Monday Moments: Heat Wave

I think we can all agree that my restraint to date has been legendary. I was determined to make it past June before uttering a word.

But now, I am fit to bursting with it.  It is July, it hasn’t rained in a month and isn’t forecasted to for at least another month, and it is officially time to start the wishing for fall in earnest.

You guys. The HEAT.

At this time of year, you can learn a lot about a person you encounter out of doors. Nicely dressed, subtle makeup, blow-dried hair, and a generally calm demeanour? I submit to you an air conditioning liver, one who prepared for the day in glorious cool and who knows, out in the blistering heat, that all she has to do is go home and she will be cool again. Her car that gets her there may even be air conditioned.

Then there’s me. Inappropriate high-school-era booty shorts, workout top for maximum sweat wicking, makeup long since sweated off, hair displaying its worst character traits due to my boycott of heat-emitting blow dryers, and a demeanour that is ANYTHING BUT CALM IF YOU TELL ME YOU ARE LOVING THIS SO HELP ME I CANNOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR MY ACTIONS.

To be fair, I am coping much better than last year, when I was pregnant with 9 lbs of active baby and swollen like a diaper in a wading pool. And I am ever thankful for our basement, which manages to stay totally acceptable in temperature, but my productivity around the house has been cut in half, at least. I spend a lot of time lying under the ceiling fan harassing this little face whenever it gets close enough.

I just want the rain to show up in the long-term forecast, just for one day.

Last week, in the midst of the heat which is all I can handle, our hot water tank kicked the bucket. We knew it was coming, but, not being the pre-emptive type, we hadn’t done anything about it.  I went to clean a dish after supper and commented to Carl that we seemed to have no hot water. Zooooom! I’ve never seen him fly down the stairs so fast. I’m very thankful for his past life as a plumber, as he calmly turned things off and attached a hose to drain the tank before any more than the initial puddle escaped.

Naturally, this happened the evening before Canada Day, so everything was closed the  next day and we had to wait an extra day to get things fixed.  Then, when Carl brought the new tank home to install, we stood staring at it’s shiny beastiness, wondering how on earth it would get downstairs to its new home. I’ve had wrist trouble of late and wasn’t confident in my ability to make it downstairs without my wrist giving way and sending all that weight directly onto myself or Carl. No amount of hot water could clean up that squished mess.

Determined to make it happen, Carl called upon our kind neighbour, another Carl, who, at nearly 70, puts our fitness levels to absolute shame. It was downstairs in mere seconds, and, let me tell you, after 3 days of unshowered sweating, the shower I had that evening was one of the best ever.

I promise not to complain all summer about the heat, but I’m glad we had this talk at least this once. Now I’m off to join Theo in enjoying an ice cube popsicle, because we ate all our homemade fudgesicles and are too hot to make more.