A Virginia Rant.

As much as I might say I hate living in a rinky-dink town (population 11,000), I do love this area's scenic rolling hills, picturesque small towns, and Civil War history. Having grown up in coldish Western New York, I relish the long summer, early spring, and late fall VA allows. I even enjoy playing tennis in the summer's heat and sun.

Then there's the humidity.

My shower curtains quickly get moldy. My bath towels take all day to dry. The bed sheets always feel damp. Walking from my car to the house makes me feel like I've just run five miles. And it doesn't often cool off at night.

Add to this my environmental leanings that rarely allow me to turn on the air conditioning in either car or home. Summer here is GROSS. Well, ok, I have a convertible and prefer to have the top down unless it's *really* hot and sunny, so I can't complain about that. But my house only has two little A/C window units that are not sufficient to efficiently cool the place down. One real problem is that I cannot sleep with a window unit on, so I rarely use the A/C.

This causes a nightly dance of opening different windows and moving fans to circulate air through the house. Unless a thunderstorm passes through in the evening, this can only be done on the hottest days after 9 pm when the temperature finally goes below 85, though by that time the humidity is likely 85% +. The thunderstorms here are fun because they occur often, several times per week as a result of the humidity that builds during the day; are quite violent; and cool the air down quickly. But then you're left with terrible humidity from the evaporation.

See the dilemma that is a summertime Virginia? Needless to say, I have not been getting quality sleep.