My resistance to cold is blamed by me on my Mediterranean heritage, accuracy aside. A change in temperature to just one degree lower can make my teeth chatter. I can find more reasons to stay at home than a kid in school whose teacher doesn't buy 'the dog ate my homework' excuse. Today is the fourth day, so far, in which I have not set foot out my front door. Necessity, like the Grim Reaper, will drag me out today as it did for every day of my life in which my work was not in my home.
Thinking begins about when I went on vacation (in weather like this) to somewhere sunny and warm. I left in winter clothes, with thickened blood in my veins, getting thicker, as I traveled to the airport to depart for my destination in the sunny South. I arrive where it is hot but air-conditioned indoors. As I melt, waiting for my blood to thin, I constantly wonder why I am here and not home with my toys, where the thermostat maintains a constant temperature. It takes almost the whole time I am there for my blood to adjust. I cling to any air-conditioned place and try to stay out of the sun. As a tourist, small children grab at me, trying to sell me junk for a small cost. The amount of help a sale to me would bring is like spooning the ocean out with a teaspoon but my guilt level is raised as I see the poverty they must endure. I invariably buy some small thing from the most polite and pitiful child and try then fend off the scores which follow like locusts. The better stores tease with luxuries I can ill afford and would have no place to wear. Since I don't sun bathe or gamble, the choices of things to do (other than shop) are limited.
Air-conditioned bus tours are a first option, though quite interest-challenged. I don't really care to see how the rich live in their second mansions, which seems to be the main attraction in the Bahamas other than a view of the ports below where the rich moor their yachts, viewed from the highest point on the Island.
After a few days my blood compensates for the heat. I am forced to cram everything I brought, (now expanded from the heat, no doubt) into my baggage with the souvenirs I have brought to prove that I was thinking about people while I was gone. I will depart with totally inadequate protection from the cold, in which my thinned out blood will screech at me with discomfort when I finally reach my local airport. If I am lucky I will not be forced to stand in the freezing air for too long before the transport back to my normal life in the New England winter. With more luck I will not have to shovel too much snow and can do most of my shopping over the Internet, as usual. I can then spend my time looking at the pictures I took and remember what it was like to be too warm.
Thinking begins about when I went on vacation (in weather like this) to somewhere sunny and warm. I left in winter clothes, with thickened blood in my veins, getting thicker, as I traveled to the airport to depart for my destination in the sunny South. I arrive where it is hot but air-conditioned indoors. As I melt, waiting for my blood to thin, I constantly wonder why I am here and not home with my toys, where the thermostat maintains a constant temperature. It takes almost the whole time I am there for my blood to adjust. I cling to any air-conditioned place and try to stay out of the sun. As a tourist, small children grab at me, trying to sell me junk for a small cost. The amount of help a sale to me would bring is like spooning the ocean out with a teaspoon but my guilt level is raised as I see the poverty they must endure. I invariably buy some small thing from the most polite and pitiful child and try then fend off the scores which follow like locusts. The better stores tease with luxuries I can ill afford and would have no place to wear. Since I don't sun bathe or gamble, the choices of things to do (other than shop) are limited.
Air-conditioned bus tours are a first option, though quite interest-challenged. I don't really care to see how the rich live in their second mansions, which seems to be the main attraction in the Bahamas other than a view of the ports below where the rich moor their yachts, viewed from the highest point on the Island.
After a few days my blood compensates for the heat. I am forced to cram everything I brought, (now expanded from the heat, no doubt) into my baggage with the souvenirs I have brought to prove that I was thinking about people while I was gone. I will depart with totally inadequate protection from the cold, in which my thinned out blood will screech at me with discomfort when I finally reach my local airport. If I am lucky I will not be forced to stand in the freezing air for too long before the transport back to my normal life in the New England winter. With more luck I will not have to shovel too much snow and can do most of my shopping over the Internet, as usual. I can then spend my time looking at the pictures I took and remember what it was like to be too warm.
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