{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Climate Battles","description":"On this week's Keepin It Real, It's August in Alabama, which means two things: the air conditioner is running non-stop, and somewhere in a house near you, a married couple is fighting over the thermostat. Cam is losing that fight. ----- It\u2019s the time of year in Alabama where when the temperature tops out at only ninety degrees we feel like it\u2019s a crisp fall day. The mercury is so high so often that ninety degrees feels like a cool breeze. And right now, the weather report online says the \u201cfeels like\u201d temperature is one hundred twelve, a full twenty degrees higher than the actual temperature due to the humidity. And it will go higher. It\u2019s days like this that I wonder why I live here. I beg for clouds and rain. As awful as it is out there, it\u2019s uncomfortable inside, too. Each day I\u2019m on the losing side of a battle over the thermostat. My wife and daughter are wearing sweatshirts. They like it cool, so they drop the temperature to a degree that makes wearing sweatshirts in August comfortable. Me? I complain. \u201cMaybe we can raise the temperature a bit,\u201d I say, \u201cand save some money and take off the sweatshirts. It is August, after all.\u201d There\u2019s no budge. Then my wife assures me I have no idea what she\u2019s going through, and she needs it cold and to go find a sweatshirt. I\u2019ve learned to stay quiet about other\u2019s unverifiable discomforts, only to trust that they\u2019re awful and that they\u2019re real. Life is safer that way. Meanwhile, Alabama Power is rolling around in bathtubs filled with the money we\u2019re paying for the air conditioners to operate non-stop. They struggle all day long to keep up. Which brings me back to the empty nest topic I\u2019ve been focused on lately. In about a week there will be only two of us in this house that has held six of us for twenty years. There\u2019s unused rooms now, and I predict that in a short amount of time my wife and I will have settled in different sections of the house to spend our days. Hers on the frigid side of the house where her air conditioner is set to arctic and mine where I can comfortably work and the air conditioner is set on temperate or normal or sane. We\u2019ll visit in the kitchen when we eat, otherwise we\u2019ll text and call across the house from our preferred climates. Once fall comes, we\u2019ll once again share living quarters as there are both outside and inside temperatures in the fall that we can agree to. And we are both drawn to fires in the fireplace, even if takes leaving doors and windows open to make it cool enough inside to warrant one. This temperature battle has been replayed in houses and amongst couples forever. It probably started in Eden, though my memory of that story is fuzzy. I think Satan led her to the tree of good and evil and showed her the thermostat. She kept it a secret, knowing as soon as Adam found it things would   get bad. And he did. I\u2019m convinced a line cut from Gensis is Adam saying, \u201cWait. So Eden doesn\u2019t have to be this cold?\u201d and Eve snapping back, \u201cDon\u2019t you touch that thing. Go put on a sweatshirt.\u201d I\u2019m Cam Marston, just trying to Keep it Real.  ","author_name":"Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston","author_url":"https:\/\/cammarston.com\/keepin-it-real-with-cam-marston\/","html":"