Yesterday marked the anniversary of my first full week in the city. It also marked the return of the heat and humidity. The first few days in the city were quite hot. But, as luck would have it, the city cooled for about three days to allow Kev and I to do all of the work that goes along with moving into a new apartment. It cooled so much we had decided our cute little railroad apartment on the Upper West Side would not require an air conditioner for the remaining weeks of summer. That was one deciding factor; the other element in that decision includes no place having an air conditioner to buy. We checked everywhere we went: Best Buy, Target, Home Depot, and Bed Bath and Beyond. Sure, they all have Dyson’s new $300.00 bladeless fan for sale (and I admit its pretty cool), but they can’t stock some air-con???
Once it cooled off in the middle of the week, I believe we happened to stumble across a pile of air conditioners at Rite-Aid. And funny enough these air conditioners were an exclusive product of Rite Air---they bore the Rite-Aid name. Which might give some indication as to why there was such a plethora in stock. But in any case, it had cooled and we had made the decision to do without.
Well then came dinner time. Since it was our first full week, and the apartment had been pretty much settled, we decided to go spend a special gift card on some ingredients to make our first meal in the apartment. Spaghetti, meat sauce, and fresh garlic bread were on the menu. So around 9pm, Kev fired up everything. And I mean everything; 2 burners, and a stove for the bread. 450 degrees in the oven and I think about 150 of those slipped out into the apartment. Working against us was the fact it had slightly rained earlier and the sun had since turned our block into a sauna, plus this night had been particularly still with no cross breeze.
Once the meal was completely prepared we sat down to sweat. I think there was some eating involved too, but I believe it was mostly to sweat. Actually the meal was quite amazing. It was great to have a home cooked meal, and I had bought some cheap sparkling wine, poured into Starbucks cups, that was quite refreshing. When the meal was over and all the food had gone, the sweating continued.
It had gotten to a point where moving was out of the question. Even blinking was more of an insurmountable task that one didn’t want to take on. Then suddenly out of nowhere Kev puts on his shoes. The look on his face said it all…he was leaving the moist, musky heat of our apartment to venture out 3 blocks to our local air conditioning vendor—Rite Aid.
20 minutes later, I gathered the strength to go down stairs and help him. I walked a block and in the distance I could see a little boy with a brand new toy. He had carried his new purchase at least half way and still had a smile on his face. I took over and carried the air conditioner back to its new home. Their we sloppily threw it in a window with a cupcake pan to support it on the sill and turned it on. And after 10 minutes… we were still hot. Oppps, I turned it to “Hi Fan” not “Hi Cool.” A simple correction and 10 min later we could feel the cool air changing the temperature of each individual bead of sweat.
We slept last night with the living room cut off from the cool air, leaving only the bedrooms to be our oasis. When we woke, not a drop was to be found on our dry bodies. But in an odd turn, Kev woke up with a sore throat; a small price to pay for a cold nights sleep securely wrapped in blankets. Oh what a week.
