Wearing a fur coat in a heat wave

It's been warm down in SoCal the past couple of days. It was in the upper 90's here in SD county. Now although the house is well insulated and has air-conditioning, we are adverse to turning the AC on for many reasons. So the temps climbed into the low 80's in the house.

In the afternoon, the poor Kitty crawled upstairs and plopped down at my feet and did his best fur rug imitation, and I was reminded of our family cat when I was growing up.

I grew up in San Francisco in the Eureka Valley district (now known as the Castro). (My elementary school was renamed from Douglas to Harvey Milk too, but I digress.)

Our house was built around 1900, and like most houses in the area it had no insulation and no AC. Also, since they were row houses, there was little air circulation around them, and for the most part, the windows had been painted shut for years.

Now it is a largely unknown fact that San Francisco has heat waves. Usually in Sept/Oct and is called 'Indian Summer' there. The temps can go into the low to mid 80's for a couple days to a week at a time. Now down here in SoCal, that is a picture perfect day, but in SF with no insulation and no AC and no air circulation, the houses became ovens. The papers would always maintain a body count on how many 'old ladies' succumbed to the heat. (Its always the 'old ladies'.)

Now the point here is that we had a family cat. This cat was well loved, and with 3 boys in the family, the term 'well loved' could be construed as continuously molested. Most of the time this was OK, the cat loved the attention and the only issues were the fights over whose turn it was to hold/molest the cat. Except during Indian Summer.

During those hot Indian Summers, the cat did not move much. When we boys got home from school and went to grab the cat, my Mom would intervene and forbid us from touching it. 'Just imagine having to wear a fur coat in this heat', she would say, and wouldn't let us near it.

So, anyway, when poor Kitty was doing his rug imitation this week, I flashed back to my Mom yelling at us to, 'Leave the poor cat Alone!'.