The AH Coffee Shop and Reading Room 02: A Comma (is a Restful Pause)

[TxRad]

My air conditioning comes from sea breezes.

So does the salt covering my windows and rusting my metalwork

I'm a hundred and 20 miles or so from the Gulf of Mexico. Hence the humidity but no sea breeze. There is a very large lake that I'm on the end of a finger point out in the middle of. It adds a little to the humidity and does have a nice breeze if it can get through the trees. Being surrounded by the lake shunts a lot of the weather around me.

July and August are the main months for the AC to run.

 

[Hypoxia]

I live at about 4000 ft / 1200 m in the Sierra Nevadas, above the steaming Sacramento Valley. Temps have been around 100f lately. Humidity is usually low. Our cool air arrives via AC machines which also manage to filter-out *some* forest fire smoke. Eschewing AC is not an option here.

Now for another cup of tea, hearty Matcha-iri Genmai-cha with a dash of soy sauce. Yum.

 

[TxRad]

Looks like I need to heat a fresh kettle. Fresh coffee for the evening crowd.

Not much writing done this afternoon. Two very beautiful distractions running around naked. My bad luck, NOT!

 

[MagicaPractica]

Looks like I need to heat a fresh kettle. Fresh coffee for the evening crowd.

Not much writing done this afternoon. Two very beautiful distractions running around naked. My bad luck, NOT!

Well, sometimes you just have to replenish your inspiration for when it's not around.

 

[NotWise]

Looks like I need to heat a fresh kettle. Fresh coffee for the evening crowd.

Not much writing done this afternoon. Two very beautiful distractions running around naked. My bad luck, NOT!

Gee Tex, I think you might need to enroll an assistant to help out while you're distracted.

Here a lot of us still use evaporative cooling, and modern units are pretty effective. Evaporative coolers have limitations and need maintenance, but they work at a fraction of the cost of refrigerated air. Evaporative cooling has the pleasant side effect of boosting the indoor air to 40% to 60% humidity, rather than the single-digit values we often have outside.

 

[NotWise]

I left the thumb drive with my stories at work, so not much writing tonight. Instead I'm imaging future stories and sipping on a slightly chilled Beaujolais. Its a light red wine with good flavor, and cooling it down a little makes a nice summer drink.

 

[Hypoxia]

I distinguish my stringed musical instruments less by their shape and size than by their tunings and thus the needed fingerings. Retuning an axe turns it into something new or at least different. Open tunings are so easy, oh yes...

Some folks master one tuning and stick with it -- certain studio pros tune banjos, mandolas, quatros, bazoukis, lutes, whatever, as guitars, and fuck the incongruities. I ain't like that. I like challenge (and I don't need the money). Every new tuning demands new mindsets and muscle memories.

Enter my cheap Chinese baritone 'ukulele, normally tuned like the top 4 strings of a guitar (DGBE) but it's quieter. And I have enough other guitar-tuned axes. So I switched it to tenor guitar/banjo tuning (CGBD) which is little like mandola (CGDA) or guitar-'uke tuning. Some of the patterns seem familiar but they ain't. Each fingering is a challenge. I can't play automatically. I gotta think about where my fingers go.

It's about mindfulness. Running on auto is easy. Thinking is hard. Damn. (I think that's a metaphor for writing, too.)

 

[MagicaPractica]

Escaped to the guest bedroom last night - feeling much more rested. I just cannot sleep well with the constant thunking on and off of the air conditioning. (Ahem, not to mention the bouncing and snoring of the other occupant in the bed.) Give me a nice box fan pulling air out of the room and in the other window any day.

Wedding to attend today, a couple of friends that I introduced last year.

Hope everyone is having a happy day.

 

[_Lynn_]

Escaped to the guest bedroom last night - feeling much more rested. I just cannot sleep well with the constant thunking on and off of the air conditioning. (Ahem, not to mention the bouncing and snoring of the other occupant in the bed.) Give me a nice box fan pulling air out of the room and in the other window any day.

Wedding to attend today, a couple of friends that I introduced last year.

Hope everyone is having a happy day.

I was up all night. Made potato salad around four, went to bed about seven and slept two hours. Now the kitchen is clean again and the laundry is going.

Enjoy the wedding.

 

[clistenovena]

I'm a hundred and 20 miles or so from the Gulf of Mexico. Hence the humidity but no sea breeze.

Soooooo close, yet so far. Ugh, humidity. However, it has been shockingly low here for this time of year. Loving it!!

I was up all night. Made potato salad around four, went to bed about seven and slept two hours. Now the kitchen is clean again and the laundry is going.

Are you magic? Cloned yourself? How did you...



Wow.

 

[_Lynn_]

Soooooo close, yet so far. Ugh, humidity. However, it has been shockingly low here for this time of year. Loving it!!





Are you magic? Cloned yourself? How did you...



Wow.

How did I what?

 

[clistenovena]

How did I what?

"I was up all night. Made potato salad around four, went to bed about seven and slept two hours. Now the kitchen is clean again and the laundry is going."

^ That.

 

[clistenovena]

Here in lower east Texas the temp can climb over a 100 during the summer with 90% humidity.

Weather like this can feel like a punch in the lungs. Ugh.

Air Conditioning is a must.

A definite must, unless one prefers melting. Which I don't. Not for the sake of humidity anyway.

The drain line from the condenser unit keeps a rain barrel filled even during the hottest part of the summer. I have a drip system off the barrel to water my flowers.

Way to recycle! Go, you!

The British Isles (the geographical term which includes the whole of Ireland) has a temperate maritime climate. Extremes of temperature, hot or cold, or periods of high humidity are unusual and of short duration.

Sounds divine. And even in the middle, you can be on any of that lovely coastline in a mere few hours, plus you have all that history to wander through and explore. Low humidity, the coast, and interesting history...yep, divine. To me anyway.

 

[sr71plt]

You are all such pansies. I once visited Bahrain to check it out as a possible assignment. When I was shown some housing, I discovered that there were few windows and two completely separate air conditioning system in every place I was shown. The window thing wasn't too bad--the explanation for that was that it narrowed the opportunity for snipers. The air conditioning thing stopped me short. "You'll need redundancy," I was told, "If you only had one system and it went out and you didn't have a backup system, you'd be dead from the heat within half an hour." Umm, no thanks.

 

[_Lynn_]

"I was up all night. Made potato salad around four, went to bed about seven and slept two hours. Now the kitchen is clean again and the laundry is going."

^ That.

That wasn't even half of what I did, to be honest. I've always been a night person. Add in a healthy dose of OCD (I hate clutter, love organizing, and constantly multi-task) and I can accomplish quite a bit in a short time. Of course, I move slower at my age, too.

 

[TxRad]

One vote for every 15 views? The score ain't bad either.

 

[Handley_Page]

That wasn't even half of what I did, to be honest. I've always been a night person. Add in a healthy dose of OCD (I hate clutter, love organizing, and constantly multi-task) and I can accomplish quite a bit in a short time. Of course, I move slower at my age, too.

You'd have a fit if you saw my house. I have a filing system based loosely on that used by Prof Mistrum Ridcully (at Unseen University *): 'Nearest available flat surface'.

You OK of late ?



*Terry Pratchett; the discworld books.

 

[_Lynn_]

You'd have a fit if you saw my house. I have a filing system based loosely on that used by Prof Mistrum Ridcully (at Unseen University *): 'Nearest available flat surface'.

You OK of late ?



*Terry Pratchett; the discworld books.

Nope, I couldn't handle that.

I'm doing good, thanks.

 

[ChloeTzang]

You are all such pansies. I once visited Bahrain to check it out as a possible assignment. When I was shown some housing, I discovered that there were few windows and two completely separate air conditioning system in every place I was shown. The window thing wasn't too bad--the explanation for that was that it narrowed the opportunity for snipers. The air conditioning thing stopped me short. "You'll need redundancy," I was told, "If you only had one system and it went out and you didn't have a backup system, you'd be dead from the heat within half an hour." Umm, no thanks.

Houses? Houses? You think that was tough..... why when I was young....

 

[Handley_Page]

Houses? Houses? You think that was tough..... why when I was young....

Nice one, Chloe.
I lived in a post-war prefab.
They were OK houses; pity they don't still build them, but big business needs to make a profit I guess.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Nice one, Chloe.
I lived in a post-war prefab.
They were OK houses; pity they don't still build them, but big business needs to make a profit I guess.

Ours is standard suburbia, we rent it, saving up to build something out of town. Log and stone on as much land as we can afford. In the meantime.....

 

[ChloeTzang]

This says it for me tonight......

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/ab/8f/75/ab8f75466a05a290496af468ceb51cff--friday-nights-saturday-night.jpg

 

[Hypoxia]

I lived in a post-war prefab.
They were OK houses; pity they don't still build them, but big business needs to make a profit I guess.

We are "trailer trash" living on forested acreage. Oh, they call it a 'manufactured' house, but it's three trailer sections bolted together, 39x59 feet of which 13x13 is a covered porch. The house still sports axles. Yes, it's a prefab, circa 2002 CE.

Our remote mountain hamlet receives no cell signals. A slow cable is buried under our dirt road, out of range of nibbling wildlife. Basic services reside at the 2-lane highway a mile away but most shopping and support are at least an hour off. We get blizzards some winters, forest fires some summers.

This season's torrential rains have eroded our road down to a steep 4x4 track. My partner's sister has a hard time getting her Cadillac in here. That's okay; short-cutters (mostly drunks avoiding highway checkpoints) are inconvenienced too. Fuck-em. If we get a fat judgment from a wrongful-death lawsuit, we'll pave the road, but with lots of speed bumps. With a fatter judgment, we'll maybe move.

The weekenders next door are firing-up dirt-bikes and ATVs, the swine.

 

[clistenovena]

That wasn't even half of what I did, to be honest. I've always been a night person. Add in a healthy dose of OCD (I hate clutter, love organizing, and constantly multi-task) and I can accomplish quite a bit in a short time. Of course, I move slower at my age, too.

Oh, to be organized. I used to be. Really, I did. Can you come do my house. I'll clean up before you get here, and I'll help.

Houses? Houses? You think that was tough..... why when I was young....

The obvious response...

The weekenders next door are firing-up dirt-bikes and ATVs, the swine.

May their machines run out of gas and they have no way to refill them, so they go away quick. If that doesn't happen... ~hands you noise-blocking headphones~

Happy weekend all.

 

[sr71plt]

Well, so much for Venus winning another major.