There are two types of people that live here. There are people who are sun worshippers and complain about the clouds and wish it were just hot! The rest of us shrug our sweatshirt wearing shoulders and wonder what they’re talking about. This weather is great. Usually every summer there’s a little hot weather though. We just had three days of heat.
When it gets hot here. It’s not as hot as other places in the country. But still. When it gets humid here it’s not as humid as other places in the country. But still. When you are used to gliding along in the seventies, nearing one hundred degree temperatures is a shock to the system. I try to trick my house into staying cool. I carefully shut all the windows and curtains first thing in the morning and leave the house cave-like until night when it’s cooler. My house usually wins the game. The other night it was 85 degrees in my house at 10:00 p.m.
The first day of the sultry weather Mark had a Dr. appointment at 4:00 p.m., just when the house temperature was creeping up high enough to make us whiny. So the whole family took him to the Dr. It’s air conditioned there. Adam took his laptop and everyone brought a book to read and away we went. After the Dr. we went to the bookstore. Usually on errands I am impatient and hurry everyone along because I have THINGS TO DO. That day I didn’t. I had no interest whatsoever in hurrying back home. The bookstore is air conditioned. And it’s a bookstore. Let’s stay. After that, I dropped off a library book and we went out to dinner.
Things were cooling down by the time we got home. Not a bad evening altogether.
The next day was really hot. That was the day we approached 100 degrees around here. It was too hot to do any of our regular work. We sat in front of a fan and read and then Emma drew pictures of mermaids and Braeden lay on the floor and watched Matlock while I read to Mark and didn’t even mind that he was pressing his warm little body against mine. He seldom takes time in his running around schedule to let me read to him. It was too hot to run around or ride bikes or clean out the kitchen cupboards, which is the next thing on our list so we just didn’t. We sweated it out in our sweltering house then stopped for a leisurely grocery store visit and went over to Adam’s parents’ house. They have a big shady backyard. It was above 90 degrees in what had been shaded all day. We turned on the sprinklers and were in our swimsuits and ran through the sprinklers. Do you know the last time I ran through the sprinklers? Neither do I but it was marvelous. I felt nice and cool and sat in the shade and read my book while the kids continued to frolic. Our friends the Jorgensens joined us, then Adam came on his way home from work and we cooked hamburgers and the kids intermittently ran in the sprinklers and brought us raspberries from Grandpa Linn’s bushes.
Another nice evening.
Yesterday was starting to cool down and we felt a great deal of hope. We packed up the car and went to a lake in the mountains. It was in the upper 90s there but the lake was frigid. Adam’s parents and some cousins were there too and everyone else swam and Adam’s dad and I sat in the shade on our camp chairs and enjoyed the view. We were both born in the desert and aren’t as enthusiastic about water as the rest of the family. There was a nice breeze off the lake and as soon as the sun went down, so did the temperature. We cooked hot dogs and drank cold lemonade.
Our drive back to Seattle afforded us something we don’t see every day when we’re surrounded by trees…the sunset. I can’t think of words enough to describe it. The sky was red and orange and the mountains were glowing purple and every few minutes it would change into another glorious display and we’d say, “Look at THAT!”
Today is overcast although it’s supposed to be sunny later. Our house is 69 degrees because we slept with the windows open. Our marine air conditioning is working again. And I’m glad. We’re back to the rhythm of our summer days.
It’s not always the heat that throws us off kilter. Last winter there was a big storm and we lost our electricity. When we lose our electricity we lose our heat but we don’t lose our gas fireplace. I was reading The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder to my kids at the time and we felt a certain kinship to them as we huddled around the fireplace all day. There were of course differences. We flipped a switch to turn on our fire and Pa and Laura had to twist hay into sticks to burn. Also when we closed up our rooms to keep the heat more concentrated, there was not frost on the nail heads like there was in Laura and Mary’s room. In very Ingall fashion though we did our schoolwork by the fire. We had our silent reading time by the fire then I read to them by the fire. It was really pretty great. When you don’t have electricity, laundry and vacuuming are right out. You can't check your email and our cordless phone didn't ring. So we read. The house was just starting to get pretty cold when the electricity hummed on and the heater fan started and we were happy down to our cold toes.
For as uncomfortable as we were either time, it wasn’t terrible. A change is as good as a rest and sometimes being a little miserable means having a little vacation. And who doesn’t like that?
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