Personal: The Down Side of Moving to New Orleans
The down side of moving to New Orleans has just revealed itself to me. I was full of joy that cooler weather arrived the other week, breaking us out of the constant 90s and 80-100% humidity, with friede telling me that this was at last the weather and time of year that made living in the South worthwhile. Now, however, I'm finding that I have already begun to change. I had kept my air-conditioning set at a modest 79 or 78ºF in the house, so as to save some money by not trying to keep it even cooler. Now that the temperatures outside have suddenly fallen below even that in our current "cold snap" of highs in the lower 70s and lows even in the upper 50s, I find that I'm chilled while grading outside on my porch, wearing a long-sleeve t-shirt with a corduroy blazer over that, only to check my iPhone and find that it's 69ºF, and not in the upper 50s, as I suspected. The house feels chilly, too, at 72, which I would have sworn was 62. I've adjusted to the heat down here more than I thought.
And since pre-Katrina construction, I'm told, is one where the people of New Orleans had no concept of insulation, it'll get chillier tonight. And yet I feel ridiculous turning on the heat at this point, even though I would turn it up to make up those few degrees difference if the heat were on because it was really winter outside. This is where I just start to find my own thinking to be ridiculous, as though I hadn't hated the period at the beginning of the autumn and the end of the spring when my landlord would wait to turn on the Ardmore's boiler until it was reasonably certain that there would be no more hot days, or would turn it off at the earliest sign of late spring heat so as to save money, leaving me shivering for some weeks of transition. On the other hand, I knew I would miss that building's steam radiators with their toasty 80-degree heat in the dead of winter if I wanted it, at no extra charge. Win some lose some.
And since pre-Katrina construction, I'm told, is one where the people of New Orleans had no concept of insulation, it'll get chillier tonight. And yet I feel ridiculous turning on the heat at this point, even though I would turn it up to make up those few degrees difference if the heat were on because it was really winter outside. This is where I just start to find my own thinking to be ridiculous, as though I hadn't hated the period at the beginning of the autumn and the end of the spring when my landlord would wait to turn on the Ardmore's boiler until it was reasonably certain that there would be no more hot days, or would turn it off at the earliest sign of late spring heat so as to save money, leaving me shivering for some weeks of transition. On the other hand, I knew I would miss that building's steam radiators with their toasty 80-degree heat in the dead of winter if I wanted it, at no extra charge. Win some lose some.