Last week was a busy week, so my previous update to Humidfest 2014 was two weeks ago. In that last Humidfest 2014 post, I wrote about summer activities that are actually better in winter. There is a whole other category of activities that are not only better in winter, but that the tyrannical oppressor of Hot Weather makes impossible this time of year. Here are some of the ones that I miss the most.
Eating soup
Soup is one of the best food-forms in existence. Delicious umami slurpiness with chunks of whatever vegetables, meat, or noodly goodness your heart desires. I know gazpacho exists, and it’s a summer soup, but it doesn’t make up for the loss of every other kind of soup. Sausage and kale. Chili. Pho. Tortellini. Red Lentil Thai Chili.
Sleep
This one seems like it should be obvious, but apparently 72 degrees Fahrenheit is the national average room temperature. This probably explains a lot of culture-level problems. Obesity epidemic? How could anyone do anything BUT eat corn chips and watch TV with lethargy-producing 72 degree air lulling them into a fog? Kids are underperforming on standardizing tests? Maybe if the school’s thermostat weren’t sending them mixed messages they’d do ok.
I always find that anything over 70 indoors makes me start to nod off, and yet, I can’t actually sleep at that temperature.
Do things at home
Maybe I’m unique in this one because my air conditioner is a lazy piece of crap that won’t exert the effort to cool my entire apartment, which is small enough that my air conditioner has made itself an embarrassment to its species by not cooling it. Yes, I have personified my air conditioner. How could it be my nemesis if it were just a badly designed appliance?
Drink hot cocoa
I am apparently considered a good cook, but really, I’m mostly good at picking out recipes. I am not the cook in my household, and I’m extremely slow at chopping things.
But.
My hot cocoa is amazing. And I like experimenting with different kinds. In eighth grade, we had an assignment to demonstrate to the class how to do something. I taught my english class how to make peppermint hot cocoa with peppermint patties. A few of my classmates came up to me the next week to tell me that the cocoa was amazing! The best ever! Had changed their life and now they were going to quit middle school and LIVE, dammit!
I got a bad grade on that project because instead of bringing in a microwave and cooking the cocoa right then and there, I typed instructions and brought in the ingredients to show everyone. Yes, my language arts teacher apparently expected a scrawny eigth grader to carry an entire microwave to school, on the bus and everything, because “It would have been better if you had made the cocoa in class.”
Eh, fuck it. I’m making cocoa tonight anyway.