When You’re Hot You’re Hot
This morning I went out for bagels like I normally do on Sundays. My routine is to get to the bagel deli a little after 7am, when it opens, to insure that I both beat the crowd and make sure that they have not run out of everything bagels, which have become the family go-to selection. I have refined the ordering process and now get toasted everything bagels for me and Kim and for whomever we have staying with us that weekend and have them put extra cream cheese on it. Kim always complained that they didn’t put enough cream cheese on, so we have gone with the “extra” program. I also get two everything bagels au natural that I drop off for Mike and Melissa. It gives me a chance to catch up with them and I know Mike won’t otherwise have any carbs, which I know his body craves. We go through the same routine when we dine out with them except it is usually with French fries. Neither of them will order them, but they sure do like them. It gives me some sort of perverse pleasure knowing that that the only thing that separates me at 340 pounds and Mike at 160 pounds is not preference and longing, but sheer will power. As you can see, I have no problem denigrating something like will power. You could say I wear that all over myself as a badge of honor for some odd reason.
While I was over chatting with Mike on his patio, looking to the southwest and watching the morning mist form near the coast (it was actually a very clear night with what I noticed at 4am was a lovely orange moon, presumably a sign of a hot day ahead) we talked about what a nice day it is supposed to be. Nice is being defined this year as warm and sunny, which used to be normal weather in San Diego, but which seems more like a pleasant change this year. We seem to have burst into summer right on schedule this year, which is to say that it didn’t really arrive until the summer solstice. Now we seem to have come into it with a vengeance, especially in the other parts of the country. I watched the weather map last night before going to bed and there was a decided red area that starts at the inland valley and spreads eastward with no apparent end. Mike said he told his pal in Texas, which is suffering with 110+ degree heat these days, that we were expecting a warm patch this weekend with temperatures rising to 79 degrees. Obviously he was being sarcastic because I think we can all agree that 79 degrees is a pretty nice mid-ground sort of temperature. Nevertheless, it feels like summer and that means that during the middle of the day, it gets warm and verges on hot. Despite Mike’s messing with his pal in Texas over our moderate version of hot versus Texas, these are still shorts and t-shirt days.
This week we are doing an every-other-day program. Today is Kim’s birthday so we are going on a picnic at a park in Coronado where they are having an outdoor concert. We got the idea last week when we were invited to last week’s concert by friends who live on Coronado and are “on the committee”. It was such a pleasant experience because the evening was cool after the sun went down and it felt very summer-like to sit on lawn chairs on the grass and eat cold chicken cutlet strips. We all anxiously await the summer and its warmth, and then when it comes, we all look forward to the moments of respite in the shade or when the sun goes down. We crave the sun, but prefer the shade. I have already been all over my hillside today giving a tour to the sister of a local friend, Faraj, who’s visiting from Poughkeepsie. Between now and when we go on our picnic, I will try to get the girls to mobilize to finish the Fairy Village we started yesterday on the boulder next to the garage. It’s time to renovate and even Fairy Villages need sprucing up every few years. I want to get to that this morning, before the sun gets too high and it gets too hot. I may just leave it until tomorrow morning which is our “day off” from all our fun activities. Tuesday is Independence Day and we are having a Barbecue for family and neighbors in honor of our grandkids being here.
What started as my daughter asking what we planned for July 4th turned into a Barbecue for everyone we know around here. I think we are up to 30 people of which a dozen are neighbors and the rest are family. Kim and I decided to go the “easy” route and we ordered Barbecue from a local place, bought some potato salad and Kim is making baked beans, so it should be relatively easy. It’s all sort of casual, but I think the big issue is likely to be the heat and therefore the ice. I will go out and buy ice, but who knows how long that will last. My guess is that I will not be the only guy looking for ice on the 4th.
Summer cooling is all about a pool. I owned a pool in several of my homes including the Ithaca house I just gave up last summer. My granddaughters love to swim and got very good use out of the pool there for any years. With this house I never really considered installing a pool. One would think one would get use out of a pool in Southern California, but I know that Kim is not pool inclined, and while I generally am more so, I figured that my interest in the water and getting cool when its hot or warm when its cool would be better served by a good hot tub, so that is where I put my construction efforts. I remember the pool/spa guy telling me that I could cantilever a pool over the back hillside at a most cost of $150,000, and that was a decade ago. That would be $200,000 in today’s dollars and I doubt that I would ever get enough value either in use or resale for that money. So, I went with a spectacular large hot tub embedded amongst the boulders that cost as much as I used to think a pool should cost and have been happy for that ever since. I use the spa a couple times a week every week of the year and I only miss having a pool when my granddaughters come. I now have two neighbors with pools and I have feathered that bed properly over time and both are happy to let us come over to use the pool, which is what we did this afternoon. We spent about an hour and half splashing around and doing what kids do in a pool. Its always a pleasant diversion for a hot afternoon.
It is supposed to be hot all week here. That means around here it will be in the low 80s during the day and low 50s at night. All-in-all that’s pretty pleasant weather most of the day. But that won’t matter past Wednesday since we will be in Las Vegas on Thursday, where it peaked at 112 degrees today. That will be a quick stop to see my sister, Barbara. From there we head to Southern Utah, where it will be a high in the upper 80s for the five days we will be there, but still mid-50s at night, typical high desert summer weather. After that we head to show the girls the Grand Canyon from the North Rim and the South Rim on the same day (the Grand Circle before head back across the Arizona and California deserts stopping in some desiccated ghosts towns as we go. I can’t seem to avoid playing with the fire of summer heat this year. I guess when you’re hot your hot and there’s nothing to be done about it in the era of global warming.