Summer in the City

I am frightened when the weather forecast icons look like this:

It's hot hot hot! And of course, summer wouldn't be complete with a generous dose of humidity. Blech. I'm so tired of being sticky all the time. Not to mention the stench of stale sweaty bodies, urine, dog poop and garbage everywhere. I'm all for green-conciousness, but I'm loving the concept of A/C. I mean, when the mere activity of breathing makes you sweat, something must be done! And I'm definitely on the sweating-lots end of the human spectrum. Yay. I've started carrying around a spray bottle filled with water, a 'sweat rag' and bottles of ice water.

I start teaching next week and most rooms in my building don't have air-conditioning. I've been worrying disproportionately much about this. How little can I wear and still be professional? Or at least decent? Certainly the bikini-top-and-short-shorts look is not street wear in my opinion, though evidence would suggest that I'm in the minority here. Thankfully, many corners have ice-carts: fruit ices for fairly cheap! If I plan my walking route right, I can keep from sweating too much with ices.

In other news, our fair countries celebrated birthdays recently. We had Canada Day celebrations with our ex-pat Canadian meetup group in Central Park. The Canadian Consulate put on a concert set as part of the Summer Stage series in Central Park. These are free concerts several times a week. Much fun! A few meetup members brought along maple-leaf-emblazoned balloons and beach balls (one with a fleur-de-lis for the Quebecois) which we happily batted around. Nearly everyone around us joined in, though we did scare away one huffy couple. They were definitely New Yorkers!

We'd planned to see Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times at MoMA on the Fourth of July, but I came down with a tenacious summer cold. Instead we marvelled at the (illegal) fireworks in our neighbourhood. Is it just me that thinks fire and explosions don't belong near my home? Apparently! Here was the view out of our bathroom window. Note the abundance of buildings!


And last night, I went to a nearby bus stop to meet Ed who is visiting on business for a few days. It was a well-timed arrival: during the midst of a torrential rainstorm! It took about 3 whole steps for my clothes to be completely saturated with water! (The weather website I use says that over an inch of rain fell within an hour. Yikes!) Any dip in the sidewalk involved a several-inch wade. I have a greater appreciation for river-fording now! It was great fun, really! Of course, it helped that I knew that I'd be wet for a short time; then I'd be home and could put on dry clothes! I hope Ed's shoes managed to dry overnight though! Poor guy! It was an impressive rainfall! And I'm glad I don't have a basement to deal with.

Finally, I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before: The US has issued Star Wars stamps. Wheee! The USPS has covered some mailboxes with decals to make them into R2D2s. I've been tremendously excited about this promotion. Like, far too excited to be normal! Wheeee!