Sssssssssssssssssssstttttt HOT!

We've been in the middle of a nasty heat spell. Hot, hazy, humid -- that's what we've heard every night on the weather forecast since last Wednesday.

Do you believe in coincidence? Last Wednesday, the first day of the HHH forecast, a guy from the engineering section of the Facilities department showed up at my door with a memo informing me that on the next day, Thursday, the air handlers in our building would be taken off-line for a much-needed upgrade. Sorry for such short notice, we were offered. The memo went on to tell us that, the good news is, they didn't expect it to be down for more than a week. That's reassuring, since the long-range forecast was HOT, HAZY, HUMID through the middle of this week.

The LPGA is in town this week. Every year, the week the LPGA is in town, we have totally farqued up weather. Violent storms, high winds, bizarre temperatures...and this week was to prove to be no different. I think I'm going to write the mayor and ask him to UNinvite the LPGA from our fair city for future years. :snort:

So, let's take a look at this equation:

1 LPGA Tournament
1 Menopausal woman
8 90+ degree HOT, HAZY, HUMID days
0 Air conditioning

Yep, sounds like a formula for disaster, doesn't it?

And, of course, a weather forecast like that is never wrong. And so, I came to work on Thursday with shorts and a sleeveless shirt (my "overalls" shorts). The temperature ONLY got up to 86.3 on that first day. Thankfully, I'm off on Fridays during the summer, so I figured that was 3 days total I didn't have to be there while they were putzing around with the air handlers.

Friday afternoon brought a violent storm, as so often happens during these HOT, HAZY, HUMID days. Pea-sized hail, horrific lightning, deafening thunder and torrential rain. It lasted for about 20 minutes or so, but two houses down had a lightning strike on their tree in the front yard and there were a couple of times I could have sworn that lightning struck the ground (or elsewhere) on the abandoned farm behind our house. Now, I love thunderstorms, but that one even unnerved me!

Saturday and Sunday brought more heat and humidity and we got through the weekend without having a stroke. Did I mention that our air conditioning in the house doesn't work? It's an old freon unit and, of course, you can't use freon anymore. We have A/C in our window in our room, however, so we can sleep. Sunday we had a long, saturating downpour.

Monday morning, I dressed in shorts and a tank top, figuring the office had been HOT, HAZY, and HUMID for 4 days now and it wasn't going to be "as nice" as it was on Thursday. Sure enough, you could just about touch the air when I walked into the office. As I went to set my coffee mug on my desk, I noticed the water. The carpet was squishy behind my desk and I could tell that it was also UNDERNEATH the plastic chair mat. The water covered approximately a 4' x 8' area behind my desk. I called Building Services and then Facilities. I explained to the secretary in Facilities (who offered to call Building Services and have the water extracted from the carpet) that extracting the water was only PART of the problem and that the entry point of the water should be what Facilities should focus on. DUH!

Nobody from Facilities came on Monday -- no big surprise there. The Building Services guy came with his big water extractor and, when he pulled up that mat, the living entity that was the STENCH under the mat rose up out of the carpet and made it's presence known. They used some sort of anti-bacterial, anti-odor spray on the carpet, but that musty smell stuck around all day long. It got up to 89 degrees in my office Monday. Because of the water, I moved out into the front office, where it was a frosty 87 -- MUCH cooler in comparison, yes? :eyeroll: Monday night, another thunderstorm, although not as violent as Friday's. Heavy wind, heavy rain, but no hail and only distant lightning.

Tuesday (yesterday) I came in to work (in shorts and a tank top again). Yep, more water. I called Building Services again, and sent an email to the Director of Facilities (I'm a MAJOR pain in his tookas) explaining the situation and pointing out that water is only a SYMPTOM of a larger problem and reminding him of the hidden destruction water can cause. Not surprisingly, someone showed up a short while later. Of course, being that I'm just a stupid woman, they at first suggested that it was merely the air conditioning leaking. When I pointed out to them that there WAS NO AIR CONDITIONING since last Thursday, they decided to take a look.

They CLAIM that the pipes in the A/C are sweating from the humidity and the condensation has collected in an extremely shallow pan under the vent and it's dripping from there. Yeah. Uh-huh. And that explains why it's only in that one spot, right? Right.

Of course, we had no rain last night, and guess what? NO WATER EITHER! But what do I know, I'm just a dumb broad who THINKS the rain and the water leak might be related. Not like I'm an engineer or anything.

It's supposed to be a bit cooler today, "only" 80-82 degrees. When I walked out of the house this morning, it did feel a bit cooler, but the humidity doesn't seem one iota less oppressive. We'll see.

I haven't done squat at home since this heat wave hit. It's totally unlike me to be so severely affected by the heat but, then again, I've never been through menopause before, either so I suppose that accounts for something. Last night, Joe invited a girl over to watch a DVD with him and I was mortified when he told me. I said "Joe, the house is a wreck!" He went downstairs (into his domain) and picked up. When I went down there this morning to feed the cats, it looked pretty good, for Joe. That's the nice thing about our house -- his domain is the family room downstairs and he has his own bathroom just off the family room. No need to "entertain" anywhere else in the house.

Speaking of Joe, I keep reminding myself when I piss and moan about the heat that this poor kid has worked, on blacktop surfaces, every single day, all day long in this heat and humidity. For however bad I might THINK I have it, I know it's been especially bad for him.

I started a big project yesterday -- a secret one. I've designed a king-sized bed sized blanket to knit that I want to have done for Lisa by Christmas. It's quite an ambitious project and, while I languish around this hot, humid office this summer with very little work, I hope to be able to get a big chunk of it done. It's ambitious because of the design itself. It'll be ten nine-inch wide strips. The two ends will be a solid color -- I've selected a sort of dark colonial blue for the edges. The inside strips will be quilt-style with the dark blue edges top and bottom, but a lighter country blue and a multi-colored blue/white/tan mix. The light blue squares will have pictures or text in them. A house. The word "love." Two hearts. A watering can (gardening is our passion). The two woman "symbol" of lesbianism. Stuff like that. I hope to be able to take pictures and post it's progress as I go. As I said, it's ambitious. As it is, I'm knitting a black and white checked afghan for my oldest daughter for Christmas during the evenings. My days and nights will be full of knitting -- just hope my hands can hold up to this sort of task.

My lawyer informed me on Monday that he had JUST gotten the transcripts from the April deposition so he was going to move forward with the motion for summary judgment.

Lots going on out there in this country, some of it actually frightening. Like the Christian Coalition thinking that homosexuals should be required to wear "warning labels." And the banning of books that even remotely reference homosexuality from certain school districts. Anyone else think of a swastika when they hear this sort of thing?

I watched "The Patriot" yesterday (with Mel Gibson) and found myself achingly sad for the sacrifices those early Americans made for the very freedoms that are now being gradually stripped away from us. The vision those colonists had for this country have somehow all been lost in this "Me, gimmie, mine" society we've evolved into. Or should I say DEvolved into?

Can Democracy stand this test? Or will it become a distant memory?