So...you may be wondering, what does 100 degrees feel like? Thick, palpable, can't breath heat. Intensive care unit heat. Living at the shore in an old house without air conditioning, you quickly learn the basics, like, the house guests will arrive during the hottest day of the summer.
Also this:
Land breeze, bad.
Sea breeze, good.
Land breeze: flies, hot air, heat, existential dread.
Sea breeze: cool, flies go back to the bay where they belong. Optimistic sense of own survival returns.
Ceiling fans and air vents just don't work like they used to, I guess. The wall units are effective only until the old wiring blows their fuses. The tried and true freezing cold shower right before bed time trick you learned as a child helps. The ocean, fortunately a perfect 77 degrees to go with the perfect 100 recorded at A.C. International (in fairness about 10 miles inland), is filled with swimmers long after the lifguards go home at 6 p.m. (Some years, this kind of heat is also accompanied by a humorless, freezing ocean due to an upwelling effect that pleases nobody but the ice cream vendors.) Giving up your one air conditioned room to your child seems like the ultimate sacrifice. You vow to upgrade before next summer, but then, like a miracle, something in the air shifts. Literally. if you're outside at the shore, or even sometimes if you're inside, you can feel the moment it does. The breeze is suddenly cool again, coming from the ocean, from the east, from that unbroken horizon of coolness and water! Rejoice! The wicked land breeze from the west is dead. This morning, I felt a shift around 3 a.m., I think. The air, no longer coagulating around the eyes and throat. It is ... circulating.