It’s the first heat of the year so it feels very hot to me even though it is ten degrees cooler than the typical mid summer heat waves of previous years.
It’s a lack of high temperature experience, I think, because winter had me conditioned to cooler weather, and I am not ready for the heat of summer yet.
That’s me.
I like to be warm, but I hate to be hot.
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Step One:
Buy a good quality, quiet fan.
I am particularly fond of the Honeywell tower. It’s about $75 in Alberta, and worth every penny. I have one fan for every person who lives in the apartment. At night they can position it to blow directly on them, but when the windows are first open in the evening, the fans are in use creating a cross breeze in the apartment.
It’s important to remember the sucking action of the fan. If you place it with its back to the open window, it will suck the cooler air in through the window and blow the fresh air further into the depths of your home.
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Step Two:
Block the heat from entering your home.
I learned this lesson from my mother’s fine example: Keep the inside of the house dark and shady during the hottest part of the day.
When I wake up in the morning the home is cool because the windows have been open all night with fans blowing the air around.
The temptation is to keep all the windows open as long as possible, so I can feel the cool morning breeze for as long as possible, but this is usually not wise.
Even though the air outside FEELS cool, it is probably already warmer than the indoor air. It can start getting hot outside as early as 10 most days, and some days as early as 8. I like to allow the morning breeze to blow around my home for a little while, but I pay attention to it.
Before the breeze is noticeably warmer than indoors, I need to be shutting windows and drapes on the hottest side of the home.
In my case, it is an apartment and in the morning the hottest part is the east side.
As the sun moves across the sky, the other side of the home will get hotter. I usually have to close that side up well before noon.
When it comes time to reopen, again it has to do with how hot or cool the breeze is.
In June, in Alberta, in a heat wave, the cooler breeze starts at around 9pm.
All curtains and all windows can be flung wide open, and fans are placed in front of the windows pointing into the rest of the apartment.
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Step Three:
Have refreshing drinks ready at hand. And pretty cups.
It is easy to forget that on a hot sweaty day you need more hydration intake than you would on a typical day.
Water gets tiresome fast, I can only drink about 3 litres of water, and on a hot sweaty day I seem to need way more than that.
Make some giant mason jars of cool refreshing drinks like:
A store-bought hydration drink to replace the electrolytes lost due to drinking more water than usual and sweating more than usual.
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Step Four:
Cool down.
When the heat starts to make me feel sick, I need to remember the ways I have to stay cool.
There was a time when I lived in walking distance to a cool mountain fed river.
There was a time when my friend invited me to swim in her pool on the hot days.
There was a time when the public pool didn’t feel so gross.
There was a time when my grassy yard was surrounded by ancient trees who caught the wind for me and provided cool shade.
There was a time when I had a bathtub in which to soak.
There was a time when a nearby mountain limited the amount of hot sun that could reach my house.
I no longer have those options anymore, but if you do, use them.
I now live in a bathtub-less apartment where the afternoon sun shines harshly on the only outside space.
Even my plants have learned to grow sparse and scrappy to endure the intense heat and strong winds.
My choices are currently limited to these:
Take a short cool shower and don’t dry myself all the way off
Take a drive in the car with the A/C turned up high. Great music playing on a great stereo also helps.
Prepare a little spray bottle with water and favourite essential oils. I shake it up and spray my face when it feels too hot.
Make friends with a clean, cool, damp washcloth. It feels so refreshing on the back of my neck, or on my forehead.
Hang a lightweight cup behind your fan and add ice to the cup so that the fan blows cool air on me. Alternatively, I could place a reservoir of water between myself and the fan, place ice in the water and allow the fan to blow over top of the coolness.
Visit an air-conditioned public space, like the library or a store or a rich friend.
Make a foot bath of ice cold water – complete with ice cubes and epsom salts – to soak my hot feet in.
If I still had my job, I’d mention that it’s nice to work in air-conditioned comfort.
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Step Five:
Siesta if you can.
I wake up early, while the air is still cool.
Here in Alberta in June, that is something like 5am.
After checking my blood pressure to manage my hypertension and doing whatever other chores I need to do every morning, I grab my notebook, my water bottle and a couple other things and set up a temporary desk in the shade on my patio.
I like to sit out there until about 10 or 11 am, working at things and popping inside from time to time to monitor the window and curtain situation and to do my dishes or my laundry or whatever.
By 11am it is getting mighty hot, so I hang up my laundry out in the hot sun and then go inside for a few hours.
And nap.
Unapologetically nap because heat is exhausting, siesta’s are the best way to handle it.
I might get up to eat something or drink something or shower to cool down, but it is nap time. The house is dark and quiet and the fans are blowing the air around so it doesn’t feel too stale in there.
At supper time, we gather together to try and eat some food, but I am usually still uncomfortably hot.
Some food options that work well on hot days, besides take out, are:
Pasta salad
Potato salad
Basil and Tomato salad
Bean salad
Fancy sandwiches with lettuce, tomatoes and meat on them
Fruit tray
Veggie tray
Cold cut tray
Crackers, cheese and pickles
We sit together, try to eat, try to stay cool and we usually watch something on Netflix. Currently the show is The Expanse.
Around 8 or 9 we can start opening the windows and I begin to wake up again.
I sit outside and enjoy the cool until I start to fall asleep in my hammock – sometimes it’s 2am by the time my snores are disturbing the peace of my neighbourhood and I take it inside.
This is, in my opinion, the perfect schedule to survive a heat wave.