(Rachel is gonna hate this post.)
There's a scene near the beginning of Beckett that made a huge impression on me. Now, ya gotta realize that some of my friends (pastor guys) like the movie because of what it says about the honor of God, or what it says about the weight of the Office changing men. But me, cold little me, chilly little me -- I vividly remember the scene where Thomas Beckett was making Henry bathe daily in cold water because it would help him not to be too soft, would toughen him up, would make him able to endure the cold.
I haven't jogged daily this past winter. I was colder this winter. When I started a daily discipline of jogging nearly four years ago, I started when it was warm and sunny and lovely outdoors. I kept going when it got cooler. I kept going when it was downright cold. I even went out and jogged when it was well below zero. I didn't get the chills so badly that winter. Nor the next year. Nor the next. This year, however, there was a wicked ice storm and snow and more ice and more snow and so forth. And then illness and house-hunting and being out of town and other reasons conspired to aid my lazy nature in finding excuses to avoid jogging. And I spent my winter feeling cold.
Similarly I find that those who do not have air-conditioning do not NEED air conditioning. Being in the AC for the bulk of your day (like, at work) makes your body less able to deal with the heat and humidity.
So I think those of us who feel cold all the time [you know who you are] might find it easier to bear if you/we force ourselves out into the winter weather daily for 15-30 minutes. Come to think of it, I wonder if that's why little kids don't mind the cold so much -- because their mothers toss them out the door to play in the snow.
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I tend to get very ill when the weather is hot and humid. (Kind of like when someone eats green apples.) Then I took the kids on vacation in a van without air conditioning. The weather was in the high 90's the entire 9 days we were gone. I was never sick. My conclusion was the same as yours. We get used to low humidity and moderate temperatures and are bodies aren't able to deal with temperature extremes.
ReplyDeleteBwahahahaha!!!
ReplyDeleteYour talk of being outside in the cold is foreign to me.
Besides, remember how I used to work at SMILES all the time in the unheated building and it just took me more time and tea to get back up to "just cold?"
I used to be able to easily handle the heat. Unfortunately, now I sit in an office every summer which is filled with computers that need to stay cooled and thus the A/C is generally so cold I'm FREEZING all day. Then when I go outside where it's 80-90+... Yeah... I just can't take not having the A/C on at home.
ReplyDeleteBut who knows. Maybe when I'm riding my bike to work every day and I get back in the evening after being out in the heat, I'll be able to handle the apartment with less A/C...
Could you keep harping in the evils of air conditioning, please? Cause I don't have it and I find myself barely able to function in heat and humidity. The house seems dirtier, everything feels stickier, and I'm not much good for anything. I welcome the coming Little Ice Age!
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