I sit here inside, writing on a day when it's much too nice to be sitting inside doing anything. So I won't be here long. Yes, there are problems and concerns in life, and I don't mean to ignore them for long.

After all, the economy is flailing and much of the citizenry in our country are currently at odds with each other and behaving like an unhappily married couple trapped on a cross-country car ride together. These things are not good.

But I've decided to think about all that another time. That's because right now, it is 72 perfect degrees outside, with partly cloudy skies and a stiff breeze blowing in from the north.

And for the moment, that's all that matters.

I don't know about you, but it's been one of those weeks for me. I should have realized it when, first thing Monday morning, the washing machine caught fire while simultaneously releasing gallons of water all over the laundry room floor. Deep down, I knew that getting back into bed, pulling the covers over my head and waiting a few days to re-emerge might be the wisest thing to do.

But I didn't, and can now say that the washing machine's untimely death was pretty much the high point in an otherwise yucky week for me. That may be because, as horrifying as it was, the washer's demise was also an oddly juxtaposed Theatre of The Elements which I was privileged to be an audience to -- fire, water, the sound of thunder, and a bit of fabric softener thrown in for aromatic value.

But if I'm honest, a large reason for my mood has had more to do with the endless heat, both inside and outside my body, than appliance disasters.

You see, I'm having hot flashes, although the correct term should probably be hot phases, because the word "flash" indicates a far more temporary condition than what I've been experiencing.

A flash is over in an instant, while the word "phase" indicates something a little longer-lasting and more significant. A meteor flashes across the sky, its flare over almost as soon as it's begun. The Sun, on the other hand sputters, scorches and seethes with heat for eons and eons, continually burning yet never completely consuming itself.

Sadly, I am The Sun in the aforementioned scenario.

This hot-flash phase has actually been going on for a few years now. I first noticed it when I took a cruise to Alaska, where after heading up to the latitude of the Arctic Circle, we were all invited to go topside for an afternoon of watching the glaciers calve.

And as I was standing up on the deck with my camera, I couldn't help but notice that everyone else was bundled up in blankets and heavy winter jackets, holding hot coffee or chocolate drinks in their mitten-clad hands. Except me. I was wearing a strapless cotton sundress and a pair of flip-flops and felt perfectly comfortable. I should have known right then that something was going on.

So for years since then, on and off, I've been faced with these semi-regular blinding bursts of heat, emanating from my solar plexus, radiating upward, which will then simmer at a low boil until the next one hits a few minutes, hours or days later. It's difficult, but in the cooler half of the year, it's at least manageable.

Summer, on the other hand, is terrible, unless I can spend the majority of it in a cotton sundress, standing next to a glacier the size of Half Dome (in which case I'm pretty comfy).

So knowing all that, it can surely come as no surprise when the first day of fall finally arrives, and I and other menopausal women like me find ourselves throwing open all the windows and finding chores or errands that will take us outside in the middle of it all. We'll take any excuse to stand in the wind under a cloudy sky, and allow Mother Nature to bring our core temperatures down from the blazing inferno that's immolating us from within.

So on this day of 72-degree temperatures and refreshing breezes, this probable start to fall just feels like too much of a moment to allow it to pass by without celebrating its arrival. Yes, it is much too nice a day to be inside.

And while all around me the country seems to be falling into discord, and next week it may very well be the dryer's turn to explode, for this moment, as long as it's 30 degrees cooler outside than in the space between my rib cage, hey, I'm cool. Literally.

Diane Sayre is a freelance writer living in Hanford. Her column appears weekly in the Sentinel. Readers can write to her at The Hanford Sentinel, P.O. Box 9, Hanford, CA 93232.

(Oct. 5, 2009)