The Heat is ON

You know it's hot when you break into a sweat just stepping outside to take out the trash. We have slipped into full summer mode here in the Tallahassee. I'm trying to deny that the heat has reared it's ugly head but it has and it's given meaning to the very expression "ugly head". I've been doing morning VBS with the kids this week so when we get back at 12:30 I literally vow not to leave the haven of air conditioning for the rest of the day. I've considered trying to pretend it doesn't exist and become a hermit for the next three months, not even venturing out to the grocery stores...living on whatever I can find in the depths of my pantry and freezer. (Don't think I haven't considered trying this on many occasions...not just when it's hot...trips to the grocery store can get pretty dreadful.) And then I think about how the heat will still win the war because my electric bill will surely show the constant AC use. But then...

My inner cheerleader steps in and chides me for being such a whimp*. Be aggressive! B-E Aggressive! B-E A-G-G-R...well, I can't type all that out, that's just a little too aggressive. Anyway, my inner voice says, "Julie, stop being such a whiner! Think about the Tallahassee Indians! (I don't know exactly what they're called but I'm too hot to look it up) They settled here so that you could one day enjoy living in such a beautiful town! They did not have air conditioning! And they had to kill their food! And plant seeds and weave stuff!" And then I think how fortunate that I didn't live then because I would not want to go around half naked with a baby hanging off my boob. Do you see what the heat does to me? It makes me crazy in the head!

And let me tell you something else. I think another reason it makes me crazy is because it doesn't get dark until like 9:30. When you've been with crazy kids in the heat all day you just want the cover of darkness. Please, can we just get a little Truman Show action around here and have the sun set at the bedtime of the Alley's house? However early that might be? Because I don't need daylight after bedtime. It's not like I'm going anywhere. It's not like I want to anyway since I become a hot mess of mosquito bites if I step out onto the front porch for more than like five seconds. Here I go complaining again. Where's my inner cheerleader now to stop my whining? Oh wait, she must have forgot her water bottle and passed out from heat exhaustion. Funny, her outfit looks very similar to those in my Native American daydreams.

I stand by my spelling of whimp. Spell check wants me to spell it w-i-m-p. But if whimper is spelled with an h, don't you think whimp should be too? If the word ginormous can be put into the dictionary, I can spell whimp however I want.