Hot time summer in the city

I love summer. I love gardening and flip flops and grilling hamburgers and playing frisbee and all the incessant checking to see if I have even the semblance of a tan. I love the sun. I even love days like today, which my weather lady says is going to be a recordbreaking 92 degrees. It's hotter than the summer I got married, which is the hottest one I can remember. Of course, it's all going to disappear by the end of the week, but I spent about five total minutes indoors this weekend, filling up on Vitamin D in preparation for the traditional Fourth of July rain storm.

What I do not love about summer is whatever annoying DNA thingie set on some UH-OH IT'S HOT OUTSIDE! timer that explodes inside Phillip's genetic code, causing him to start no end of futile wars against Mother Nature. Here are a list of ideas Phillip has come up with in the last several days to Keep His Cave House Cool:

1. Cut a window in the bedroom wall, right above the bed.
2. Cut a skylight in the bedroom ceiling, right above our bed, preferably with a drop down crank so that, at 2:30 in the morning, he can relieve his miserable sweltering with just a few twists of the half-asleep wrist.
3. Install actual air conditioning, running us about 478 dump trucks of dollars more than what is currently sitting in our bank account.
4. An elaborate system of open windows and strategically placed fans that, as far as I can tell, only swishes the lukewarm air about in a lovely and swirly fashion, no matter how many arrangements he tries.
5. Opening all the doors and turning on all the lights. Oh wait. That must be a strategy for something else. I do wish he'd let me know why all the lights are on ALL THE TIME.

Since I nix all of the ideas that cost more than the irritation of dealing with the patented not-to-be-messed-with fan system, he ends up spending a lot of time in his first floor office where he can open the front door and the teeny office window and pretend he's sitting in a wind tunnel. Poor poor dear.

Really, though, his battle against The Hot is rather trying. I'm tempted to strap him into my beloved automobile, turn the AC on full blast, and drive around the neighborhood until he falls asleep, the way you do with fussy babies. Then I'd throw him over my shoulders and haul him up the stairs and put him to bed. I may break my back in the process, but then I wouldn't have to listen to the whining about sticking to the sheets, and the latest bullet point in his anti-heat manifesto.

What's worse is when the Men get TOGETHER. And then you have four or five of them standing around your living room with their hands on their hips, frowning at windows and fans and electrical outlets and rubbing their stubbly chins. They are all in deep contemplative thought about one thing- not sleeping comfortably, not sweating while watching television, not eating out every night because it is too hot to use the oven- NO. They all just want to WIN. This is why they work in teams. Cool-ifying one man's house is a victory for all because they're all in this TOGETHER.

(And I speak from experience, having grown up with a man who turned the living room air conditioner on High, pulled the entire house's rolladen shutters down in the middle of the day, turned on the ceiling fans and went to read in his bedroom, the better to ignore his impending fate of death by 87 degrees and his irritating daughter, who liked to point out that we were not BATS, nor we were nocTURNAL and WHY DID WE HAVE TO LIVE IN A CAVE.)

Comments

[Antonia]

hehe!!

You should tell Phillip to be greatful he doesnt live in England...middle of June and the weather looks like February!

Yes, I cycled to the hospital IN THE RAIN this morning and am wearing a long sweater at the moment!

Aah, what I would give for sweltering heat!

:-)

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