random thoughts – Day 1,926 – (Wednesday) – heat and such

According to the readout on the radio panel of my car, some part of something was 104 degrees at 8:08 this morning. Thank goodness for the remote start and remembering to both use it and leave the A/C on. The cabin was more comfortable than hell-hot. It wasn’t really 104 degrees today, but it did get hot.

Hot!

The drive to the office was the perfect summer day commute. No buses. No trash trucks. Few vehicles and no numbskulls blocking intersections. It’s amazing the difference that school being out makes.

At the office, the A/C blew delightful chilled air throughout our space. Some of us even felt a wee bit chilly. I solved my minor chill situation by taking an afternoon walk. In a shop, a woman who was sweating profusely and said she was visiting from Alabama complained in a Deep South drawl about the heat. We told her to wait, it would be 20 degrees cooler Thursday. Because we must certainly be lying, she verified the info on her phone and said, "oh, yeeees, 75 degrees."

If it was super hot out, I didn’t notice, but I did unbutton the long sleeves of my white cotton shirt and rolled the cuffs up while I was outside. They went back down to full-length when I was inside again.

It was a weird day at the office. Someone from the acquiring bank was on our floor meeting with people. I was busy trying to clean up my drives and delete unnecessary files and kept getting sidetracked, so progress was spotty. There was a cocktail meetup at The Old Court after work, but I just wanted to get home and skipped it.

Traffic, oy!

When leaving the building, the street suddenly filled with the scream of firetrucks. Several fire vehicles tried to get down Merrimack Street, which was clogged with traffic in both directions. The side streets off Merrimack and over by the high school were filled with cars attempting to reach French Street. From the fifth floor of the parking garage, where my car was already chilling in remote start glory, cars were lined up on French Street towards Father Morrisette Boulevard from Bridge Street as far as I could see in the direction home (of course). For a minute I thought about backtracking and hoofing it to The Old Court to hang with the bankers.

One exit from the garage was blocked by a white SUV with California plates. The arm was still down, and instead of swiping a passcard or inserting a validated ticket, the driver was drinking from a large chiller bottle. I moved over to the next lane.

The side of John Street headed toward Merrimack was clear, so I turned that way. It was a good plan for a stretch until the cross traffic from Dutton onto Arcand heading towards Father Morrisette chose to block the intersection and complicate the already messy situation. Luckily, I could take a left onto Shattuck Street and get out of the mess. Nine years of working downtown and I finally figured out the escape routes with three workdays left. Go figure.

With a little luck and street knowledge, I managed to be traveling in the opposite direction for a lot of the ride home. At the University Avenue bridge, where the road rage often runs as high as the Merrimack River, sure enough, the temperature was hot and so were the tempers.

In my rear view mirror a white car seemed to be attempting to cut in front of a large white truck. Horns blew. One finger salutes were flying from both vehicles. Then, the guy in the truck seemed to be gesturing with both hands for the guy in the car to come at him.

When the light turned green and we began to move, the truck with the white car now behind it seemed to be traveling intentionally extra slow. I was very glad it was behind me. I was also very glad to arrive safely at the peace and quiet of home with no need to go back out into the traffic again.

When I finally checked my phone, there were missed calls and messages from earlier in the afternoon. One was about scheduling a showing of the house for tomorrow. Yes, please. Another was that the house next door to my mother is now on the market with an open house on Saturday. Fingers crossed that great things happen (for me, of course) concerning both dwellings.