So this is what they do in a sweat lodge...

This heat wave has got me philosophizing.
 
What is the nature of "room temperature?" It's such a vague word. Is it the seventy degrees to which most American establishments seem to set their thermostats? Is it the 75-to-80 degree range that I and my fellow reptilians prefer? Is it the positively sweltering 93 degrees that the rooms in my house were yesterday (due mostly, I confess, to a malfunctioning air conditioner rather than any conservation efforts on my part)?

I have a recipe for a sugar paste, which is supposed to cool to "room temperature" before using. But the temperature of the room it's in now would turn it ooey-gooey--not at all the firm texture it's supposed to be. Ahh, I could ponder for hours on ambiguous standards...

But instead, I shall turn to contemplation of irrational behavior. To whit, the kind of impulse that leads an otherwise sane person (me) ... OK, OK, otherwise mostly sane person ... to decide, as the ambient temperature climbed into the 90's, that she absolutely must acquire a new winter coat as soon as possible.

I think I know where the impulse came from. On Friday evening, I walked home through a sauna to a house that was, if anything, hotter than the surrounding air. And when I attempted to inspect the ventilation center down in the basement, I found the room around it full of cat puke! And when I brought my computer down to (another, cleaner) room in the basement because the temperature there was much more comfortable, my nostrils were assailed with the odor of my housemate's neglected litterbox! I was incensed. So Saturday, I did what any sensible woman would do: I drowned my sorrows in the shopping mall!

I bought all the things I'd been putting off, one of which was a dressy winter coat. And now, I shall philosophize about clothing sizes. Women's sizes (as any man will tell you) are confusing. They are numbered arbitrarily, and a size 6 in one brand may be a size 10 in another. When you graduate out of junior's sizes, you typically go down a size instead of up! Why is it that someone who usually fits into size 8 or 9 dresses (me), ended up purchasing a size 4 coat? Are coat sizes different from dress sizes? I never knew.

And lastly, I feel it is my duty to ruminate over the nature of hot and cold. Why is the average human (me) always either too hot or too cold? While being subjected to external temperatures 85 and above, I feel quite ill and miserable and I can't concentrate and I have been known to complain I am too hot. Yet when the temperature drops below 75, I feel quite stiff and miserable and I can't concentrate and I do nothing but complain I am too cold. There will always be people who will call you out for being fickle about temperatures, and so here I would like to establish that even though I feel pretty icky when I'm too hot, I'd still prefer that to being too cold. If I never see another winter, I will be content. But in the likely occasion that I do, I will have a spiffy new coat to cheer me up!