Too HOT

It's too hot. Actually, it's too $%&*#*!!! hot. Also dusty. When I was a girl (that's what Granny used to say, when she was talking about when she was a child, or a teenager...OK, let's be clear, I have always literally been a girl, but this euphemism works, so. . . ) When I was a girl, I used to get so fed up with my mother and father when it got hot and they told me it was too hot to do anything. Seriously? A girl thinks "Just go swimming. For 6 hours." That was me, when I was a girl.
Not any more. Nobody takes me swimming for 6 hours.

In my little corner of the world, we are in a heat emergency. The weatherman talks about the "heat index" which should be called the miserable-o-meter. It's all the way to the top now. 100+ on the miserable-o-meter. When there is a thuderstorm or tornado emergency, you get the flashlights out and go hide in the bathroom. And it passes. When it's a 'winter weather warning' you make hot chocolate, and hope for snow; you might make snow ice cream and maybe stay home from school a day or more. You hope. In a heat emergency, you just...keep on sweating. No hope till Thanksgiving. Air conditioning, according to an a/c repairman, will only give you 20 degrees lower than the exterior temp. So, 110 outside, 90 inside. Sweating weather, inside and out. Not so much fun as sleds, mittens and cocoa.BigD works more often away from here than here. Many, many days it's in New York City. ALWAYS cooler than here. OK, this picture is actually in the dead of winter, but still. This hellish week he got on an airplane and went to Cleveland where the people were complaining that the high was 82 degrees. That's maybe our LOW, in the wee hours of the morning, in this little corner of hell-ish heat.BigD wouldn't let me take his picture, because he sweat through his shirt in the time it took him to get out of the car, get his bag from the trunk, and step up on the curb, less than a minute. I hope he has the right shoes. Look carefully, he was wearing a red shirt....with a big sweat stain on it.

Yesterday, even though it's so very hot, I drove from my 'big city' with it's big old 'medical center' and all its fancy hospitals, 221 miles from this populous urban center to a small town in the northern part of the state to GO to the DOCTOR. I do it every other month. Because there is not my-kind-of-doctor in my big urban area. At least not enough per capita. Doctor rant over. I think. It was just too hot to spend the whole day on the highway. But I did. OK, I made ONE OTHER STOP. But only for 15 minutes. It was hot as HADES in there, inside the store. Got that, all you people you work for that company? You know who you are. Hot. Inside. The. Store.

So, I left. Driving home is heading west, which means that the sun was ....making it hotter. Even with air conditioning, which is weak in that car, very hot. I wore my biggest, darkest sunglasses, since it's before Labor Day, they are white. Not much help. PPP wouldn't go. Well, she had to work. In the air conditioned place that she works. OK, so it was 85 degrees in the air conditioning. She looks SO much better in sunglasses than I do.

The miserable-o-meter is actually "dangerously high" around here. According to the TV news, "People are dying." One man was found dead in his yard with jumper cables in his hand. He was trying to run a fan in his house from a car battery using jumper cables. They will call that a 'heat-related death' Seriously? That's more like 'idiot related' death.

I've been worried a little bit about our Young Son (Psych! I don't worry 'a little bit' it's not in my DNA, I am an uber-worrier) who was in 3-a-days, football-speak for some intense football practices all day long.

What is the miserable-o-meter on football practice, in pads, several times a day?

Not so much, when it ends with a SCRIMMAGE...look at that, they are all dressed out and they think they won. A scrimmage - or faux game - on August 1. Seriously?In all fairness, they are all careful about our precious little boys. They have the trainer around - even the scrimmages. Remember that I drove 442 miles round trip to see a doctor today...and they have this guy at school in case someone gets a heat-related cramp. Is that JUSTICE?

Early morning, no heat shimmering in midair. They practice on a cool shady lawn.I had to take my little camera and leave before the big old stinky sweaty boys came out - under a huge threat of excommunication by our Young Son who KNEW I was planning some stalker pics of the 3-a-days. And, he was right, but I bet they probably wouldn't have seen me. I would have been in the SHADE, wearing sunglasses.

However, I do tell every mother to read this thing when her kid makes an appearance, so....

Do these people look hot? Man, they turn out for football, don't they?

There were people carrying around SWEAT TOWELS just to watch football. I don't personally get that worked up about it.
Time out for a picture of the pretty girls in their swimsuits. They aren't even sweating. The miserable-o-meter wasn't even out of storage yet. It was MAY.

Now, I must be officially old because it's just too hot. I needed to run a lot of errands today. I ran one. It is too hot. I hope that works out next week, with teacher in-service stuff. Who wants to go buy school supplies on tax free weekend, when the guy helping you smells bad, and the people behind you in line have big sweat stains on their "Graves Family Reunion" tee-shirts? Or the cashier has a little fan blowing on her from her little cashier stand. Which is blowing the sweat smell RIGHT IN MY FACE.

At least Granny was content to sit around and actually do nothing because it was hot. Doing nothing meant keeping most of the lights off, even in the day, to keep it cool inside, watching Yankee baseball on her black and white TV and eating 'Bridge Mix,' a yummy assortment of chocolate candies, and Granny had plenty of it. Then, maybe go to the 'dime store' and buy a toy or a book or ANYTHING I WANTED....which was Bridge Mix. Then go have a glass of sherry with her sister. For me, that was a real full-on, sugared up, caffeine rich Co-cola in a little glass with ice...and bridge mix. Inside. Doing nothing, but reading and drinking Co-cola. Isn't that what you DO in the summer in the heat?