A Parlour for a Plague

Ain’t nobody done no straying from no spirit

I remember my Grandmother had a wringer washer machine in her basement. When laundry day came around I would walk down the stairs and the air was warm and fragrant. Occasionally I would stand near the machine while she did the wash........I've been trying to remember where she hung the clothes...it had to have been in the back yard...but I can't recollect.

It would be heavy carrying it up the stairs. I hope it was not too many steps.

It was a full flight of stairs........I hope someone carried it up for her.....My grandmother was only 40 years old when I was born, I'm guessing my memories are from when she was about 45. They did get an automatic washing machine when I was still very young, and I think a dryer as well. But she still liked to dry the sheets on the line....it does give laundry a lovely fragrance.

Speaking of basements, I once hired on to unload a moving van at a house in Dallas. As I carried items down the ramp I saw the residents arrive, fresh in from a northern state. They kept running around looking for something. Turned out they were trying to find the basement. Ain't none in Dallas.

My Grandparents lived in a very small row house in Baltimore. No one was wealthy and they lived simply. My GrandFather worked for the B&O railroad and my Grandmother made straw hats (can't remember the name). Summers were hot and humid, for many years they had what was called a summer porch, when the humidy and heat made you miserable they slept out on the back porch. There was no such thing as air-conditioning...

I don't remember seeing the 'summer porch' ....by the time I came along the porch had been made into a kitchen. They still had the opening from the old window but it was all cleaned up and looked right into the dining room.

I remember those days, mostly in Wichita, Kansas. Sometimes we did sleep on the porch. Anyway, father installed an exhaust fan on the second floor - in my bedroom. Everybody else got to close their doors at night.

I remember sleepless nights trying to flip the pillow to get to the cooler side. Temps in Maryland can be brutal, temps at 96 and higher with 100% humidity. In the early days of our history foreign diplomats were given hazardous duty pay if they were being stationed in D.C..

I also remember my mom sort of cursing or making agonized noises when she checked the clothes line and found mildew on the sheets. It gets humid, so humid it's sometimes hard for me to breathe..it's like being encased in a wet sock...it's suffocating.

I'm in Farmington, NM, and suspect we have the country's best four season weather. Yes, we're hitting the mid 90's and sometimes break a hundred, but the humidity is relatively low. That, combined with altitude a bit over 5,000' and usually clear skies usually gives an overnight low in the upper 50's. It takes a while for it to warm up in the morning. It cools off once the sun is down.

I never had air conditioning in a house until I had it installed in my own in about 1994.

Summers were awful on really hot days. I think at some point we got an evaporative unit that sat in the living room,collecting dust, until summer. The mosquitoes added to the torture of sleepless summer nights. I have a vague recollection of sleeping on the lawn and even on the beaches in heatwaves.

I used to run a cold bath on really hot nights and lie in it for a while on stinking hot nights and go back to bed wet to let the evaporation cool me.

Then I got sophisticated and got a fan and wore wet sarongs to bed.

I still consider having air conditioning as a marvellous gift that makes summer heatwaves from hell into just mild inconveniences

And school classrooms! We were allowed to remove our stinking ties at 100F. They let us out at 3.00 instead of 3.15 then....so our walk home was mildly hotter, I suppose? My walk was pretty short. The smell of baking children, dust, chalk and teachers was unconducive to learning, as was the terrible heat of heatwaves. I suppose the teachers were mildly relieved that, at least, the usual suspects, ( there always seemed to be 3 or 4 in every classroom, until year 11 whose behaviour was difficult for everyone) were too heat struck to be as annoying as usual.

That sounds like heaven.

We're in the middle of a long extended heat wave with no end in sight. Straight sun, no clouds, and temperatures around 30 C or higher with humidity that can kill yas. We're bracing for Monday and Tuesday next week where it's expected to feel in the 40's. It broke a heat record the other day registering nearly 36 in T.O. and I think you can add a few degrees in surrounding areas. Mama it's hot.

That’s my favourite climate too!

Humidity! Never understood the craving for tropical weather.

Never craved humidity meself. It shows up uninvited. Mid-July to mid-September translates "Hell and Humility".

Who recalls the Iceman Cometh? That's what we waited for. Not the stage play, but the actual iceman delivering blocks of ice through back doors into our hellish kitchens. Nobody had refrigerators, but iceboxes. Most held up to three 25-pound blocks. Kids followed the iceman all around town for the icicle chippings he'd toss to us. Idyllic times.

This is what it's like in San Miguel, and why I'll spend summers there. Its altitude is 6200 feet.

Just looked, and right now at 11:30am it's 71 F (21.6 C)
It's already past the hottest time of year, May. Then it'll get into the 90's (35C) and dry. And indoors stays cool because it's trapped the overnight cools of the 50's (13 C)

My and my 2 neighbors are enclosed in a stone wall, so it's totally safe to leave doors ajar at night.
When I'm there, the door to the 3rd story roof is wide open all the time.
I'll leave the sliding door to the back patio open at night, and it creates a really strong draft of night time cool air getting sucked through the entire house.
Heh. Walking down the stairs in the middle of the night, you feel this Whoosh of cool air sweeping by you.
Delicious.

The down side with the dryness and breezes is a dusty house. That's where I contribute to the economy with having a weekly housekeeper.

This is considered rather lazy by the locals standards. Both my neighbors are Mexican.
Marianna and Maurcio are both professionals, and I see their housekeeper come in every single day.
Marianna owns 2 restaurants in town, so I would imagine she just brings home prepared meals.

The gardener is every 2 weeks I think. No grass, just lovely lavender, bougainvillea, jacarandas, and so much more.
It never occured to me a desert could be so lush.

So US citizens can buy real estate in Mexico?

Love to visit there. Such a rich culture.

You cannot buy real estate in certain areas like on the coast in tourist areas.
I’m not an expert in all the exact areas you can’t buy, but San Miguel de Allende isn’t one of them.

If you ever visit there, you have a place to stay, whether I’m there or not. Plenty of room.

I know, me either, though I suppose if you're there long enough you acclimate maybe. Unless I'm near or on the water I turn into a dripping lump of lethargy, hiding inside.

That sounds like heaven, too.