A relative who lives way down south told me, "Well, you stay in when it's hot." Hello? I've been looking at the forecasts for family members in near Atlanta, Tampa, and Raleigh...you would have to stay inside from May-September, right? The forecast just says 95, day after day after day.

I've barely been outside this week, and I live in Vermont--it will go away soon. What in the world do you folks do where it's hothothot three or four months (or more) straight? Only go out at night, like bats? Have your groceries brought in? Wear head to toe cooling "vests"?

I'm afraid I would literally be homebound.

We hibernate in the summer. Here, the heat starts in April and ends towards the end of October.

I go out in the early mornings and/or the evenings when it is cooler outside. It is over 100 today and humid. Well, humid for us. LOL It can be brutal. There is minimal shade and people jockey for parking spots in the shade - which can sometimes be a skinny little tree. A car sitting out in the sun can easily reach 125 degrees or more in a matter of minutes so we take that minimal shade. I shower a few times a day just to keep cool.

Kind of the same when it's winter and brutally cold. Just hurry out to a warm vehicle and do whatever you have to do and then you pretty much stay inside. Except of course when you have to plow the driveway and clean the sidewalk.

When it is really hot out it's pretty much the same thing. You hurry out to an air conditioned vehicle and into an air conditioned store or to work where it is air conditioned and then you go home again. Then go out if you have to in the evening when it's cooler. Humidity sucks when it's really high. A dry heat isn't great either as I'd rather have a little humidity. Anyway, that's what I think for what it's worth.

I guess we're just used to it. I mean, it's really, really uncomfortably hot and humid but that's just summer in the south.

I've been inside for days on end when the humidity is high and the temps are 95+. It doesn't really bother me. I'm used to it. Even if I could get out and go I don't have the extra money to do so.......so I guess it all works out in the end.

I read, play computer games, visit NT, take care of the birds and cats, do housework, etc. I guess the nice part of it is that I can do everything at my own pace........s-l-o-w-l-y.

My friends say they go from their AC homes, to the AC car to the AC mall or MD office, and to the AC pharmacy and back to the AC home. God forbid if the AC gives out in any of those places. I said I felt sorry for them, because they so rarely get to fling open a window and breathe in fresh mountain air. No soft breeze fluttering the curtains.

I would just melt into a big ol dejibo puddle.

My question always is, how do you do the transit from one A/C to another? 20 feet in the heat is sometimes impossible.

That's just what I was thinking about, Bill. For one thing, I don't "hurry" anywhere, anytime. And 20-30 feet is a long way, especially when you've about reached your saturation point.

I've bundled up and tromped over to the Post Office when it was 30 below zero. Almost no matter how cold it is, I can pile on enough wool and down and polartec to keep warm. There is, however, a limit to how much you can peel OFF in polite company.

Southwestern Ohio is sorta south, but yes we do have the occasional pleasant springlike day to give us a little relief. I simply couldn't live comfortably in the deep south.

But, Kelly is right, your body does get used to the longer periods of heat and humidity, if you're out in it longer, I guess?

You mean like, if it doesn't kill you it'll cure you?

I was referring to being used to having to stay inside for extended periods of time. I have never gotten used to the unbearable heat. In my younger days I could tolerate it better than I can now that I have MS.

Is it just me or does it seem like it's getting hotter with each passing year? I can remember my mother opening all the windows in the middle of the summer and I do not remember the sweltering heat like we have now.