.
.
I don't know if it is just the felt heat (can't tell if I am hot or the temps are up) or if staying up overnight triggered something. I just know that I can't sleep. I had been about to use the CPAP when I realized I don't have the water it needs. I was told to use distilled water, or to boil water for 20 minutes (I think). When I am in town getting my bike looked at I will pick up a bottle for now. Perhaps from then on I will simply boil and replace. I hate not being able to sleep, or even rest. I will try again shortly.
Oh, I realize we have a monsoon season here as well. The notion is still foreign to me. I just can't quite wrap my mind about being in the middle of a desert having weather I had always associated with, what, South Pacific Islands, India, or something? Humidity does go up, rain can come though it is very spotty, no deluges though. Then again, I think the highest I have seen humidity is in the 50% range. Not exactly wet air, like Iowa. Flash floods in the south of the state, and anywhere there are large elevation spikes, of course as well. But those happen almost any time it rains in those areas and off the beaten track.
I happened to take a vocabulary test, to see where I fit in (shamelessly stolen from Ace of Spades HQ). Terrible, I was in the middle of average. At one time I truly had a large vocabulary, of course when I read books. I averaged three books a week for much of my early life, not including comic books if those count. And the bible was a common read. And I didn't read my age-group type books which I generally despised. I generally read the classics, then into politics and history. Over a couple of decades, that is a lot of Twain, Poe, Dickens, and the rest. I really would love to have a kindle like device, both for cheap reading material, quick access, and some other things. I just don't like kindle, the ability to yank books (or even alter them), and some other things about that and other devices. There were about a dozen words I once knew, but since I couldn't recall now what they mean, I had to skip them. Nope, even including the words I used to know, my score is just at the higher end of average. Ah well.
Hmm, back to bed. Maybe if I lay really still, sleep will creep in and plug me in my glass jaw? It was happy to pick on me on my drive home! Bastage!
Distilled water means the container does not crud up with lime deposits. But considering that it will eventually need replacing, I've chosen to just use tap water in mine.
ReplyDeleteThe one thing I watch for is the container getting funky from mold or whatever. If I detect the slightest whiff of moldy staleness, I add a tablespoon of hydrogen peroxide to the water once or twice to sterilize it again. Also I dump any excess out and rinse it fresh every day.
Re monsoons, what makes its way up into Utah is not anything like what passes across New Mexico and Arizona. The farther from the Gulf of Mexico the more wrung-out the air gets. (Actually the defining limit of the Sonoran Desert/Mohave Desert boundary is the presence or absence of a reliable summer rain season. Specifically the Sonoran Desert boundaries on all sides are defined by the vegetation types that require two rainy seasons--winter and summer.)
ReplyDeleteStill it is never like south Asia. The macro-level dynamic is the same--hot dry inland desert creates a regional semi-permanent low pressure area at low altitudes, which draws in moist air from a coastal region, creating conditions for torrential rainstorms. But the scale of said rain on the Indian subcontinent is an order of magnitude greater.
There's been an ongoing debate for years here in Arizona about what to call this phenomenon, since it only bears a passing resemblance to the Indian subcontinent version. Most people still refer to it as the monsoon season.
Well, hmmm. Okies. My 'tap water' is both softened then run through reverse osmosis, which might make it even less of a problem, though changing it every day might make that all almost completely academic. I know they suggest cleaning the tray once a week, too. I thought about asking if she thought I was married or something because of the cleaning, bit my tongue. She had been telling me about recent arguments with her husband, and being the kind older gentleman I am, I had been throwing gasoline on the thing (in a passive manner). She'll figure it out later, never quite knowing why she is freaking on hubby (number one). I do love being a Jedi.
ReplyDeleteOkay, that adds perspective to my notions. I can't say I have ever endured monsoon. I also won't say I haven't. All I am saying is this wasn't adding up. In monsoon season, I expect it to get so muddy that in some soil conditions you can sink to your knee, more in some places water collects, and stinky damn mud, the worst smelling stuff I never trudged through. And you sleep IN your rain gear (and change socks as often as you can, special care is needed), if... on the move. But you never need to go to a shower, just strip. But be smart about what is around you. White people wear clothes in those areas for a reason. Natives? Fie, but they die like flies too... relatively.
Question, when is 100% humidity a redundant term? Yeah, monsoon season. But, hey... South America gets something that is more like a real monsoon season too. I don't know if they call it that, maybe that is just winter in rainforests?