Briefly noted. From my 8/9/23 posting “The states of matter: coconut X”:
I discovered the melting point of coconut X several summers ago. My air-conditioning aims to cool things to 80 F, so when it gets hot outside, inside my condo the spreadable coconut fat ([a semi-solid cream] used for daily treatment of my feet, legs, hands, and arms) melts (at around 77 F) to to a free-flowing liquid that’s very hard to cope with.
So this morning I put the jar in the refrigerator (where it’s probably between 35 and 40 F) — and discovered another state of the substance, a very firm solid that is also almost impossible to deal with; I have to chip away chunks of the stuff with a pointed implement, chunks that alas, do not spread (though I can get small amounts of the liquid state by using the (roughly 97 F) body heat in my hands to melt a chunk).
That was on an early August day, in the dog days of summer. Today is March 20th, the first day of spring — the vernal equinox — here in the northern hemisphere. But also another day of record-breaking heat in the southern SF bay, set to soar once again to over 90F. When I went to oil my legs and feet at 6:30 am, it had already melted to a messy liquid. (I got up at 3:30 am to enjoy the cool and quiet of the night, and did in fact finish a posting then. After which I turned into a reptile stunned by the heat.) Tomorrow the temperature will drop by 20 degrees, and I’ll be able to walk in the neighborhood again. May it be so.
