The true end of summer is NOT September 22, the day of the autumnal equinox on the calendar. It’s not the first day of school.  And it’s not when the stands at the farmer’s market are filled with apples and robust pumpkins, or when the Korean markets display well-ordered rows of yellow and orange mums.

The true end of summer is the day the landlord puts the steam on in our apartment. It happened last night and took me completely by surprise.

According to the Rent Guidelines Board, NYC building owners must provide all tenants with the following levels of heat (During the heating season, October 1 through May 31):

    * Between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., heat must register at least 68 degrees Fahrenheit when the outside temperature falls below 55 degrees;
    * Between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., heat must register at least 55 degrees Fahrenheit when the outside temperature falls below 40 degrees.

The noises started before 4 a.m. I listened to the weezing and banging of the radiator that is right next to my bed in a state of half-sleep. At first I thought it was something in my dream. I didn’t even acknowledge it at first. And then I did; a reunion with something I’d completely forgotten about. Steam heat.

All summer long, air conditioners and cold showers were more pertinent. How can it be time for the radiator now? Just yesterday I took a cold shower to cool down from a muggy afternoon.

Out of practice, the steam struggled up  through the pipes for the first time in months. It gave off a funny smell. In summer, we store books on the radiator; it becomes yet another surface filled with things. Those things give off a funny smell when heated by the just-starting radiator; it smelled like something was burning.

That’s its way of saying "Hello, I’m here. I’m back to heat your apartment and wake you up in the middle of the night with a clanging that sounds like an avant garde orchestra."

I groan inwardly at the thought of our overheated apartment. I’ve so enjoyed these last few night sleeping with the windows open wide as the first strong breezes of Fall filled the apartment and made sleeping so much easier.

There’s just a tiny window of time between being overheated by oppressive summer humidity and  the day when New York apartment become excruciatingly hot. 

Seems that our landlord is putting the heat on a day before he even has to. It’s only September 30 today. Maybe he’s testing it out, making sure it still works after a long, hot summer. A full dress rehearsal, as it were.

I’m out of practice myself. I barely remember what winter coat I was wearing last year or where my gloves, my hats, my favorite wool scarves (not too itchy, not too warm) are. Do my kids have coats that fit them? Are there any clean, long-sleeved shirts in their drawers?

Could it be that we have to think about all that again. This past summer, the heat just pressed on right until…yesterday. Maybe there will be more warm days and the landlord will have to backtrack a bit, giving us a little more time to allow the cool Autumn breezes to waft from one end of the apartment to the other. Before winter truly begins.