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June 09, 2005
Devil Don't Claw
Ah summer. I love it. I hate it.
With the right balance of air conditioning to outdoor time I love it.
In fact, in general I am not a..uh.. fan (ha!) of air conditioning. In fact most times when I have had jobs in offices, I have found that I am consistently freezing, in winter, in summer. Then in summer you have these complex work wardrobe issues, to carry a sweater or not, to wear socks or sandals or both (a fashion don't! Frightening to contemplate!) At one particular job a thermometer revealed the temperature under my desk to be 50ยบ. And it was windy under there! Concerned friends went so far as to donate a heating pad, with specially designed and sewn flannel (with tasteful printed chicken motif!) pata-pocket, to protect my digits from frostbite.
At this same office a similarly ectomorphic co-worker was heard to pronounce, loudly and bitterly, as he marched angrily toward the thermostat, "I don't want to have to wear thermal underwear in the summertime!" I felt the poor little guy's pain.
In any event, due to complex window situations and budget constraints, I am living without this summer. So far its only kind of minorly annoying, since it hasn't been that hot yet. Hot enough, but not like that summer when all those people died. The big bonus is that a lot of oldsters live in our building, too, so if it comes to a massive heat wave, public rooms are used as cooling areas to keep our neighbors from keeling over in their apartments. I will be down there, playing cards with my new friends.
Air conditioning is bad for the environment anyway, right?
This is what I keep telling myself. I am doing my bit for the ozone layer or something.
Luckily, Marcel and John have a cranky window box that keeps things reasonable for two slightly fuzzy men.
Yesterday our kind and intrepid house-call vet came to fix Marcel's one black hind claw, which had been allowed to get all out of control. He says its his favorite lucky one. Among other functions it helps him win at cards and keeps devils away. So you can imagine. If one tries to touch it he gently moves it out of reach. If one comes at it with nail clippers, or even a nail file, well, the guy flips his lid. And he is clairvoyant when it comes to the merest thoughts of nail grooming, believe it! So we had to call in the big guns when his Lucky Devil Don't Claw was discovered to have curled over and begun working its way into his pata-pad. Oh my.
Here are a couple of doggy photos for your pleasure.
This is Marcel before he knew the vet was coming~
And this is him after~
Ha! No, actually he was a very good sport about the whole thing, and very happy to see his friends.
Now he has a funny bandage on his back paw, which, unfortunately I haven't got a photo of as yet.
In any event, he survived his little ordeal, the claw is back to a reasonable length and he is on anti-biotics for his pad wound, which means little chunks of canned dog food at unusual times of day.
Its a little bit harder to knit when it is humid, but I finished the cantaloupe-colored baby socks and have begun a pair in Lorna's Laces Daffodil. I am thinking of sitting in our garden today and working on them. The side of our building is a fenced in garden with a giant raised up terrace. The terrace and the garden are built over top of the parking garages. Around the terrace are topiaries, little bushes in concrete planters which, in recent times, the gardeners have taken to shaping into hearts and mickey mouse heads, and little spheres on sticks. Below the terrace is a wide expanse of lawn, and trees and flowerbeds around the edges. In spring there are flowering trees, tulips, irises and lily of the valley. There is also a rose garden, and in one corner a playground with swings. When I first lived here, about 12 years ago, I remember reading Wuthering Heights on the bench by the rose bushes and pretending to be a princess. In a way I realize now I kind of was. This is what is strange about my life. In a way it is charmed. Sometimes I forget.
Posted by at June 9, 2005 09:06 AM
Comments
I remember that terrace garden, it was very nice.
Air conditioning is bad for the environment anyway, right?
Do you really want to know?
Older air conditioners and refrigerators use CFCs and HCFCs as coolants. (I think this means that they are the liquid that is kept cool and which cools the air that blows over it. When you touch a pipe in an air conditioner and its really cold...that's the CFC pipe.) These older air conditioners can produce greenhouse gasses when they are junked and the CFCs are released. People are supposed to avoid doing this by recycling the CFCs in old air conditioners. New airconditioners are supposed to use other chemicals. I have no idea how much compliance there is here.
Posted by: rob helpychalk at June 9, 2005 11:15 AM
That kid sure can smile. I hope his little paws stay puncture-free for the rest of the summer.
Stay cool! We don't want you to melt.
Posted by: David at June 9, 2005 11:19 AM
Poor little doggie muffins. (We call the pata pads muffins around here. What can I say...)
Posted by: Cari at June 9, 2005 06:42 PM
FYI, the summer when all those people died (700+) was 1995: "A subsequent analysis demonstrated that there were at least 700 excess deaths in Chicago, during the heat wave, most of which were heat-related (Semenza et. al., 1996)."
(http://chge.med.harvard.edu/publications/documents/green.pdf.).
They had to bring in 18-wheeler refrigerated trucks down at the morgue so the bodies wouldn't all rot in the street. Big Rigs of death.
Anyway, being from Texas, I had no sympathy. It's always hot in Texas. That's why God invented Air Conditioning. Anyway, in This Great Land, we've only had refrigeration at the consumer level for over 70 years - maybe some people just haven't learned about it yet? Thank the Lord the Bush Administration (which should always be mentioned in the company of the Almighty) has been doing a durn fine job keeping the price of oil artificially low that EVERYONE can afford to run a window unit - oh wait, they also re-distributed all that wealth...
No wonder that "The majority of those affected during the 1995 heat wave in Chicago, for example, were African-Americans living in substandard housing."!
...Where I come from, we like to keep everything cool...and white....
Posted by: db at June 10, 2005 04:39 AM