I moved to the desert on December 26, 2007. Literally. I decided to spend Christmas with my mom and dad that year, then head out for my new life as a disabled person. So when I arrived here, if you know anything about Palm Springs, it was beautiful. Bright, crisp days, endless sunshine. And temperatures in the 70s. Every day.
Six months later I experienced my first summer here and thought ‘my god, what have I done?’ The heat didn’t surprise me; in fact I’d been here in the summer heat before, many times. But there is a big difference between booking a room for the weekend spending most of it by the pool and living 24/7 in what one friend described as a giant walk-in furnace. Disability added a new variable for me to factor into the equation.
Our “season” is generally the first weekend of November through the last weekend of April, a time when the weather is truly beautiful. Patrick Evans, a local weatherman, has the easiest job on the planet in season: “Let’s throw it over to News Channel 3’s Patrick Evans for your KESQ First Alert Weather Forecast – Patrick what have you got for us?” “Well Sam and Karen, it’s going to be sunny and mild; now back to you.” And that’s pretty much every weather segment of every newscast from Gay Pride Weekend in November to The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in April!
Then comes summer.
The snowbirds pack up and leave for places like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Canada. The hotels empty out. Suddenly you don’t need reservations for that hip new Eastern Mediterranean place at the Thompson that serves tabbouleh, a Middle Eastern herb and bulgur salad, and lamb kebabs. Palm Canyon Drive, usually bustling with our slow leisurely version of “traffic” (both car and foot), looks like a ghost town. Many businesses, including some of the best restaurants like John Henry’s, close until Labor Day or shortly thereafter.
And the heat arrives. Here’s a look at today:
Yes, you’re seeing that right. Our day began in the 80s (that was our overnight “low”) and we should be at 111 degrees Fahrenheit by 3 this afternoon. It is forecast to still be over 100 at 9 o’clock tonight. None of this is uncommon for these summer months. I get especially annoyed by locals who complain about this time of year being hot; when they’re done with their whining, I usually respond, “what did you expect when you moved to something called ‘the desert?’ Alpine skiing weather?!”
Over the last nearly two decades I’ve adapted. I guess the word is “acclimated.” There’s the obvious stuff, like get your outdoor work (such as gardening) done before 10 am, drink lots of fluids (a portable, personal water bottle is not an accessory around here, it’s a necessity!), and wear a hat (especially if you’ve got a bald head like mine).
Then there’s the not-so-obvious. As a disabled person, getting into and out of a car is not a simple, straightforward process for me. After years of practice, I’ve developed a way to do it, but it relies heavily on my being able to use the car itself as both a grab rail and a support. Which works fine. In normal weather.
This time of year, the roof of the car, the door frame, the windshield glass, the door window glass, the dashboard, heat up to temperatures I imagine are similar to the surface of a cooking skillet. The problem is I have to not only touch but in some cases hang on to those things to perform my little stand-pivot-plop maneuver that gets me out of my wheelchair and into the car (or vice versa). And I was constantly burning (sometimes quite severely) the palms of my hands and the skin on my forearms.
On hearing that, some of you, thinking yourselves quite clever, will no doubt say, “why not just throw a towel or a cloth over the parts you’re touching?” I tried that, but two problems arose. First, I don’t know in advance everything I’m going to touch; so unless you’re planning on wrapping the whole passenger side of your car in towels, this is a nonstarter. And second, I found the towels would slip and I would fall; I needed to be able to grip.
Necessity (and a gay sensibility) is the mother of invention. A friend of mine said to me, “what you need is elbow gloves like Audrey Hepburn wore in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” Not only was he right, but he came up with a solution: oven mitts!
So this time of year, if you see a guy getting into a car downtown looking like he just took a casserole out that had been baking at 350 for 25 minutes, wave – it’s me!