Melting Venice

This lady has the right — I mean, only — idea.

It’s true, I have been AWOL.  AWOL is an acronym for “moving slowly and holding still in the shade while trying to breathe.”

We are now experiencing the seventh hideous heatwave of the summer. I realize we are not unique in this, but I can only speak about what I know. Today it’s hotter in Torino than it is in Palermo.

Each wave has swept over us from the Sarahan wastes of northern Africa, and the only thing interesting about them has been the series of nicknames they’ve been given.  I can’t remember them all,  but there was “Ulysses” (not sure why), then “Charon” (that’s cheerful), and we even saw the “Colossus of the Deserts” come and go, leaving space for some appropriately catastrophic Roman emperors: Nero and Caligula. I’m sorry the naming committee changed course before giving a moment of glory to Pertinax or Hostilian, but probably they weren’t gory enough.

This is the beach on Sant’ Erasmo. Come early, stay late, walk right in, watch out for all the underwater anchor ropes. And anchors. You can tell that the people aren’t Venetian because every boat is positioned with its motor toward the beach. Motors generally need to be in the deeper water, especially where tides rise and fall, for reasons which seem clear enough to me. But the trippers from the mainland don’t worry about little things like that.

Moving on, at the moment we’re undergoing the torments of “Lucifer” — another week of temperatures over 100 degrees F. in wide swathes of the old Belpaese. In Venice we have occasionally gotten a bonus of 100 percent humidity. Everything is soggy. This is far beyond poor but honest little afa. Life was good back when a dog-day remained modestly canine, without changing into the Beast of Gevaudan.

On the subject of names, I’m not sure how to surpass the Great Deceiver, but I think we should branch out in finding a big name for the next heatwave — something more international-like. Perhaps “Vlad the Impaler” could work. “Leopold II of Belgium.” “Genghis Khan.”

Crops are devastated by the drought (did I mention the drought?).  Not only is 80 per cent of cultivation destroyed in some areas of Italy, even the mussel crop has died off in the overheated waters of their little habitat. And there is the daily disaster of fires scorching endless acres of woodland.  One hundred and ten fires just today, most of them ignited intentionally. Forget trips to the Alps: they’re melting too.

All this is not an attempt to seek sympathy, though of course I wouldn’t reject it.  It’s just to say I have not forgotten the daily chronicle, but the contents of my cranial cavity have been kept functioning at the most elementary level only by emergency applications of espresso and gelato.

The best thing about this picture? I was in the water when I took it. Heaven.
When you get tired of splashing and yelling, you can supervise the monstrous men who are sorting the mussels they’ve flensed off some nearby pilings.
These women just felt like dancing. I heard no music, but obviously they did.

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1 Comment

  1. I was recently in Laos, where it was 105.8f with 100% humidity… *that* was pretty uncomfortable! It’s not the heat, it’s the sogginess… ugh. You do have my sympathies!

    For the past six months, I’ve been living in Thailand, and it’s been lovely! We’re now in the rainy season, so it’s a bit cooler than it was in the hot season (87.8f now as opposed to 100f+ back in April/May). From October, I’ll be living in Morocco (Souss Valley), where apparently, at the moment, it’s getting to 122f but with low humidity. Should be an experience… although I think it will be a bit cooler by the time I get there!

    I miss my beloved Venexia… OTOH all this living in hot countries means that when I go home for a visit, the heat won’t faze me! Not that I ever go home in the summer… too many tourists! Ha ha!

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