A Rainy Desert

I once worked with a fellow who insisted that if I'd get a globe, put my finger directly on Florida and spin the globe, Florida would be the only land in the entire world at its latitude that was not desert.  I've never tried it.  Haven't had a globe since high school.  I once read somewhere that Florida would be a desert except that its so narrow that moisture from the Atlantic and from the Gulf of Mexico moving back and forth across the State keeps it watered.  I think there's more to it than that but it ties inwith the finger on the globe thing so what the heck.   Whatever the causes, Florida is hot and humid.  You don't know hot until your sweat won't evaporate. 

Many of the old Tarzan movies were filmed not far from where I work.   They  imported monkeys for those films and their descendants are frequently encountered on game cameras in the swamps nearby. Its close enough to a jungle for them.

Florida  is, in fact, so hot and humid that it could not support the population, or at least the demographics of the population, that it does if not for air conditioning.  Most people wouldn't choose to live here without it.  Among those that did, the heat would run off or kill off all but the hardiest.  The Seminole Indians were never defeated because they could disappear deep into the swamps and let Florida fight the white men for them.   The Russians have Winter and the Seminoles had a land that wanted to kill everybody that walked on it.  It still does.

So our air conditioner quit last night.  The last time it died it was at the start of a 3 day weekend in the middle of summer.  The first night was tolerable.  The following days and nights were not.   If you've become accustomed to air conditioning it takes about 2 full weeks for your body to adjust to living without it.  Sure, you can work and function but you'll sweat all night long no matter how fast the ceiling fans are running or how still you are and that's no fun at all.

Fortunately this time, it gave out about nightfall on Sunday so the house remained cool enough through the night.  It was starting to get warm by the time I got home early from work to meet the A/C guy.  Turns out a couple of capacitors were cooked.  $320 later we are in the cooling down phase. Our little outpost supports life again.