Well, it's finally hot in New England. After a drismal spring where I was wearing my winter boots when walking the dogs in the yard most mornings, Mother nature suddenly stopped hitting her snooze alarm, got her lazy pot smokin' ass out of bed, brewed up some hot java, wiped the sleep from her eyes and whacked us with vengance.
It is 32 degrees celsius in my kitchen now, and it is 9 pm.
It was 37 when I got home. So... I'm playing "It could be worse" inside my head.
Why am I telling you the temp in celsius? We have an indoor outdoor thermometer that we picked up for cheap back at a walmart clearance sale ages ago. Last summer, it wigged out and will only read the temp in C now. We have no idea why. It just is what it is. Doug, math wizard extrordinaire, can do the conversion in his head. Me? I just say "Wow, it's only 11 in here this morning, crank up the heat!"
Rather than learn how to do the math in my head, I'm always calling out, "Honey, how much is 17 really?" And he knows what I mean and yells back "Oh, about 62 or 63 ish."
So I got home from work and took the C thermometer out of the fridge, where we've been monitoring the internal temps of Jerome since he arrived here. And I set it on the counter and watched the temp jet from 1.9 straight up the charts with a bullet. I laughed and begged for it to stop.
It was damn hot in here -- I took the dogs out, Geoff and I sat outside for a long time, but in all honesty it was the same inside as outside. At least inside I could aim a fan at my body. Geoff got a good bath, and is passed out on the couch for the second night in a row.
Last night we went up to C's cabin in New Hampshire. I've spoken often of C here... she and I have known each other since the summer of 1986 when she came to college and we drove around like crazy fools in my car looking for refuge from the heat.
She and her sister bought her parents' cabin from her aunt (long long story) and so she now owns a huge part of her childhood, complete with tape on the walls measuring all the heights of the kids as they came up summer after summer.
In the nearly 17 years I've known C, I've never been to the cabin. Both of us had a hard time just pondering that. Why hadn't I ever been there?
A lot of reasons... Long story short, she ended up dating my boyfriend from college and I was all bitter and angry at both of them for a very long time. I got over it, they got married, Doug and I got married -- and I'd say for the past 8 years or so I've counted her on my very short list of people I would trust with my life.
She came and sat by my side most nights that I was in hospital trying not to have Geoff. Very few people did that.
She took Jessica with her one day when I had post-delivery complications. I still can see her standing there holding Jessica's hands and her big box of crayons as they wheeled me on gurney down a hall to get my complications uncomplicated. She held Jessie's hand, and looked terrified... but they had a lovely lovely day.
Now C is divorced and has a new guy and a nice life and a great job and a cool cabin.
And I have CABIN ENVY.
She knew we'd get there before her, and warned me that the place was being worked on, that it was rough.
I walked in and fell in love. All the dark woodwork, the screened in porches, the functional kitchen, the gorgeous new bathroom fixtures. The amazing cozy feel of the place. Geoff and I started throwing open windows and turning on ceiling fans. She showed up and we went to the pool/pond and Geoff swam for an hour. We had dinner. We took a long relaxing walk. She told me the history of just about every cabin there at the camp... what families were lifers, who had the craziest parties back in the day (who has them now), and I didn't want to go home, but had to.
The dogs were here solo.
I want a cabin. I talked to Doug last night, and told him of my cabin envy.
Someday. Perhaps we'll have a cabin like this somewhere. Where it's close enough to throw everyone in the back of the car after a hectic work day, and get up there in time to still enjoy the sunlight and swimming. Where getting up a half hour early is the price you pay in order to get to work, just so you can have a really nice night's sleep in the open aired screened in porch.
We shall see.
In the meantime... Doug comes home tomorrow night. We're getting a cap on the truck on Tuesday. Driving to Maine Thursday night. Should be a blast. We need to get there not too painfully late because we'll have tents to pitch. Hopefully it'll be easy to see in the dark!
I'm hot. It's hot in here. I am going to make another heavily limed gin and tonic (light on the gin -- i HATE gin, but I love lime) and I'm taking a shower and hitting the hay.
Say-o-nar-rah.
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