It seemed like something was missing if I was going to call myself a local.
And after seven years here, I think that local designation applies.
I know all the best places to eat and who has the best HVAC cooling during happy hour. There isn’t a cool thing around here that I haven’t tried and I support the local vendors over saving money on the big corporate service providers. So I’m a local. But I still had one merit badge to earn if I truly was going to consider myself a local. And that was getting right with the heat. Since I’ve moved down here, I haven’t really been right with the heat. Instead, I pretty much stay inside the HVAC cooling all summer. I work inside the zone controlled HVAC of my office and then go right home to the central air conditioning of the house. Rarely do I get outside. But the summer here is epic hot and humid. So I’m not alone. Still, I needed to get straight with the heat and save myself some money on the HVAC cooling costs while I was doing it. And so when the temps started to climb this spring, I just let them and didn’t turn on the air conditioning. Instead, I sort of embraced and accepted the heat. And that allowed my body to finally acclimate to this climate a bit more. For sure it made a difference in my HVAC cooling costs as I was able to set the thermostat setting higher. And that was a good thing. But accepting the heat has finally earned me the title of local.