like throwing it over his shoulder (better not make it on both sides.) That would make you stone cold sober. And to be in AC, you might even go to church for a change.
On the way back with the cab, we ventured past the lakefront, now flooded for another weather reason. First referenced were the newly-being-erected three-story condos, with (cool?) water lapping at the front doors on the lower level. Might be better to live there, depending on how high you rise too.
Such waters also around the time Booster Days was coming around, had a lot of First Street underwater, but the Boosters avowed to forge on, although concerns were raised about what would happen if the dike road was flooded over, to get the stuff to shoot off, as in fireworks for Sunday the Seventh, to their launch area on the islands that are mid-stream. Could be gutted. Unless you take them in small bits at a time out there by pontoon. Break the budget for the fest? This is why God invented barges, if not the weather. And it’s good that the depression in the ground in front of the band shell, for music acts, is flanked by two small and higher-rising bluff areas. But places to watch the Hudson fireworks themselves are more limited, as the south end of the park is submerged. There is little word yet on the fate of those floating multi-boat parties that link to form a todo the size of a football field out on the St. Croix River, as it’s likely that wake restrictions would put that to death. And the very many boats that generally gather to watch the works might find that their stake is not heard. And a nearby corridor, Vine Street, has to vie with its omnipresent repair, so can’t park there.
I now can make it more or less official, there are no Stillwater fireworks until later in the summer, again TBA by their city officials, when water receded, as Thursday brought more rain, and the same was forecast for Friday. So Hudson is by itself the show.
Before the heat broke, and I still had a possible AC/CO issue in my apartment, it was suggested to be that I could get a blankie, or maybe instead a thin sheet, and camp out for a night or two in the sparsely used gathering/party area or even stoop. But don’t BYOB and make it moreso, as in the past people have been known to try to venture in off the street after a night of drinking and find a place, more likely the patio, to sleep it off.
The adjacent community bathroom might be just the place to put a bunch of cold face clothes on … your face … but if taking a cold bath or shower, better brave it and go back to the apartment.
So one more cab ride, for groceries and lots of water. I had to joke with another cabbie, and they flowed from the flooding from everything from the Titanic and Edmund Fitzgerald going down, as they could be useful locally to give floating your boat another try, if the EF could make it this far south down the St. Croix from Lake Michigan, and there usually is a portage involved but maybe not with the current flooding. This time around you might end up with a bunch of invaluable AC units at the bottom of the ocean/lake, with any residual freon melting/disolving.
But now, all is back to calm. The actual AC unit was cleaned as is fine, and the best we can come up to explain the CO issue is that work with drills had been going on for days, just outside my window. (New ones were being installed. So at least that is cool.) Apparently the wind blew right and the CO headed straight for the duct work leading into my abode and its AC.