Life As Roast Pig

You know how when you climb into your oven and those visible waves of heat envelope every inch of your skin, and your skin starts to feel and look like hot lava, and then the volume of your body mass starts to shrink as your blood all boils off, and then every last bit of animation leaves your body because, obviously, if you put a pig in an oven it will die? You know what I'm saying? And then what if your wonderful help-meet spritzes a little water in the oven so that you get a little steamed too, to preserve some of your natural juices? Well, I'm wondering if I might be a little more comfortable if I actually basted myself. Maybe then I'd start to look like an often-and-well baked celebrity with that orange skin they prize so highly instead of a pink pig shoved on a spit.

Yep, it's damn hot. This is day five of temperatures over one hundred. We peaked at one hundred and six degrees on Friday. It's supposed to be one hundred again tomorrow. The thermometer hasn't dipped below seventy-seven for this whole time. But Philip and I suspect that's just a rumor our thermometer was spreading as a morale booster. If it ever did, in fact, get that low in the last week then it did so for exactly five minutes. Jesus.

Although I feel pretty miserable, I suppose I must be obligated to feel lucky since it didn't reach four degrees higher like it did for my friends and family in Santa Rosa. I hear it got up to one hundred and ten degrees. I should feel sorry for them, but I don't. Because I don't have the physical energy it would take to muster up that much empathy while I sit here in a pool of my own sweat trying to get used to the permanent sheen my face has developed.

I'd say my attitude about warm weather has improved dramatically over the years as I have come to terms with the fact that homegrown tomatoes don't thrive in the same climate that I do. I like to grow things. The things I like to grow like heat and sunshine. So I have learned to appreciate the merits of these conditions to the point where I actually tolerate temperatures up to eighty five degrees with aplomb. At this moment, however, my improved attitude is on strike. I am grumpy.

To make it more fun, Max is like his mamma was as a youngster and gets bloody noses when the temps soar. I suspect that the preschool is starting to think hard about the likelihood that they have the youngest meth addict ever known. I can tell by the medical reports I receive from them (which include the amount of time it takes them to stop the bleeding) that they find nosebleeds like his alarming.

I have just enough energy left to be happy that my body isn't covered in thick, dense, black fur.