Summertime, And The Living Is Annoying

Contrary to popular belief, it does not snow nine months of the year in Buffalo. In fact, one of the reasons people who live here keep trying to justify their lives is that "We get all four seasons here!"

Well, actually, that whole four season thing ended about fifteen years ago. Now there's Hot Sticky and Exhausting (July 5th to August 27th) and Cold Wet and Muddy (the rest of the year). But not this year! Hot Sticky and Exhausting has been replaced with Overcast and Kinda Warm. Which is fine with me, but everyone is bitching. Because if it was 87 degrees and humid for weeks on end, they would supposedly be really into that.

Buffalo weather is marked by a series of questions. The local newscasts go like this:

Will we get some rain to water the grass?

When is it going to stop raining?

Will we have a white Christmas?

When is it going to stop snowing?

When will it warm up?

When are we going to get a break from the heat?

When will we see the sun again?

I started this post with the weather situation because no matter what the summer weather, its always 80 degrees up stairs at Granny's. This wouldn't be so bad if I weren't so heat sensitive. Anything over 72 and I'm about to spontaneously combust. To combat this, I purchased one of those rolling A/C units, which looks a lot like R2-D2. A loud, cold air dispensing savior on wheels.

The heat is a problem, but the stale air is another. You see, 85% of the windows in this house do not open, some because they're broken, but mostly because they were built that way. Why Poppy, or anyone for that matter, would choose to install fixed windows but not central air is beyond me.

Thankfully, the windows in my upstairs rooms are OK. My bathroom window needs to be propped open with a stick lest it fall closed, but at least it opens. The same can't be said of the kitchen window above the sink (only the left side opens), the majority of the Jalousie windows on the porch (either broken, permanently closed or permanently open -they no longer make Jalousie windows anymore to replace them), or the window at the top of the staircase (hasn't opened since it was re-installed backwards after a siding job).

Then there's the giant wall of windows in the living room (fixed), the windows in the kitchen corner by the table (fixed), the window in the downstairs bathroom (opens to the enclosed porch), the windows in the downstairs bedroom (they open, but Granny is to afraid to leave them open, in case someone would decide to murder her in her sleep), and the left side of the kitchen window above the sink (she leaves it open maybe an inch).

It's like living in a vacuum, and not even a nice, posh Dyson.