When you live in a hot climate, there are a  spectrum of ways to handle the heat.  Each household has various inputs such as family finances, how well the people in the household handle the heat, ability to manage the sun and the breeze, and more that will come to me as I write this, I’m sure.

Paul and I are not martyrs -  we don’t take pride in using the air conditioning less than others or that kind of thing, but I think we do have a baseline usage level that is lower than most.  Partially this is due to our acclimatization to Mazatlán’s weather and partly it is due to our desire to not use more power than we feel is fair.  The government subsidizes electricty during the hot months and it just seems wrong for us to take advantage of their generosity.  We sleep with the air on (29 dehumidify) and a few days a week turn it on for a siesta or in the evening when we watch tv.  That’s it.

Our windows are mostly open, and I manage the curtains and blinds throughout the day depending on where the sun is coming from.  We are lucky in that our house is large, and a large space with high ceilings gives more of a feeling of cool.  And we can almost always find a coolish place to sit to eat or read. Our house has very good orientation for breezes and unless it is dead calm I am usually pretty comfortable.  For example, inside our house for most of the the last week during the day it has been 88 degrees.  And usually the humidity or dew point make it feel a lot warmer than that!   But I have cooked and baked and exercised and done some ironing.

Some people have their house set up so it stays at a constant temperature.  Some cool only certain rooms and stay in those rooms most of the time. No right or wrong, it just is what it is.

But one of the things that I am aware of in the summer is I really think about who I feel good about inviting over…I mean you can’t predict when you invite someone if it will be a super hot day or if there will be a breeze.  And for us, none of our common areas are air conditioned, so if it is hot, what would we do, invite people over to sit on our bed in the air conditioning?  Probably not. So do you invite non-airconditioners only?  How do you sort people out?  It’s too complicated for me, for sure!

My answer to the question is to invite people over in the daytime, where most people are more active and outdoors and all.  If it’s hot, set up a fan and apologize. Or meet people at the beach.  That works pretty well.

Occasionally I will admit that the heat gets to us and we just need to get a break. Then one of us usually suggests that we take a spin in our little “capsule of cool” and go somewhere for a meal or a beer.  A bit of a drive in the cool and a beverage will usually reset our temperature gauge just fine.

I’d be curious how other people handle inviting guests in the hot weather, and also strategies to stay cool.  I know the obvious ones, like gin and tonics and iced tea, though!