counting down numbers

Changing seasons here is like driving off a cliff.

One day, we need air conditioning to sleep. The next, even fans are a bother.

Well, seasonal changes may not be quite that abrupt. But it is close.

We have two seasons here in tropical Pacific Mexico -- hot and very hot. Very hot runs from about July to October and is accompanied by sporadic rain storms. Hot is the rest of the year, and is usually dry as Las Vegas in August.

I had lived in Mexico for seven years without even thinking of air conditioning. After all, none of my Mexican neighbors had it, why should I need it? There was even a more practical reason. I am most comfortable at 55 degrees, and no air conditioner was going to be able to offer me that.

All of that changed when the entrancing Barco came into my life in 2016. Even though he was born in Barra de Navidad, he was still a golden retriever, and his first summer here was miserable for him.

So, I decided to invest in an air conditioner for our bedroom (to air is human). Barco did not last the year. But the air conditioning is still here. And because it is, I use it in the summer without any regrets.

I try to hold off cranking it up as long as I can as the summer months start heating up. In the winter my overhead fan is sufficient to cool my room. Around mid-June or early July, I need to shut the door and turn the air conditioner to 78. In October, I turn it off for another eight months.

I do not keep records of the summer heat, but this summer seemed particularly hot. That may be because I am getting noticeably older. My exercise walks seemed to generate a lot of sweat this season.

And then it all changed. In late September and early October, a weather system moved through our area with heat-relieving rain. For a couple of days, it was chilly.

In a few days, the heat was back, until hurricane Willa blew through here over a week ago. Nighttime temperatures dropped to the 70s and have stayed there ever since.

So, for the past week, my air conditioner has had a good rest. And so have I. Last night I did not even need the overhead fan to sleep. I guess that puts us officially in the not-quite-so-hot season.

Because it is November, the long-term visitors are starting to return from up north. I talked with two of them at Hawaii yesterday. Residents of Canada, they were complaining about the heat. And I am certain it was relatively hot for them.

For me, it is time to retire the air conditioner remote to its secret nook where I will have trouble remembering where I put it when next summer rolls around.

Such rituals are a reminder that I will never again live the year that just ended. And, like A.E. Housman, I will ponder:

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

By that reckoning, I will not need to look for that remote next year.