Withering Heights: Cooling down.

 

The news from here at Withering Heights is that the heat dome has broken.  Today the high is in the 70s, and the night temps are forecast to be in the 60s for today, hotter on Tuesday, and then back to a more normal roll. 

And we did not glow, we did not glisten, we were sweating like gravy was being poured on us.  Nasty.

But the ancient house on the hill that Withering Heights is, is, well, still very warm. Stone and brick - and an asphalt roof - do not relinquish their heat easily. Its getting there. 

What saved our skin were two window AC units, lots of fans and keeping anything hot turned off.   The other thing that saved my skin was a wet washcloth on my head, the back of my deck, and quick one-minute showers to get the sweat off and let the water evaporate and leave me feeling cool. 

This morning, the crew showed up and the work is commencing.  Read I am ecstatic. Well, partially - these wall-mounted units are not lovely to look at, but I will be delighted with what comes out of them this summer, this fall, and next spring. 

And today one of two our mini-split system is going in.  Thank Christ. 

This system is not cheap. 

Unlike traditional cooling units, where you have a thermostat for the whole house controlling the evaporator and fan, a mini-split system places a one-foot by three-foot box mounted high on a wall that is tied to a central condenser.  You can control the temperature in each room.  You can operate one, two, or all four units as you need.  And it is supposed to be whisper quiet. 

Someone said "Well just turn off the window AC units and close a room's door. Sounds like it would work, but it won't.  What one is doing by doing that is creating another exterior wall inside the house that will transmit heat, or cold (depending on the season) into the cooled or heated areas. So you are not saving anything.  This setup also means we don't need to have vent chases and stacks built in the house. 

So, you are thinking about chickens, did you say?

 

Cookie knows chickens. I have learned, and know 

And Cookie is here to tell you that there is a difference between chicken in real life and the Mrs. Wiggs of Cabbage Patch fantasies about getting back to nature and raising chickens in between weeding your fields of lavender. 

Now before you get a Hen and name here Betty, Joan, Wanda, or even Henny Penny, know what you are getting into. 

My mother came from a long, long, impossibly long line of farmers.  Our family farmed from the first time they stepped off the boat in 1699 all the way up to about 1990.  And there were chickens.  And Chicken lice, and eggs, and injured chickens from them fighting in their fenced yard, etc. and so on. 

They call them "fowl" for a reason. 

They will peck at you, they will fly in your face, they will crap on you. 

The worst part is making sure they are healthy.  One of the things that you'll have to do to Betty, Joan, or Wanda is make sure their pelvic areas are wide enough to pass an egg.

Huh, you say. 

In common parlance, you need to measure what I used to call "the egg hole" - technically, I think it is called "the vent"- but I prefer the egg hole name.

Unlike aging movie stars who get saggy, baggy, crepelike skin, and the get a bit of the "dry vag", as Wanda, Betty, and Joan age, their egg holes begin to narrow.  Yes, drag queens want it tucked and tight, but your hen needs a wide berth for the egg to pass through. 

If the problem goes on too long, it's bad for the eggs, and it's really bad for the hen, and it's called a blowout, in the vernacular.  I don't want to get into it, because it's gross. (If you want the nitty gritty, click on the link, but be forewarned, it's graphic.) And you have to get in there and clean it out, you may have to poke it back in, or in extreme cases, send Betty, Joan, or Wanda to the hen house in the sky.

To prevent this, or get in front of it, you need to periodically check the hen by measuring the Egg Hole.  

And how do we measure? With our fingers darling.  The variety of hens you have (not all chicken varieties are created equal) all have their optimal widths. 

Is this really your idea of nirvana?

No, we are not going to goose the hen, but we are going to turn the hen upside down (Henny Penny is not going to enjoy this, by the way, but Joan will) and rest the appropriate number of fingers across the hole equal to its width. If the spread is good, put Henny Penny down and go about your day after washing up.  But if it is narrowing, consult your Chickens For Dummies book for what to do next, after you wash up. 

And I can tell you that while you say, "But Cookie, the fresh eggs," I'll reply that you are not Martha Fucking Stewart, but go ahead.  It isn't like you haven't been warned."

There now, do you still have a yen for chickens?  

Thought so.  

If you want something else that is impossible to work on, take up Slavic languages, take up house moving, or even Hardanger Embroidery. With the embroidery, you'll turn out masterpieces, and get to curse up a blue streak like you would with the chickens, but its so much better, and cleaner. 

Pondering time

Because it's so damn hot, and turning anything on but a window AC unit or a fan on generates more heat than relief, Cookie has been pondering time. 

As a genealogist and historian, time is always present.  Usually, I am pretty good about bringing up factual explanations.  History for me is conversational, and connecting stories and people together. To do that I have to know where I am on a timeline, and my clients and audience also have to know where their own timeline is and what it looks like. 

This may sound pretty easy, but it isn't, because historical timelines look different in the minds-eye from person to person.  And this has to do with interest in history, or genealogy, and then your mind chooses how it views time. 

So let's do a little experiment. And there is no right or wrong answer.  A long timeline can take any shape, any direction, although they are taught in public schools as horizontal lines, how you see extended period of time is up to you.

Now, I am not getting into multiverses.  We are talking strictly from the human year 1500 to 2000.

What I would like you to do after reading this sentence, is close your eyes, relax, and imagine how a timeline from 1500AD to 2000AD looks to you. 

If you are reading this sentence, then you should have been doing some thinking about how a timeline looks to you.  

Was your timeline:

• One contiguous line? 
• Was it overall a horizontal line, or a vertical line?
• Was it non-linear?  Did it have stops and starts?
• Did it loop, climb, or dive with passing periods in time, or events?
• Were there years that were more pronounced because of events?
• Or did you not see any line, just dates?

For me, Time is a line that can both be singular, at times perpendicular, shifts and changes direction between major century marks, decades, and in some cases a year or two.  In mind, there are certain years that are above, below, or to the side of the previous year, and the future year. The ups and downs aren't caused by events so much - as in good years or bad - but by the direction of historical events. 

So for Cookie, an example is the 19th Century, which is horizontal from 1800 to 1865.  At the end of 1865, 1866 takes a vertical rise to 1870 and then becomes horizontal through 1890.  The line turns from 1890 down to 1900.  During 1900 it turns into a horizontal line to 1913, then changes again, etc. and so on. 

I asked a peer how she saw a timeline and she said she saw two, one in North American history and another in Italian history that merges in the year she was born.

Another friend sees it as nonlinear, except when it isn't.  When I asked her to elaborate, she said she needed to refocus and revisit that. 

So there is no clear answer. 

It's hawt. Gawd awful hot. AC is on the way.

 

Ohio is under part of the "HEAT DOME" that is floating over this great land of ours. It's also over Indiana, Pennsylvania, New York and soon, the rest of New England. 

As you know, our home, Withering Heights, doesn't have AC. Yet. That installation starts next week. So for this event, we are slowly being baked inside that 1910-era home we bought.   Its not unpleasant, but it is toasty.  My schedule is: 

Today, I am OK. 

Tomorrow, I'll get through it. 

Wednesday, I will begin to complain. By Wednesday afternoon, I will complain loudly.  Wednesday I will claim that it is as hotter than inside the Devil's underwear. 

Thursday, I'll be bargaining with whoever will listen. 

Friday, both of us will be resigned to this fate, but will steel ourselves by knowing that Saturday and Sunday look to be in the 80s.

This is not to say we don't have two window AC units.  Because we do.  One on the third floor and one for our bedroom.  We have to do the third floor because the husband works from home up there. 

While Cookie is not one to wish away time, next Monday cannot get here soon enough. 

And oh, what do my ears hear?  A thunderstorm is coming that will not cool us down.  Does it get any better? Seriously, because I'd like to know if it does.