The late August cool spell has been a welcome reprieve from Chicago’s oppressively hot, humid summer.
Multiple heat waves dogged us in June, July, and early August, and the heat index — the temperature-humidity combination indicating how hot it actually feels to us — neared 110 degrees some days. It was so hot the record overnight low temperature was broken four times in late June. Canada sent us smoke from wildfires, temporarily making our air quality the worst in the world.
We were advised to stay inside so often it might as well have been winter. As of mid-August, I had not gone to one outdoor concert. Most summers, I enjoy my balcony a lot. This year I’d step out and immediately return to air conditioning.
It wasn’t just the weather that kept me indoors, however. It was also a knee constrained by arthritis. Maybe I should be grateful for their simultaneous occurrence. It might have felt worse to be kept in by my knee in fine weather, or by the heat when I was primed to be out.