Just did something I hadn’t had the courage to try since May. Maybe even April.

I took a half-hour walk. Outside. In Abu Dhabi. On purpose.

What passes for fall is arriving … or I’m about to jinx us all and we will be back into 110-plus days by Monday.

This would not be a bad place to live if it weren’t for the massively oppressive summer. Which runs from about April till October.

Technically, then, we’re not really out of it. September 18? We’ve got a month of “summer” to go, really.

But for a week or so it has been only really hot. Not deathly hot.

I came here thinking that “everything over 100 is hot; hardly matters.” I now believe differently. When it’s 105, you can move around for a bit. When it’s 113, 114 … you don’t want to be outside. At all. It’s about fleeing from one air-conditioned oasis to the next.

The high tomorrow is supposed to be 105. Same as it has been the past week or so. So that is almost livable.

At 10 tonight it was 93 Fahrenheit, with a “feels like” mark of 102 degrees.

Thus, it was only humid, not wring-me-out humid. And we have a breath of a breeze moving the air. Instead of the still-as-a-pond soup that passes for atmosphere here.

I had the night off, so I took advantage of being back in the suburbs of Hadbat al Zafranah … and went for a stroll. Around the corner, up to Khalifa University (which actually is a high school), and did four laps on the rubberized track. No running; it’s not that cool. But moving along steadily.

It was nice to be outside and not melting. It’s easy to forget that sort of thing is possible.

At one corner of the walking track, about a dozen Emiratis were sitting in a circle, playing cards. Or some were playing and the rest were watching. Guys maybe 20. They play cards a lot.  No drinking and no dating, and who wants to be cooped up with their parents? So for most of the summer, a card game goes on right there on that grassy spot, deep into the night.

As usual, four or five Emirati women were walking around the track, too. They seem to prefer going clockwise, like an English racehorse course. As opposed to the international track-and-field counter-clockwise direction. So I see them about twice per lap, and wonder how hard it must be inside those full-length birkas with hoods — and, often, only eyes peeking out behind the cloth that covers the face.

I’m in a Santa Barbara T-shirt and shorts, and I’m sweating. How miserable must it be for them?

The neighborhood is fairly lively, till midnight. This is the time to go out, if you are going out. At the other end of the block, the regular pickup soccer game probably was on. Over by the grade school, around the other corner, subcontinenters often get a cricket match going even though the light is really weak.

I came back after a half hour outside. I was semi-soaked, and it’s probably not a good idea to go back inside an air-conditioned room when your shirt is soaked and your hair is wet. So, time to go back, before I’m dripping.

But, yeah, Sept. 18, and I could walk outside. It may not last, but for one night it was kinda sweet.  By November, this could be a regular occurrence.