Hot stuff

I woke up at 1845 today.  The sun was nearly down, and the sky was darkening.  It was 105 degrees.

I lamented on the crack in my Anesthesiologist friend's new glasses.  She said they spontaneously broke in the sun while walking to lunch.

Scorpions sweat here.

When I told a colleague that I was scheduled to go to Iraq this year, I asked him how hot it was in the summer.  Both of us were in San Antonio, and had suffered a particularly blistering summer together there.  He had returned a year ago from a deployment to Iraq himself.  "San Antonio," he said with a smirk, "is a memory of winter for you."  I laughed.  He couldn't be serious.

The main question I have is to how this could be the part of the world (not Italy, not Hawaii) that people have been fighting over for the past 5000 years?  Is it the monochromatic landscape?  The camels?  The fun loving Sh'ria law?  No, it must be the climate.   But its a dry heat.

Well, not really, yet.  Apparently, once the rain stops, sometime around now, it doesn't rain again until the fall, and as it heats up the humidity starts to drop.  Right now, it is 110, and still a little humid, since it rained a week ago, or so.  I understand that once the puddles are all gone, the air dries out and the temperature rises.  to 130 or so.  As the temperature is rising here, schedules need to be adjusted to accordingly.  I am planning for this, and aiming to spend as much of the day from 0900-0500 within air conditioning as possible.  And I will try not to burn my scalp.