23:40 - 22.07.06
Fever
More than usual I was giving thanks for the sundance tree in my front yard. It was planted the day we moved in 27 years ago. At that time it was about my height - just over 5 feet. Now it towers over the entire street acting as shelter winter and summer. When my youngest arrived home yesterday after work he commented that the house was several degrees cooler than the outside even though we have no air conditioning. Yesterday that was something over 30 C/ 90F. Today when I checked around mid afternoon the report said that the humidex reading was the equivalent of 35 C/95 F. Whew. Not normal for these parts. The one consolation - if it could be counted so was that it was a full 10 degress C or 20 degrees F hotter in our sister province to the west - 110 - 115 F/over 40 C. Fears of forest fires are very high and extreme alerts dot the landscape.
It was so warm last night I found it difficult to sleep. I finally gave up trying about 5 in the am and decided to do something useful. Cleaned up a bit, checked email then tried to do my exercises. I managed about 15 minutes of stair climbing when I realized that my lungs were burning. I don't know what the air quality index read but I know there was something in the air that was triggering inflammation in a big way for me for my airways. Bleagh. There was a note in our newspaper that there had been an uncontrolled release of anhydrous ammonia not more than a few miles away from my home - as the crow flies - but that was a day prior. I don't think that remains in the atmosphere that long but there was definitely something toxic mixed in. I tried showering to get the body temperature down to a safe level and that helped a bit. We have a dry climate here so it usually takes about four hours for my hair to dry now that it is waist length again. Today it was dry in about 45 minutes. Needless to say I was in and out of the shower all day long trying to keep cool enough to function.
Just out of curiosity I checked weather reports for around the Arctic circle to see where it was actually a reasonable temperature for summer. It didn't start cooling off until about the latitude of Yellowknife - the capital of the Northwest Territories. It is about 400 miles south of the Arctic circle - 60 degrees N - located on the shores of Great Slave Lake. The 5th largest lake in North America with some of the best fishing in the world. The one drawback is that there is close to 24 hours worth of sunlight right now too. No night. The temperature doesn't really cool off fully until I checked the cities and towns along the shores of the Beaufort Sea. Temperatures there between 60 to 75 F/ 15 - 25 C. I'm very tempted, sometimes, to move there except that my Dad says the black flies are the size of ponies. No venomous beasts though, just ones with very big teeth. Course my Dad is a great storyteller too.
In the news a lot of discussion about the evacuation from the Middle East is causing a lot of rethinking of government policy among average Canadians. I think a lot of citizens were surprised at some of the facts. Education is always a good way to build consensus on democratic reforms. Given the outrage expressed from across the country I suspect debate in Parliament will be lively this fall.
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