Hot hot hot Friday Five

RevGalBlogPal says: Global warming, anyone? Look on the bright side of melting glaciers and enviro-destruction by taking a crack at the Friday Five.

1. What's the high temperature today where you are? 100F

2. Favorite way(s) to beat the heat. Typical: stay indoors at home with the a/c on just a touch, wearing a light top and skirt, bare feet on the concrete floor, maybe even reading a good book and sipping a chilled coffee with cream and sugar. Favorite: chest-deep in a swimming pool when the shadows of the trees fall across the water, laughing with the kids and talking with friends. A light breeze is especially nice when it's over 100F. Even better if this is a backyard pool and there are gin and tonics...

3. "It's not the heat, it's the humidity." Evaluate this statement. Over 90F it makes no sense at all! In fact, I think the most uncomfortable temps are in the 80s with high humidity -- dripping with sweat and horribly hot. Rise above 90F, and the heat is increasingly tolerable. Well, until you hit 105F and then, it's just plain hot. Add some wind, and you can call it a blast furnace for another 10 degrees or so; beyond that, I've never been. Back down in the 80s F, if the humidity is high, pray for a good stiff breeze; that helps considerably ease the misery.

4. Discuss one or more of the following: sauna, hot tub, sweat lodge, warm-stone massage. Um, no thanks on all of them. Never really enjoyed a sauna or hot tub; never experience a sweat lodge or warm-stone massage. Any of these would be a lot more appealing in winter!!! I HAVE, on the other hand, hiked through snow a mile or two to a hot spring, stripped to swimsuit, and climbed in. Delicious! Didn't have the guts to run to the icy river and jump in there, though; I paid the price by being cold all the way back to the trailhead, LOL.

5. Hottest you've ever been in your life. Temperature-wise, I'd say it's a tie between a youth mission trip to Haiti in August 1982 (no a/c; see my comments about heat-and-humidity, above), and a solar construction workshop in northern Arizona in midsummer 1980, tying rebar and pouring concrete. No a/c there either (over 100F with low humidity), but we knocked off shortly after noon, found some shade to cool off a bit, then hit the swimming pool with great relief.

Non-temperature related bonus: In your opinion... who's hot? I haven't thought about this in a long while; how... sad! My standard answer in the past was Clint Eastwood and Harrison Ford, but I've been wondering if I ought to see what other possibilities there are nowadays. Hmmm.