It Takes More Than Just Sweat

Dearest Rachel –

It’s been a very hot weekend, honey. Not just outside – which has indeed been hot, getting well up into the 90s – but inside as well. On Friday, Logan pointed out that the pipes for the air conditioner had frost all over them, and when I called the HVAC people to have them come look at it, they told me I would need to switch it off in order to defrost it so that they could look at it. They also added that they were booked solid for the day, and we would need to wait until today at the very least for them to come over and check it out (Technically, we could have had them come out on Saturday, but it didn’t seem an urgent enough situation to require paying time-and-a-half to remedy). While I assume they’re coming over today, since I haven’t heard back from them as to what time they’ll be here, I should probably call them soon and confirm with them, as I don’t mind telling you that the weekend has been somewhat uncomfortable.

(A postscript: the fellow arrived at eight o’clock, almost on the dot, just as I was about to shower after getting home; thank goodness I hadn’t gotten completely undressed or gotten started on that. More on what he found later.)

The old saying goes that “you don’t miss the water until the well’s run dry,” and while that could be an overall theme of these letters (as I don’t know if I realized how much I appreciated – or perhaps even needed – you until you had to go Home), there are certain things that surprise me I find myself wondering how we ever did without them.

It’s amazing to realize that, when we bought this house, it didn’t even have air conditioning. It had heat, of course – you couldn’t survive a Chicago winter without it – but with half of the ground floor space being comprised of additions built years later, and those additions built with the most square footage for the least amount of money in mind, niceties like HVAC weren’t included in the build. I think it’s one of the main reasons why (along with its location on a main thoroughfare, rather than being nestled within the subdivision on a quiet side street) we were able to get the place for so cheap when we did. Heck, our bedroom didn’t even have the ceiling fan it does now; that, we had to add after an insurance claim when the neighbors’ tree dropped a major limb through the ceiling. The previous owners almost never used the room, as a consequence, but we’ve made it considerably more livable.

But the fact of the matter remains that, for some years, we endured whole summers like the boys and I have had to this past weekend. And after all these years, I can’t say I like it; indeed, I’m puzzled as to how we did it, despite being well aware that we must have been fine with it for some years – or at least, we must have made do as best we could, and tried not to let it bother us. But given the heat we’ve been dealing with, it has been bothering us. I don’t think that it’s a matter of the world getting hotter – I still remember a summer in which we had perhaps two straight weeks of 100 degree weather, long ago – but it’s that every year, over the course of the year, we forget how hot it was as we struggle to deal with how cold it is, and vice versa. Riding a pendulum – especially one that moves in such slow motion – results in a strange form of amnesia between one apogee and the other.

I will say that, for all its other comforts and amenities, the new bedroom recliner doesn’t help with things. While the room doesn’t take in direct sunlight (more from the blinds being down at all times rather than an actual lack of windows), and in any event, the chair is pointed away from the nearest windows in any event, it’s still faux leather, and it’s still hot to sit in. It doesn’t take long before you’re aware that you’re sweating profusely just from sitting in this thing with fabric that refuses to breathe or wick away the moisture. It never occurred to me that this would be an issue when I picked it out… but here we are.

It did cross my mind that, while I didn’t do any fasting or exercise this weekend – I wasn’t working the booth, and apart from just being a weekend, it was Father’s Day yesterday; shouldn’t I be allowed to take it easy? – I might be able to drop a few pounds simply from sweating off all this water weight. Unfortunately, when I got up and checked this morning, I discovered I couldn’t be farther from the truth; I was at my heaviest since getting back from the cruise. I hadn’t drifted above – or even to – the 230-pound level that I’d nearly maintained throughout the trip, but I was within sight of it such that I wasn’t pleased. Clearly, it takes more than just sweat to lose weight; I have to either eat less or exercise every day, or I’m in danger of floating back to those stratospheric weights that make it that much less likely I’ll get “Megumi”s attention. Having done neither – indeed, Sunday dinner at Chili’s was more substantial than I’ve had in some time – I could see the results; even going without from one o’clock thereafter couldn’t make up the difference.

Interestingly, a good fifty-plus minutes on the treadmill this morning did; after burning off a little more than a thousand calories, I was back down to something I would consider more reasonable. Nowhere near the other level of 220 I’ve been bouncing between since before the beginning of the year, but closer to the middle of the range than the ceiling.

As I said, though, once I got back from the gym, the HVAC guy arrived, and took a look at everything. While our filters are fine, the compressor outside was filthy, and he got that cleaned up. He also added three pounds of refrigerant to our system; hopefully, this is normal depletion over the past twenty-five years, rather than a sudden drop in levels. If it’s the latter, we may have to get a new system (particularly since the refrigerant it uses isn’t made any more, and trying to use the stuff that is would be like putting regular unleaded into a diesel engine); at least that wouldn’t cost much more than twice what I just paid for my new computer (I wonder how long I’ll be using that as a benchmark for purchases). But he suggested that it wouldn’t be necessary to do at the very least until next season – which I guess serves as another reason not to be traveling in the spring of next year last I have been for the past couple. In any event, everything is on its way back to what passes for normal these days – at least, for now.

All the same, honey, I think I’ll still be asking you to keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. This may have been resolved, but I’m pretty sure I’ll still need it.