Bringing Vegas Home

Last weekend I was supposed to be sitting by the pool sipping fruity drinks and oogling cute boys with 5 other really awesome women. ?It was going to be our anti-Blogher. ?Because honestly, who wants to spend a weekend at a convention full of mommybloggers getting elbowed in the face for free shit? ?Not me. ?Our Original 6 group was supposed to convene in Las Vegas for the first time. ?Unfortunately, things (the economy) being as they are that just didn’t happen. ?That sucked and all weekend long I kept saying, “I should be sitting by the pool right now.”

So last night I informed the trusty husband there was no way in hell I was going to turn on any food cooking device inside or out and that we would be going to a restaurant for dinner. ?A nice air conditioned restaurant. ?As we walked up to said restaurant he looked at me and said, “well, you wanted to go to Vegas.” ?He had a point. ?Although the fruity drinks here are iced tea lemonade (that I totally should have spiked with the vodka from the freezer), the pool was a small kiddie pool (since mine didn’t arrive until 8:00 last night) and the only cute boy to oogle was the trusty husband. ?Hey, 1 out of 3 ain’t bad.

Where am I going with this? ?It’s hot here. ?I mean really hot. ?So hot I considered throwing my cats into the kiddie pool just so they would survive. ?So hot that every surface in my house is sticky just because I think it is melting (and not a fine layer of scum because it’s too hot to clean). ?So hot that the thermostat inside my house goes up 1 degree about every 30 minutes. ?It topped out at 90 yesterday. ?It was 99 outside.

Now 99 may not seem like it’s very hot to some of you. ?I know that Texas has had a huge heat wave this summer. ?I lived in Vegas. ?I’ve felt 117 in town. ?I’ve been to the bottom of the Hoover Dam and it was 135. ?That is hot. ?But you see, you feel that amount of heat for little moments. ?From your house to the car or the car to the store. ?Once inside… air conditioning. ?Not so much here in the Northwest. ?Most homes don’t have air conditioning. ?If you do you are very lucky and I hate you just a little bit.

In our house we currently have 5 fans blowing the hot air around. ?We have the fan on the furnace running on recirculate. ?We have both bathroom fans on. ?Both ceiling fans are on. ?It is like we live in a giant wind tunnel.

I had one person suggest that we go out and get a portable one room air conditioner. ?That’s a fantastic idea. ?I had never thought of that. ?I’ll just drive on down to the mega home improvement store and pick me up one of those. ?Oh wait… I’m not the only one who thought of that. ?That’s right so did all of the Pacific Northwest. ?There isn’t an air conditioner, fan, pool or even super soaker to be found in a 500 mile radius. ?Trust me, I know. ?Why do you think I ordered my pool off of Amazon.com. ?Besides, I really don’t want to shell out $300 for something I might use 2 days a year. ?A pool I will use.

Last night I sat right in front of a little oscillating fan and was so much less crabby than the night before. ?My problem is that my body doesn’t sweat, even in extreme heat. ?It will if the sun is shining on me and I’m moving or doing Bikram Yoga (then I sweat and then throw up). ?Otherwise the best it gets for me is sticky. ?I only ever get sticky. ?I also have a thing about sticky. ?If I get something sticky on my hands (ice cream, sucker, pitch, you name it) I have to go and wash it off right away. ?Not the, oh this is irritating type of thing. ?The I’m going to have a panic attack if I don’t get this off right now. ?Now imagine that being your entire body sticky. ?Needless to say heat makes me very very crabby.

The boy and I got into an argument yesterday afternoon about being hot. ?He wanted to come inside because it was hot. ?I told him no, to stay out and play in his pool. ?It was just as hot inside as it was outside. ?He said it was hot outside. ?It was a giant circle of suckitude around here.

I have had offers from people to come over and enjoy their air conditioning. ?I appreciate those offers. ?I might take you up on them tomorrow. ?Today, I am going to enjoy the respite of cool at the church for a few hours and then break in my new pool. ?If that doesn’t work I might be calling.