One Hot Weekend

I'm amazed to find myself at work today my usual plump self, not diminished a single ounce by all the sweating and melting I did over the weekend. I'm sitting in a lovely air conditioned office, finally coming out of my heat induced haze. This is definitely one of the benefits of being a working mom. If I was home right now I'd be sitting in Gabi's wading pool with the hose poring cold water over my head, a fan propped on a lawn chair, praying that none of the neighbors could see me over the fence. And since I hate being wet, being at work is by far preferable.

We spent a good part of the weekend camped in front of fans. We live close enough to the beach to get an ocean breeze, so homes in our area don't often come with air conditioning. But the breeze has disappeared, and the heat and humidity have taken over. We've had gorgeous weather this summer, and I've been telling people lately how lucky we are to have missed the heat wave we were subjected to last year. I have a long history of jinxing things.

A lot of people who have it worse than us are probably laughing. But we’re used to pretty even temperatures that hover in the 70s, and are about to keel over.

Saturday morning I met a group of women from church for an early morning walk on the beach, children safely deposited at one woman's home with a babysitter. We met at 8:00 in the morning, and the sun was already beating down, bright and intense. I had such a great time, though, that I forgot about how hot and bright and salty it was. Until I saw my face in the car mirror. The mental image I left these ladies with was not pretty. I looked like an emoticon- round, lobster red, with animated sweat beads jumping off my head.

I spent the rest of the day moving from fan to fan throughout the house.

Sunday morning we went to church, where I was once again red as a beet and unable to redeem myself from the previous morning (being fairly close to the beach, our church is also without air conditioning). Though one woman did say what a great color my blue shirt was on me. Blue and red do compliment each other quite well!

After church we headed to Cream of the Crop so I could buy more crystal deodorant (which I'm pleased to say works quite well, except when walking on the beach at a brisk pace in 90 degree heat). Then to Costco, where we dallied a good bit as it was nice and cool inside. After checking out, my mom went ahead of me to the car to unload the cart while I stood in line for Polish sausages and chicken bakes to bring home for lunch.

When I was done I couldn't find my car! For a good 5 minutes I wandered around with the sun beating down on me, hot food clutched to my chest, squinting through the heat waves radiating off the pavement. I finally found my car, my mom comfortably inside chatting on the phone with the air on. Let me tell you, climbing into that car was like entering into a bit of heaven. I’ve seriously considered packing up and living out of it for the remainder of the summer.

Back at home, I resumed my spot in front of the fan until the sun went down.

As you might have guessed, there wasn't a whole lot of great, creative parenting going on over the weekend. I even resorted to bribery, which Gabi was quite happy to take advantage of, bringing glass after glass of cold water from our dispenser in exchange for getting to have her binky during the day.

The funny thing is, Gilberto grew up in a lot hotter, wetter climate, so this should be nothing for him. But he was just as much of a wimp as I was this weekend! Though not nearly as whiny. Or red. Luckily for us, the weather forecast is promising relief by the end of the week.