Keeping Cool.

I had a heavier topic planned for today's post, but that was before I nodded off and woke up to find that though it was after midnight, temperatures felt like they'd risen a good ten to twenty degrees. My parents have never had air conditioning, and we've always survived with open windows and oscillating fans just fine. Of course some days test the limits of even our living room ceiling fan or kitchen skylight, welcome additions in my teenage years that briefly made life so much cooler. I remember my high school only having air conditioning in four classrooms in a new wing that had been added to the top floor. Mostly Seniors had classes there, and it was a true reward when I was old enough to partake in that benefit. I once saw a kid's hair melt, but then that was because he'd attempted to use shoe polish to get around the dress code and hide the face that he'd completely shaved the sides and back of his head as was the style at the time.

Thursday of this week proved to be a real break from the deadly scorchers of Monday and Tuesday that may in fact have cracked triple digits. If it's this hot now, I dread how the rest of my Friday will feel. My race, now a mere four days away, is seven o'clock at night and near water. I hope that's enough to keep things cool. If I don't post after next Tuesday, I'll either be crazy busy with a pair of midweek musical gigs, or I'll have died in the race. Hopefully someone will fill my readers in on my fate. Meanwhile, here are some ways to keep cool in the Summer:

• Air conditioning. I've never had this in my own home, but I certainly appreciated it in stores, in my later high school years, at my college, and of course in both offices I've been employed at.

• Swimming at the beach. OK, I can't technically swim so I don't venture into water over my head, but I have enjoyed boogie boarding, tubing, and sort of treading shallow water.

• Swimming in a pool. I personally never had a real one of my own, but my high school had a huge one and a few friends had pools.

• Swimming in a friend's pool. The first time I almost drowned was in a friend's in-ground pool, guaranteeing my mom would NEVER get a pool and would embarrass me by secretly asking a teacher to hold my hand the entire time on a trip to South Street Seaport because that was the only way she'd sign the permission slip.

• Sitting in a kiddie pool that's a glorified big round bathtub that will eventually develop a leak so by the time I was 10 I'd get about 10 minutes in the water before most of it was on my lawn. I think one flaw in the design was the requirement to fill the base with sand to weight it down. The other was that it wasn't meant for kids in double digits. At least it wasn't one of those plastic one-piece jobs with the useless fake “slide”.

• Running through a sprinkler. This was the poor kid's pool, and I was among those that delighted in this spinning three-pronged spidery metal device on wheels, mostly because I didn't have anything better.

• Water parks. Splish Splash was always my place of choice, from inner tubes on water slides to just floating through the park in their lazy river. I neither had a Slip ‘n Slide nor knew any friends that had one, but most people on Long Island didn't need one with Splish Splash.

• Being hit with a hose or water gun. I may have complained about it on the 4th of July, because water damages uniforms, music and instruments, and also makes us look bad and lose points when we pass the judges at the reviewing stand. As a kid though, there's nothing like chasing your friends with a weak water pistol and rounding the corner to find they've upgraded to the hose. It's a shock at first, but also the fastest way to cool down.

• Taking a cold shower or sitting in a tub of cold water.

• Putting clothes in the freezer. There's nothing like a clean shirt or shorts that have spent even as little as ten minutes in there.

• Ceiling fans and oscillating fans.

• Open windows and skylight(s).

• The basement. Basements, being below ground as is their way, never get hot. Ours certainly doesn't. Back in college when I regularly spent time down there in my studio drawing and painting, it was hard to come up for dinner. By the second or third step I could feel the heat as a solid entity I was entering. I really should draw more, or move my computer down there, although the inevitable mold of an unfinished basement would be just as bad for my machine as my lungs.

• Driving. I don't think we had a car with air conditioning before the mid to late 80s, but even then riding with the window open and my hand out was great, and only a dreaded traffic light could interrupt that pleasure. Vents never cut it, since all they did was blow in hot air from the engine block. Both my parents have new vehicles with air conditioning, but my used car does not. I've been rolling down all the windows of late when I drive, no easy feat without power windows. My car has an AC button which may have worked for the previous owner, but has never worked for me, even after my dad and I checked everything under the hood. The only other theory I have is that the green light that goes on when I press the button is actually sending a distress signal to Al Cowlings, and someday he's going to show up and I'll have to apologize and explain that I don't in fact need a getaway driver, and it was a false alarm. I'm not looking forward to that conversation....

• Ice cubes, made popular by Rosie Perez in Do the Right Thing.

• A nice cool drink, especially iced tea or even ice water. One of the most welcome sights marching through the streets of Brooklyn is when we spot some kind resident holding a tray with cups of water or tea. Refreshing!

• Sitting in the shade appreciating a nice cool breeze. When a park is near the shore, the shade is especially cool and breezy. Another great phenomena is when the sun goes behind even a small passing cloud, and suddenly a breeze blows through. I love that feeling.

How do you stay cool?