It's Getting Hot In Here. . . And I refuse to take off all my clothes

I know it's summer and I know it's supposed to be hot, but it just seems to get more unbearable each year. Each spring I go into denial and start to revisit the summers of my youth. Those summers when the temperatures were just right, when you could play freeze tag deep into the evenings. One glass of orange Kool-Aid and a little spray with the hose and you were refreshed and ready for another round.

Now that I am older, most of the glamour of summer is gone. It's just hot. We live in a river valley and temperatures will near 100 degrees today. That's bad enough in itself, but add to it the humidity that is trapped by the valley in our little community and it's downright miserable. It's enough to keep us all inside, grass growing uncontrollably, cars needing washing, errands needing to be run.

I don't even think a good spray with the hose would do us much good. That's probably because I wouldn't be caught dead in a bathing suit anywhere, much less my own neighborhood. We are new to the 'hood and I would hate to scare my fair neighbors during our first summer. Plus, I could frighten small children and you know my reputation when it comes to kids. (Read the previous post.)

So, we just hide out in our caves, blinds shut tight to keep the sun out, repeatedly checking the temperature hoping that some sort of phenomenon will wash away this oppressive heat. We don't even venture out to sit on the front porch and see if anyone else is as brave. If you do muster the energy and go out, all you can hear is the buzzing of air conditioner units. In our neighborhood no one has even fired up their grill to avoid heating up the house. I guess we are all eating popsicles and drinking sweet tea.

Cynical has announced that even though our yard is resembling a cow pasture, it will not be mowed. My brave boy isn't going to risk sweating to impress anyone! I cannot argue with him. I need to drop by work, but I can't bear thinking about crossing that hot asphalt parking lot and going inside a suffocating building. (Even though I work for a utility and the office building doesn't actually pay for electricity, we still have our cooling and heating system on a timer, and our windows don't open. That doesn't add up to many of us coming in on the weekends.)

So, alas, I think that we will be hermits until our employment forces us to go outside and drive to work. Then tomorrow we will all gather in the break room to talk about the heat and the forecast for tomorrow. After 5 p.m., we will rush home, turn down the air and start all over again.