How Hot IS It?

Heat, ma'am! it was so dreadful here, that I found there was nothing left for it but to take off my flesh and sit in my bones. ~Sydney Smith, Lady Holland's Memoir



Ah, good ol' summertime -- swimming, watermelon, soaring temperatures, broken air conditioners...

"Does it feel hot in here to you?" I asked the girls on Wednesday morning. We had just come in from outside, so I knew it should feel cooler than it did. A quick check of the thermostat revealed the AC set to 79 degrees, but the temp in the house showed 84 degrees. I felt that little niggling at the back of my brain that warned me Jeff would be out of town for the week and something always goes wrong when he's gone for a length of time. (I'm not kidding. Some day I'll blog about all the natural disasters that have befallen us when he's not here.)

Quick check revealed the outdoor unit was not running, the fan not even stirred by the slight breeze. Second check revealed all breakers to be functioning. (I've done this before.) Okay...deep breath, it's probably just some small "something" that I'm not noticing, but everything will be fine, right? WRONG! I won't bore you with the details of the rest of the story, but to say that we have to purchase a new outdoor unit that is horribly expensive, and it won't be installed until Tuesday. Yes, Tuesday, June 30 -- 3 days from now. Lord, help me.

So, my point in calling you all here today is to talk about HEAT and what it does to a person's brain when they are constantly bombarded with it. Let me just start out by saying, that God definitely dropped me into the right time period in history, because I would have survived all of six minutes in a covered wagon rolling across the prairie. Call me a wimp, a whiner, a Southern Belle, but just keep me cool.

Errands and outdoor (pool) activities kept us cool during the day, but the nighttime came with its stuffy, thick stale air. We managed the first night, bringing the girls downstairs and sleeping under fans. By Day Two, I felt like the heat was insidiously crawling into my brain and making me crazy. By 5:00 I was packing my bags and heading for the closest hotel. (See Southern Belle comment from previous paragraph.)

As we returned home to feed animals, water plants, etc. the thermostat downstairs read 89 degrees. Just for kicks (hah) I put a thermometer upstairs last night. That was a mistake. 98.4 degrees! (And that point 4 is important, people!) I seriously thought I would see paint running down the walls. A candle in a glass jar in Rebecca's room was completely melted -- melted, I tell you.

There is a silver lining to this story, and it is this: We are blessed.

1. Many people have offered us cool places to stay.

2. Two families (Davis and Skiles, God Bless You All) gave us window units, by which we are currently surviving.

3. We still have fans and lights.

4. In a previously mentioned post, I complained that we had not been swimming enough. That is no longer the case.

5. We found a wonderful AC guy (Thanks to Melissa, again) and he is putting in the new unit for less than half of what our old AC company quoted us.

6. When Jeff walked in on Friday night and said, "I don't know. It doesn't really seem that hot in here," I didn't kill him on the spot.

Stay cool.