Humditty Day
Terri Reinhart
Long before we moved to New England, Chris introduced me to “Bert and I and other stories from Down East”. Created and told by Yale University students Marshall Dodge and Robert Bryan in the 1950’s, the stories recount the adventures of two Maine fishermen and woodsmen. “Bert and I”, in turn, introduced us to Down East talk including one phrase which has become a favorite. We’ve been in Massachusetts for 6 months now so we know what hot and humid days are like. Fortunately, we haven’t had too many days when walking outside feels like walking into a sauna, but when we do, the enjoyable part of it is being able to say slowly, “the air is laden with humditty”.
I’m not sure anyone besides “Bert and I” say humditty. It just has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? It makes me think of Pooh bear and can’t you just hear Pooh singing about a humditty day? Sounds much better than going on about the high humidity and heat wave and all. Of course, the way they say it in the stories does not sound at all like the cheery little verses Pooh would sing. It’s much more of an Eeyore tone.
It’s hot in Denver, too, though the humidity is down around 19%. Las Vegas is even dryer at 9%. You don’t sweat in Las Vegas. You bake. I thought I was adjusting well to the climate here. It wasn’t affecting me nearly as I’d expected. Hey, I thought, this is easy. No problem. I can dance and sing a little song about our humditty days…
…until two days ago.
On Saturday and Sunday, the temperature was in the mid-90’s and the humditty was high, too. The dew point temperature was high as well. I don’t understand it enough to explain, but I found a decent explanation online. It tells why we can get trapped in the hot sticky humid weather pattern. It might help a little bit to know what’s going on so we know exactly why we’re so miserable.
Cue Eeyore: “The air is laden with humditty. Don’t blame me. Nobody listens to me anyway.” Okay, that’s not a direct quote, but it could have been.
Here is the weather link: https://www.mlive.com/weather/2019/07/too-hot-to-rain-weather-coming-heres-why-that-happens.html
Fortunately, the weather is much nicer today. It’s cloudy, rainy, and cooler. We sat on the front porch and ate lunch. Today is a nice humditty day and I can imagine Pooh bear stepping in puddles as he sings.
“That’s right,” said Eeyore, “Sing. Umty-tiddly, humditty-doo. Here we go gathering Nuts and May. Enjoy yourself.”
“I am,” said Pooh.