Cabin Fever - Summer Survival Plan

I am coming to an uneasy peace with this hot, humid summer (which isn’t even technically summer quite yet) by trying to put on the attitude northerners have toward winter: granting myself permission to hunker down and make the best of it.  While there are those who like it, and even a few who love it, there are still plenty of people like me who are happiest leaving town for the summer months. You will find us hiding out in our air-conditioned homes feeling guilty and depressed for not liking the summer better and for not being able to bear the stifling heat and nasty mold that giving up air conditioning would inflict on us. While I will manage a few weeks out of here this summer, the bulk of it will be spent stewing in town. I need an attitude change.

When I think of northerners with cabin fever, I see rocking chairs, fireplaces, baskets of knitting, cups of hot chocolate, and stacks of good books.  Snow days offer nice breaks from daily routine. While it may grow tiresome, it’s got real charm - quite a bit more than me, sweaty and angry, sprawled on the sofa, with an electric fan pointed at my face and a wet washcloth on my head. How can I create a happier summer ambiance in this climate, where I get an actual  headache from the heat and have to be inside by 10 am? This kind of weather really puts the fever in cabin fever.

This year I’ve got a plan that includes shaking up some habits, celebrating some summer goods, and practicing the discipline of “accepting this thing I cannot change.”  I will:

• Take advantage of the long days and wake up when the sun rises to do morning chores like walking the dog, feeding the chickens, and hanging the laundry - and exercise like yoga and walking. I will be in by 10. 
• Take advantage of the late sunset by going out after dinner for a bike ride or a swim at the public pool or a walk downtown. 
• Take a break during the hottest part of the day - preferably a full-out nap - thereby making the first two possible. Feel European about it instead of lazy. 
• Enjoy the fruits of summer (and the legumes): watermelon, other melons, blueberries, muscadine grapes, mangoes, and boiled peanuts.
• Re-engage my southern family's iced tea drinking tradition. The fact that you can make a batch of it that lasts days makes it an energy-saver. The fact that it is delicious over ice makes it good for the soul. 
• Take advantage of kids being home from school and playing inside during the day to engage in traditional pastitimes like card games, board games, playing music, and arts and crafts. We tend to do this around Christmas when we have time off and are drawn to the warmest room in the house. Why not a summer vacation tradition? Now to find the coolest room in the house...
• Take advantage of highly cooled public spaces - the library, movie theater, museums. 
• Keep a "family summer reading list" to post on the bulletin board. I LOVED the summer reading program at our local library when I was a child. Grace already keeps a "book book" for writing down what she is reading, and I've had a running list in my day planner since 2005. Posting a family one will hopefully encourage the others.
• Refrain from adding more heat with hair drying, clothes drying or cooking more than necessary. Keep cool with wet hair, get clothes out early enough to beat the afternoon rain, and enjoy cold or lightly-cooked food like Hot and Sour Green Bean Salad, Pasta Fresca, Peanut Noodles, Pesto Pasta, Summer Sweet and Spicy Salad, Chickpea and Goat-cheese salad, Tabouli, and good, ol' cold leftovers.
• Restrain from driving even myself crazy with constant complaining about the heat. If I say anything at all, it will be with a smile on my sweaty face. "My, oh my, it's a hot one!" rather than my usual profanity-laced expressions of discontent. Summer in Gainesville is a real bitch. Hopefully I can resist becoming one too . . . 

Comments

[Adam Brooks]

www.goodreads.com

Good way to keep track of summer reading.