Ain’t no high pressure system like a desert high pressure system! (Yeah – talking about the weather again.) California has wicked high pressure systems – especially when we’re getting an ‘offshore flow’ – hot dry air blowing westerly. It makes you feel papery, in a dried, crackly parchment kind of way, oddly insubstantial, even if you drink a lot of water. It also seems to impact a serious degree of tension in the body. John and I have both noticed how well we sleep when there’s a bit of cloud in the sky and we get an easterly wind from the ocean. And how poorly we sleep and how achy we feel with the severe high pressure. It’s not just temperature, it’s the whole environment. We’re just not desert-dweller types – apparently, we’re going to have to move to Oregon to get any kind of consistently good sleep.

We have an indoor/outdoor thermometer in the kitchen, where the outdoor sensor is actually in the sun, so we get some pretty ridiculous readings, which is all part of the fun. We even set the device to beep if we got really low or really high temps, and thought we’d set them so we’d never REALLY hear the alarm go off. Apparently, however, 140 degrees is NOT high enough – the last few days the outside temp, in the sun, with the hot dry wind, has been about 140-143 from 1 p.m. – 4 p.m. about. I don’t need to tell anyone that this is just WRONG. Luckily, I’ve learned that if I close all the windows and seal the house before 10, it stays relatively cool most of the day. Yesterday, I caught an 82 inside and 142 outside reading – 60 degrees difference. (We used to get those in Upstate NY but the other way around – 60 inside and 0 outside – D’OH!)

I miss humidity. I miss NOT having dry nostrils when I wake up each morning. I would love to be able to get in the car without having to remember a water bottle all the time, but with 30 minutes each way to town and back, the sun and heat can really do you in. I miss the sound of cars swooshing by on a wet road and the grey imposing clouds of a long day’s rain. Feel free to send rain my way if you have too much where you are!