Heat Wave

Remember Linda Rondstadt’s song Heat Wave?  That song is going through my head this morning.

Not that I want to complain at all but I am just a little surprised that a mere 24 degrees is bringing me to my knees.  I remember the days when I was fine until about 35.

The observation of what we can or cannot endure is interesting as our tolerance seems to alter quite a lot as we get older.  Certainly our bodies change and physically our tolerance goes down, but on the other hand, our minds seem to either become very elastic (or desensitized) or we go the other way and become very rigid.  Sometimes a little of both.

Watching the old “Upstairs, Downstairs” series we saw the episode of the German spy who also had homosexual tendencies and the characters alluded to him as a “pervert”.  In the new series “Downton Abbey” there is also a homosexual episode but it is referred to in politically correct terms, or rather, it is simply taken as a de rigueur part of television without comment.  Audiences today accept so much more than the audiences of WWII when the censor board in Hollywood had a quota on swear words.

So many changes in our lifetime requires great flexibility of mind from simple utility items (a telephone to a cellphone) to new mores (having children without benefit of marriage) to worshipping the sun, to going in a sunbed, to slathering sunscreen and wearing a hat to avoid the sun (golly, that’s almost reverting back to the languorous days of antebellum Georgia).  Trying to keep pace with the politically correct “new thing” certainly can cause the acrobatics of the mind.

We were fanning ourselves as we watched “Contagious” and I wondered again if the population would really be so feral when survival was at stake.  I have a hard time wrapping my mind around Canadians going so primitive but I suppose it could and would happen.  It’s rather disconcerting to think about and makes a person question whether or not she would like to survive such a terrible world.  What do you think?