I like to take my dog Baloo for long walks around the city.
Each day we like to go somewhere different, sometimes we go to a park, sometimes we’ll go to a cafe and have a drink, or other times we’ll just walk down the main avenues and say hi to strangers and let them pet Baloo.
Last weekend, I took him down to the waterfront to take some pictures. It was a sunny day, and after we walked a couple miles, I had given Baloo all of the water that I packed for our outing. I was dehydrated myself, the heat was unforgiving, and I could tell that he was getting tired, but my car was still many blocks away. I started to get light headed as I walked down the street, and as I passed a restaurant I felt a cool gust of wind blow over me, and I immediately recognized it as air conditioning. I made a hard right turn into the restaurant, and took a seat at the bar. Immediately I felt the air conditioner grace my skin, and as I took deep breaths, I was filled with the sensation of the HVAC system. The air conditioner was so efficient, the ground was cool, and Baloo melted into the cold hard surface in effort to lower his body temperature. If we hadn’t taken that moment to get out of the sun and get indoors under shade and air conditioning, either one of us could have suffered the effects of heat exhaustion or worse.