Kevin's View: Wednesday 6

Kevin's View:

Wishin' and Hopin' and Sweatin' and Eatin'

It's the middle of the day and we're exhausted .  As Kate describes, we began the day with a couple of hours of kayaking, a task that would barely break a sweat at home. Here it has driven me back to the porch, the chaise , and a nap while Kate and Nell are doing the same under an umbrella on the beach. (I really should be down there badgering them about reapplying sunscreen, but I can't lift my head.) 

What is responsible for the difference in our reactions to really minor exertion that we do all summer in Maine  or Massachusetts? The heat.

Growing up in New Hampshire, living in Maine , and never being more than an hour from a coast has conditioned me to the cool end of the climate spectrum.  While I love being here and seeing what this tropical life is like, I can't figure out how people can live like this. Remember, it's winter here...I wonder what in hell it is like during the summer and rainy season?  I'm thinking pure hell..literally.

 

Today it's 100 degrees and the air is thick with hot, sticky moisture.  Breezes don't help....they simply call to mind what it feels like to watch a house fire up close. The result? Every  footstep here is the occasion for more sweating; every staircase one faces 

( remember we're on the side of a steep cliff) precipitates a new round of  panting.  

In this heat, chewing and digesting are the  the only activities that seem remotely plausible to me. 

As kate said, tonight is our last night at the Charm Churee Resort. While we flirt with the notion of betraying our new Thai best friends (the wait staff) and eating at a restaurant down the path a few meters, loyalty (and laziness) will send us back to our own Starlight Restaurant, the scene of all our meals here. I mean, at breakfast the waiter said , "See you tonight" as he cleared our places.  How could we face him in the morning   if we fail to show?

 Besides eating  every night in the hotel restaurant seems very much like the way characters in Merchant-Ivory films vacation and doing so speaks directly to Kate's inner Maggie Smith.  We've  got used to eating outside on the floor in bare feet in the native fashion. Can you imagine Maggie/Kate's withering comment about that? "We'll, if you insist..but I reserve the privilege of retaining my stockings, thank you very much, harrumph."