Christ! It's 95° again!

It's hot right now in Buenos Aires. That's nothin' crazy: its summer. What kinda gets me, though, is that it was 95F/35C last night at 3 in the morning!

I'm feeling it because our new digs never had A/C... and we've been trying to find time to decide on what unit we want and how much we want to pay for it. My Missus is also predicting power outages this summer which would leave us feeling like we had a brand-new Lexus in the driveway... and no gas to be had.

For you out-of-towners (at least Midwesterners), 95/35 is not too hard to bear here because the humidity is only about 37%. Back in continental Chicago, Indianapolis, Louisville, Memphis the humidity on a hot day like this would probably be 95%. Add to the equation that my neighborhood is very breezy and we have great cross-ventilation and you've got some very livable thermic sensation.

For you that live here, you've no doubt either fielded a few questions about the weather here and/or weathered the pitying gazes from people that can't imagine why you would want to live in the jungles of South America. Like my Father, it's hard to dissuade them of the notion that Buenos Aires is the Capital of Brazil.

But overnight temps like last night are what global warming is all about. The last couple of decades have shown increases in daytime temps... but the real jump has been in how nighttime just doesn't cool off on Planet Earth the way it used to.

Personally, I think that Baires has better weather than Hawaii.

Update: a new record, 101.1F at 4pm today.

However, for those scatterings of days each summer when the mercury rises, I recommend to you a favorite cure of mine: The Michelada.

Calling the Michelada the "Bloody Mary of Mexico" is a pretty good description... if only for the reason that so many versions exist.

My personal fix is of the truly minimalist style: beer, ice, lime, and salt. I remember the first time I ever heard that recipe... and I thought it was about the most disgusting concoction anyone had ever described to me. Then I tasted it on a hot day in Jalisco. Yum. A true heat-beater.

It's also compared to the Bloody Mary in that it often contains tomato juice and/or hot sauce and/or salsa inglesa.

Another reason for comparing it to the Bloody is that is widely regarded as a hangover cure... something that I found out one day in Mexico City's Colonia Tabacalera as I sidled up to the bar of a fine establishment awaiting the sun's crossing of the yardarm. My selection of the Michelada was strangely received with respectful nods from the barman... no doubt in honor of my imagined excess the night before.

Wiki Michelada

Hey! I just read the wiki article and there apparently is an Argentine connection to the Michelada now! "Recently, San Antonio Spurs Champion Manu Ginobili has a variation of the recipe named for him as the "Manuchelada"