95%, and counting

A "given" with any Michigan vacation/residence/visit is humidity. You know, the amount of water in the air. I must admit that I am rarely bothered by any kind of heat. I love it all--dryness of the West, humidity of the East, actual high temperatures. As long as the temperature either is above, or feels like it is above 75 degrees, I am happy.

The funniest memory I have of heat is when the kids and I came back to the States in the summer of 2004. We had been driving all over the US, but decided to fly down to Arizona to visit as many state and national parks as possible. We had been waiting for about 5 minutes outside of the Phoenix airport for the shuttle to take us to the rental car counter, and I looked down at Glo. She was five at the time. She literally had rivers of sweat running down her head, and she said to me, "Mommy, I'm really hot," as if I didn't know that already :-)

Since we've been here at Interlochen, the weather has been ideal. High 70's and low humidity. All of that changed after a front blew through here and brought all kinds of rain clouds. The problem is that the clouds aren't actually releasing any of the rain. Like I said, none of this usually bothers me, but then, this morning happened.

When I headed out for my morning 4 mile jog, I was really excited. It's been wonderful, running on flat roads and under the shade of trees each morning. In fact, I come home, and I'm hardly sweaty at all. I started this morning, and I hadn't even run a mile when I felt like I was going to pass out. Seriously. Did I have any funky clothing on? No. Did I have breakfast this morning? Yes. What the heck?

After only running two miles (and walking the other two), I was passed by a woman that probably weighed 50 pounds more than me, and was probably 50 years old. She said, "Can it get any more humid? I feel like I'm running against a WALL!" And she was right! Seriously! For some strange reason, the humidity was killing me. When I got home and explained it to John, he oh-so-succinctly explained that with all the water in the air, the sweat on our bodies can't evaporate which is what usually cools us off. (By the way, I love having a smart, doctor/runner husband!)

So I headed into the Scholarshop to buy a postcard to send to Ethan and I hear a kid behind me say to his friends (tongue-in-cheek), "I hate it when I feel like I need another shower after I've had an hour of chamber music rehearsal." I could hardly keep from smiling. Three hour orchestra rehearsals? Yes, sweaty. Ultimate frisbee in Kabuti field? Yes, very sweaty. But one hour of chamber music in the basement of some building? Crazy, and yes, sweaty.

For a moment I digress on a more personal note. For those of you who don't know, my hair is completely gray. I started going gray when I was 15 and had lost most of the color by the time I was 30. Yes, I must color it every 5 weeks. It's a pain in the booty, but I refuse to be gray at 39+. :-) If you know anything about gray hair, it's really coarse and unmanageable which is why most senior citizen women either get those tight perms or cut it really short. Refusing to get a perm or have super short hair, I fight the frizziness daily. Add 95% humidity today, and I'm in trouble. On top of that go running outdoors? I'm a lost cause. Obviously...



Seeing my hair like this, reminds me of the Friends episode where Monica and friends visit Cancun. I laughed so hard during that episode. I'm not laughing now. I don't mind humidity, but it obviously doesn't like me.