Umm – are we experiencing the Cat Days of Summer?

A round trip to Council Point Park, plus one loop on the shady side, was all I could muster on this muggy Monday morning, with temps at nearly 80 degrees and humidity to match. Ugh! I didn’t even get to the cross street before I felt like my clothes were sticking to me, but I hung in there anyway, wanting the steps and happy it was not raining so that I could venture out.

The weather folks like to call this mugginess “air you can wear” and, in a radio news story, I heard a New Yorker remark that even though she was sweltering with this heat wave, it was way better than shoveling, so I made that reasoning my mantra as I trudged along on my walk today.

Everyone has heard of those dreaded Dog Days of Summer which are defined as a slew of days with sultry temps that occur in July and August. According to “The Old Farmer’s Almanac” the Dog Days of Summer traditionally begin on July 3rd and end August 11th. Of course you are shaking your head and saying that there are much hotter days in mid-to-late August, but the Dog Days of Summer coincides with the rising of Sirius, a/k/a the Dog Star.

All that astronomical info is heady stuff and maybe too much for my brain to absorb after spending time out in all that heat and humidity, but I think that cats are entitled to have their own days in the Summer too, don’t you? At least until tomorrow when those “Dog Days” will kick in.

I decided cats should claim their fame after watching a pair of felines reacting to the hot day as I walked by them. First, they both came trotting down the driveway as I approached the house. Right away I realized I was dealing with “watch cats” and that was new to me.

Then they stopped in their tracks and stared me down. An old proverb states “curiosity killed the cat” and in this case, these cats didn’t die but sure looked mighty puzzled by me. What gives here with the intense look by each of them?

I whipped out the camera for a photo, deciding I had today’s blog post readymade if the photo came out okay. I got a sleepy-looking grimace from the orange tabby cat who lounged on the hot cement.

Then, after checking me out, this cat, with markings resembling a Holstein cow, disregarded me in favor of a roll in the cool grass. There’s apparently an art to cooling off your furry body on the lawn ... here, have a look:

This heat wave stretches across 2/3rds of the U.S. right now and may be deemed less than “purrfect” weather unless of course you’ve taken off this week for the Independence Day holiday and have access to a pool. Here in Michigan, since the Spring was cold and snowy up to April, the Great Lakes are still too cold for swimming - maybe dipping your toe in, but that’s about it.

I got about 3 1/2 miles walked, then beat a hasty retreat into the house to hydrate and get cooled off from the A/C. Three more days of this heat, then a reprieve thankfully.

You can catch up on my blog posts before I started blogging at Patch in August 2013 by going here: http://lindaschaubblog.net/