Deaf to all the alarms?

 

   The last two weeks have been a wild ride.  I went from a truly liberating and exhilarating trip up north to the Bay Area to being stuck in the hospital here for four days with another – yep, yet another – U.T.I.  (At least, this time my attendants were allowed to stay with me in the hospital, but not without a bit of a fight.)

   Before I ended up in the hospital last Sunday evening, I had planned to write a bit about my trip which was indeed liberating, as it was my first trip to the Bay Area to see family and friends in 17 months.  It was sheer joy to be in Berkeley and environs and to visit with my dad and his new partner Anne and with my sister and her husband and to spend a day with my dear friends Carl and David.  It was a real treat to see all of them “IRL” instead of on a screen, and a sweet bonus was going to a queer roller skating gathering at Lake Merritt in Oakland, which was like a very informal, small pride festival. 

   As wonderful as this Bay Area experience was, there was something alarming about it.  Or at least an alarm should be going off about it, if the alarm isn’t going off already. While I was there, the temperatures were in the 90’s.

   This was in the San Francisco Bay Area.  In June. 

   Something is wrong, very wrong – alarming, yes – about this. 

   It sometimes get into the high 80’s and low 90’s for a few days in August in the Bay Area when, as I like to joke, everyone up there freaks out. I will always remember when, many years ago, an attendant and I were driving to Berkeley at the start of an August trip, and we called the motel halfway up to say we’d be checking in late.  The guy who answered the phone said we shouldn’t bother coming up, because it was 85 degrees and miserable.  We laughed.  Eighty-five degrees sounded like Heaven after the 90’s and 100’s that we had been experiencing! 

   But it now turns out the 90’s in the Bay Area in June is nothing, what with it being 114 degrees – 114 degrees – in Seattle – Seattle, WA – of all places.   

   Something is really wrong with this picture.  Indeed, it is wrong, as many residences in Seattle don’t have air conditioning.  It’s not supposed to be hot, let alone 114 degrees, up there. 

   This is a bad sign – no doubt about it.  If we don’t hear all the global warming alarms going off, we are deaf.

   If nothing else, it turns out the guy at the motel had a message all those years ago: there’s no escape.