Ithaca: Hot Days and Cold Coffee

Heat wave, ahoy!

I'm in Ithaca now, and when I got home yesterday around 4pm, it was about 93° Fahrenheit (34° C) but officially "feels like 105" (40.5°C). Oh, so that's why it was so unpleasant this afternoon biking around town doing errands!

Seems like maybe I picked the wrong week to decide I need to get serious about jogging again. Possibly.

(But twice now I've jogged to the top of Ithaca's steep Buffalo Street, just to see if I could. I can. Yay!)

Here and there, I've jotted down thoughts about being back here, but it's been so busy that nothing's really coalesced. So just scattered notes, like:

Heh. Those several moments spent trying to find the stove lighter, before realizing, Oh! This stove lights itself.

An apartment door that only locks behind you if you lock it! Why hasn't Germany caught on to this? (The joke in Germany – where you pull the door shut and it locks, but then you have to use your key to turn the deadbolt, so it's properly locked and harder to break into – is that if you just pull the door shut behind you, you'll be locked out, but thieves will still be able to get in easily.)

Every time I come to the US, I either forget to take ID to bars, or forget that open containers aren't allowed outside. Or both.

High 80s and 90s heat every day, yikes! (How come my building in Berlin is thick-walled, solidly built and cool no matter how hot outside, but upstate New York – which actually needs that kind of construction – doesn't have it?)

Enjoying: Ithaca, friends, lovely neighbors. Wondering: Why have I still not learned that full-time visiting-back-home-seeing-everyone-etc. + full-time long-distance working is not a good recipe for sanity?

Accidentally maximized my July 4th fireworks, since Oberlin's were before the 4th and Ithaca's were after.

Can't take a step around these parts without running into an old friend or aquaintance. Literally! Especially my first day in town: First I did some work from one café, where I saw various folks I knew or recognized, then went around the corner for a bagel and ran straight into an old middle school friend, who I probably hadn't seen in about that long. Reminisced for a bit over bagels.

Weddings count so far: Two down, one to go! (But the one still to go is the one I came here for.)

Oh, and thanks to the weather I've been experimenting with iced coffee – it turns out cold-brewed coffee is really good! – and now with iced Earl Grey tea (normal-brewed, but served chilled, with ice and lemon). Mm. One benefit to this insane heat wave.