I can't take the heat...

...it's makin' me just a little crazy.


Been thinking a lot today about summertimes past - I'm sure because it's so freakin' hot here (the heat index today is 110!!) - and about how on earth I ever managed to survive. These days, when the temp gets above 85, which it does frequently, I just want to curl up and .. I don't know.. sleep? pass out? skip through a wardrobe to a magical land where it's always winter (but never Christmas)? It doesn't help matters that our air conditioner is about as effective as the proverbial fart in a windstorm. I get done what I can in the morning, and when the back sweat starts to roll (around lunchtime or so - lovely, isn't it?) I plop down on the couch and pray for mercy til at least dinnertime. And cooking? HA. Make yourself a salad already.
It's kind of surprising that I don't handle the heat better. I grew up in Florida, just north of Tampa.. you know, in that hot part of the state too far from the ocean to enjoy the cool breezes. 90 was a balmy spring day. 75 was a cold snap. If the temperature did manage to drop below 60, we were busting out hats and scarves. I vividly remember peeling my thighs off the vinyl seats of the old powder blue station wagon, and not being able to touch the seatbelt for the first 5 or 10 minutes without risking 3rd degree burns. (To the genius that decided that cars should have vinyl seats - bite me. You suck.) 
But I also remember going to Disney World and Busch Gardens in the MIDDLE of summer, and playing football or basketball outside with friends, or riding bikes to my best friend's house.. baseball games, picnics, trips to the park, etc. All done smack in the hottest time of the year. I didn't die. I don't recall particularly feeling that I wanted to. That feeling seems to be something that I have acquired with age. And possibly a reduced heat tolerance. I SWEAR it was not this hot when I first moved here. Beautiful, wonderful, temperate Tennessee has betrayed me. It's gotten ridiculously hot, and there's no ocean to cool off in.


I want to be here right now!!

 We bought the girls (ok, we bought Davey) a little blue plastic swimming pool the other day. It helps. It's no Gulf of Mexico, but it gets the job done. Thursday we're getting a loaner window AC unit to help our poor, geriatric central AC, and things around here should improve. I eat a lot of popsicles. And ice cream. And freeze-pops. And salads. I expect to be 10 pounds lighter by the end of the month. Ah, silver lining!!