Month: June 2021

Last night was an absolute challenge to weather the unbearable heat that has oppressed this province. I did not get a lot of sleep. The morning brought some surprising relief. There was the slightest of hint of breeze coming in through my windows.

The temperature dropped four degrees in the morning so that my apartment was “merely” 30 degrees Celsius. In non-crazy times, such a temperature would have been very uncomfortable but compared to 34 degrees, it felt like it was a crisp autumn day.

It hovered around 30 for most of the entire day. It was still uncomfortable to deal with such heat but I felt like it was a manageable situation, as opposed to yesterday where it felt like the Earth was on fire.

It’s almost bedtime for me now and the temperature has lowered even more, down to a “chilly” 29 degrees Celsius. I have been pretty much naked anytime I’m in my apartment since Saturday and tonight, I may actually put on a shirt before I crawl into bed.

I feel really tired because of the lack of sleep for two days in a row. I’m hoping the cooler temperature tonight will allow me to get a bit more rest. The forecast calls for another hot day tomorrow with a high of 29 degrees, and finally the weather cooling down to a more respectable 24 degrees by Thursday.

Will this be the only massive heat wave this summer? I don’t know.

It’s hard to believe the photo above was taken today, while in the greater Vancouver area. According to my automobile, it was 40 degrees Celsius outside. It actually read 42 degrees later but I was too hot to take a photo. Unbelievable!

It simply has never been this hot in this province before. In fact, records show that to be correct. The town of Lytton, became the hottest place in Canada ever, with a high just below 48 degrees Celsius. That’s hotter than Las Vegas has ever been. Let that sink in for a second. A city famously located in a desert has never been as hot as it was this week in Lytton.

It was so hot today, my employer gave everyone the afternoon off to deal with the heat and to tend to their families and pets. My apartment reached a high of 34 degrees today. The air feels like a furnace. Everything is hot to the touch, including my bed sheets, front door, everything! It’s well after midnight and it is still 31 degrees in my apartment. I didn’t sleep well last night, I don’t expect to sleep well again tonight.

In all my years, I’ve never thought it was necessary to have air conditioning in my home while living in B.C. but I have changed my mind now. It’s too late to get A/C for this current heat wave but once summer winds down, it’ll be time for me to get a portable A/C unit.

Over the weekend, the temperature in my apartment has stayed at a hell-mimicking 31 degrees Celsius. For Vancouver, it has been unbearably hot for the last several days. If I had to struggle to remember when it was this hot, it might have been one odd summer night either in 1993 or 1994 when the heat just seemed to be oppressively hot. It has been like that but more so since about Friday.

For the first time that I can recall, school has been cancelled for some local school districts because it is going to be so hot tomorrow. This doesn’t happen in this province usually.

I don’t have air conditioning in my apartment, so respite from this heat has been far and few between. I was cool for about ten minutes when I went inside Safeway for some groceries on Saturday. I was also cool inside my car when I had to run errands on Saturday and when I went to see my family on Sunday. Otherwise, I just suffered in silence.

I did not sleep well on Saturday night. It was just too hot to get comfortable enough for sleep, even though I was exhausted. I am coping by drinking water cooled in my freezer and running a useless fan in my apartment. On Sunday, it was so hot, I didn’t even feel hungry for the entire day. I actually even felt a tinge of nausea at one point.

Hilariously, it supposed to be even hotter on Monday, with a high of 34 degrees, hotter than that if you’re unlucky to be further in land and away from the water. It is supposed to drop down to a “cooler” 28 degrees on Wednesday.

I hope I can get some more rest tonight because I have to work tomorrow.

Tonight, TBS aired Conan O’Brien’s last show on their network. After three incarnations of his late night TV show, Conan is now done with the format. His career in late night goes back to 1993 but even before then, he found success as a writer at Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons. I remember he used to position himself as the nervous rookie in late night who knew nothing, surrounded by giants like Letterman and Leno. He is now the elder statesman of TV.

Conan isn’t retiring though. He and some of his staff will take a few months to create a new show for HBO Max. No one knows what the show will be or how many they’ll make in a year but we do know it’ll be different than the traditional late night TV show.

Congrats to Conan and all his staff (past and present) for an amazing run that has spanned decades and thousands of shows. Thank you for providing me with countless laughs and enjoyment.

Ok, so maybe it’s still summer right now and it’s been hot for the last few days and it will get even hotter this weekend but I’d like to remind everyone in the northern hemisphere that the days are now getting shorter. Before we know it, the warm weather will give way to rain and cold for another half a year.

While I understand that July and August are traditionally warmer than May and June, I’ve always enjoyed May and June a tad more because the days are still getting longer for those months. As opposed to things going downhill, we’re still building to something instead. Alas, the longest day of 2021 has already passed us by.

We’re currently in a heat wave here in the greater Vancouver area. According to my thermometer in my bedroom, it was as hot as 28 degrees Celsius in the last 24 hours. I woke up all sweaty this morning. I had to turn on the fan for most of the day. It’s supposed to get even hotter this weekend. I know people are buying air conditioners for the last several days. Maybe one year I’ll break down and get one myself. So far, it’s been bearable for me.

I may buy a new TV this week. That is all.

From my parking spot in my apartment building I can see into the break room for the movie theatre that’s part of the retail complex that I live above. I haven’t seen anyone in that break room since about November of 2020, when the province ordered all movie theatres closed until further notice.

On Tuesday, I was getting in my car when I noticed the lights were on in the break room and I saw there were movie theatre employees in there. Due to the lifting of certain public health restrictions in the province of British Columbia, people can see movies in a theatre again. This simple thing of seeing employees back in a break room is a sign that we’re heading in the right direction.

I won’t be heading to the movie theatres just yet. I am waiting for my second shot before considering such a thing. Hopefully the wait for that won’t be too long.

Tonight, I held my niece for the second time. The first time, she started crying in less than thirty seconds and I had to hand her back over to my sister. This time, we made it almost a whole minute before she cried. This is progress.

She is six months old today and I got her a talking dog toy. It’s super soft and when you press the dog’s paws, it speaks or sings a tune. I also got her a card but she can’t read yet, so we’ll put it aside for when she can.

I’m seeing my family again this weekend for Father’s Day. Let’s see how long she’ll let me hold her then.

The drywall dude I hired came by today and finished up the job by sanding smooth the wall. It’s now paint ready but I still need to get some quotes for the job. I admittedly have no idea how paint contractors work. If I know which paint I want, do I get the paint for them? Do they buy it for me? If I need a primer coat, can I just let them bring in whatever primer they have handy?

I have so many questions and few answers.