Some Like it Hot

And for awhile, I thought I was one of them. But then I spent a summer in Scottsdale. Arizona tourism brochures will assure you that it's a "dry heat"--so it is not as bad as, say, a summer in Baghdad (for more reasons than the weather). Still, when the thermometer climbs above 100 degrees, the air may be "dry," but you will be soaked with sweat. Not only that, but your lipstick and your favorite CD will be reduced to a molten mess should you happen to forget to remove them from the front seat for a few hours one summer day (before you invested in window tinting and a foldable metallic "shield" for your front window). Your friend's dog will literally burn his paws on the black asphalt parking lot--requiring medical treatment and the purchase of four leather booties. Hiking trails will be filled at 5 a.m. and empty by 9 a.m. Golfers will tee off when it is still dark. And outdoor misters actually spray patrons with water as they sit on the terrace of local restaurants and bars (the temperature so hot that most of the water has evaporated before it touches your skin).
I write about this now because it is unseasonably cold in New York, which has me thinking about that wonderful week in Arizona in April when the temperatures were in the 80s and I spent hours in a bikini lounging by the pool (even occasionally dipping in). But I'm not so sure I'd want to be back there now. While the cold has lingered in New York, it's prematurely hot in Arizona. As Del pointed out, this can be particularly unpleasant when your A/C is not in working order (and there's a daylong wait for a repairman). Meanwhile, back in New York, many residents were turning the heat back on this morning.
In fact, the temperature today in the city is literally HALF that in Phoenix (52 degrees right now in midtown Manhattan, and 104 in Phoenix, according to weather.com).
I'm not sure which is more uncomfortable. Though I can tell you that I am wearing boots, pants, a thick long-sleeved sweater and a jacket--and my friends and I are still planning to bring along blankets to the Yankees game tonight. And, as my husband wrote, not-so-secretly hoping that the rain will start soon and the game will be postponed. That's mostly because we do not want to end up getting soaked once we're there. But also for the Yankees' sake. As a handy little feature I discovered today on weather.com points out, the team doesn't do so well in the cold weather. The Yanks have won three times as many games on days when the temperature was above 70 than on days when it was below. The most favorable weather conditions for the New York Yankees, according to the experts at weather.com, are daytime games with temperatures between 74 and 83 and winds cross-field left to right. So not only will we be shivering in the stands, enduring 20 mph wind gusts, but the chance of rain showers tonight (60 percent) is higher than the chance that our team will win in these weather conditions. Though, of course, they've beaten the odds before.