The comments about Southerners vs. Northerners kind of bothered me, because
I now live in North Carolina, but I moved here only last year.  I was born
and raised in Seattle.  Air conditioning is almost unheard of in the
Pacific Northwest, because generally it doesn't get hot enough to need it.
Although, in the last decade, I think everyone can agree it's been warmer
than usual.  But the humidity is also very low there.
 
I've also lived in Minnesota (air conditioning there), Texas (definately
air conditioning there), and Las Vegas (110 degrees..dry heat yes, but also
air conditioning yes), and Florida (air conditioning, but also fireplaces??).
 
Now I live in North Carolina, and the heat here is unbelievable.  The
majority of our days since the beginning of May have been in the 90's, and
the humidity is in the 90%+ range as well.  I'm thankful we have air
conditioning, especially as the temperature doesn't generally drop below
seventy at night, and the humidity still stays around 90%.  The few times
we've had power outages the temperature in our upstairs apartment rises
rather quickly to over 85 degrees, and I know that keeping our fuzzy cool
without the air conditioning we reply on, would be very difficult indeed.
 
We also have heat in our house, but I don't recall that we used it much
last winter.
 
It doesn't really matter where you live, some people will have conveniences
that others do not, we should all be thankful for what we have, and try to
compensate for that which we lack.
 
Robynn and Gargoyle ("hey mom could you hang my hammock right under the
vent?")
[Posted in FML issue 2387]