Still, this place has it’s unpleasant sides and we all manage, just the same.

Move a little slower in summer, pad properly in winter. Get boots with good grip.

Admittedly, I like my air conditioned places [work, malls, etc] in really hot humid summers. Just need them to be set at a reasonable 22-23 and not to hang in them too much.

I figured out some time ago the way to avoid catching a head cold is to stay at a temperature slightly warmer than comfortable. I hit on this after reading how fevers work. Turn up the thermostat and dress extra warm – this creates the same effect as a fever would, without having to get largely taken over by a virus first.

Another thing that makes a difference is to avoid sudden shocks of cold. That’s my objection to the excessive indoor cooling on a hot July afternoon.

It’s part of my strategy to outlive this latest pandemic panic. It’s related to one of the viruses that cause the common cold. Not the rhinovirus. The other one.

I starting to see people walk around with surgical masks and I feel like I’m in Asia again.

I’m a Mainer, and heat’s the same principle as cold, in reverse. Your body will acclimate to almost anything, you just need to train it. I never heated my bedroom in winter in New England – I just made sure that I had the proper layers (at least three or four) on my body and bed, that I had a snug hat on my head.. Sleeping snug in the bitter cold is simply the best thing ever, no debate nor doubt. It’s all about the science of layering in the North, making sure your water pipes and essential spaces are warm and snug, that when you go out you are properly layered..

It’s all simply science of preparation and acclimation, weather hot or cold is the issue.. Minimize your thermal exposure, only heat or cool what is absolutely necessary, it can all be done on the absolute cheap and fly..

Then a few days later a similarly hot but more humid climate, and a similarly cooled prefab. Soo much worse. The sweat chills just poured out.

I got used in my old place to there being too much heat coming out of old rads in winter and it being around 24-26 C. On bad days 27 or more. SO my limit was 25-6 and I grew to find that comfortable. Wasn’t bothered until 27-8.

In spring when the boiler went off too early, or in September when it was turned on too late, I started to feel chilled at 21. At 19 I felt like it was Scrooge’s freezing mansion. I learned that our city by laws only required landlords to maintain something like 18 in the day time and 16 at night, which struck me as both too low and in the wrong order.

It’s taken me nearly a year to detox to the point where my comfort zone is back down to a more normal 22-3. Still hate chillier.

And where once I hated dampness most, now it’s dryness. This planet blows.

All that just caused me to do the math a few times. Yeah, I could manage at a routine 75 F and a humidity of anywhere from 25 [every place I lived tends to dry the last few years; I currently need a humidifier to stay above 20 % and get to the 30s] to 40%.

Naturally, Ottawa’s valley climate in summer tends to swampy in bad years. Last summer was mild. THe one in 2018 was around or above 30 with very high humidity without much or any break all July and August. Usually we’d get thunderstorms and multi-day breaks. That one was good for two months of the rot.

If they’d set it at, say, 75F… that would be reasonable. But they won’t, and you can’t make them. People are just like that.

Try fiddling with layered clothing every time you go in or out and it’s just a pain, especially with shopping in hand. A cape would be so much easier, but it’s not easy to buy an actual cape. I’ve taken to wearing a poncho to cope. A poncho is at least in the ballpark.