HOW HOT IS IT??

November is a unique and wonderful month in Mazatlan. Like March in the Midwest, it comes in like a lion and out like a lamb. Maza-tlecans begin November complaining about the heat and by the end of the month are complaining about the cold. Most Norteamericano residents tend to leave town during the hot / hurricane / pestilence / thundershower / jellyfish / dengue / flood season and return to the blessed clime in November. Want to hear what you missed? You know it’s hot when you knock on a friend’s 3rd floor apartment door and as he steps out from the air conditioned interior into the sweltering hallway, one of the lenses in his eyeglasses cracks like a hot marble in ice water. When the butter liquifies on the walk home from the store it’s probably over 95, but it feels hotter, like a steam broiler. My rugged nordic constitution turns mushy when it’s that hot. All I want to do is sit in a sixty five degree bar drinking thirty three degree beer. Having read all those great Somerset short stories about retired alcoholic

Dutch/British diplomats/sea captains going mad from the heat in the South Pacific, I’ve long known that when middle aged Europeans settle down in the tropics, their brains and other organs can deteriorate rapidly into a simmering pickled state. It’s nice to be alive after the invention of air conditioning. But even if you spend ninety nine percent of your time going from one air conditioner to another, you’ve got to face the heat sometime. I discover sweat glands I never knew I had. My jowls keep my collar soaked. When the exterior temperature rises higher than internal body temperature, the mind and eye start seeing mirages, giant colored amoebas float across the sky, the little winged monkeys come flying out of the palm trees and boy I sure need a cold beer. The heat would drive a sane man crazy. The best part about November is that it is just the beginning of a long beautiful spell of mild, sunny weather that will last until the end of June. We deserve it. eg@pacificpearl.com