Flapper's Folly

Enough is enough! Yesterday the temperature was 109. Not for just an hour or so, but it hung there until late in the evening. Day after day, it's over 100 and I don't remember the last time it rained. I looked at the forecast this morning and nothing but triple digit temperatures for the next few days.

I dream of being a New Yorker and fleeing to the Hamptons, Nantucket, or Martha's Vineyard for the month of August. You know, I would suddenly have a mop of thick curly blond hair, baby blue eyes, and wear lots of white. I would frolic in the surf with a big yellow Lab. I would look down on my perfectly pedicured and tan toes and find a fine sprinkling of pale sand. Bare wood would shine and gauzy curtains would sway in the breeze. Ahhhhh.

Yeah, there are actually places that shut down for the month of August. But I live in Texas and not only is it hotter than Hades, but school started Monday. My stepson comes in from school with a tomato colored face and I offer up bottles of water trying to rehydrate him. They have to have recess indoors. The strange thing about all of this is that come October (when the temps start to fall and the kids are finally getting in the swing of things) they will have a weeklong break. Why on earth not have that week at the beginning when it's so hot and it costs so much to cool the schools? Last night it was 99 at ten o'clock. I can't even imagine playing football in that. Poor kids.

All the pretty flowers I have worked so hard to have are now either crispy brown or they have stewed when I tried keeping them alive with lots of water. It's true. Try keeping them wet and soon you have limp cooked spinachy stuff. The only thing flourishing is the cross vine planted by my husband's ex. It is native. In other words, it's a weed. Repeated chopping cannot get rid of it. Nice simile for an ex, huh?

I guess I shouldn't complain. My mother was born in August in Oklahoma. I remember my grandmother talking of how awful it was to be pregnant in the heat. No air conditioning. In fact, no electricity. She put wet dish towels over the windows to try and cool whatever breeze came through. Sometimes I have to remind myself of just how good I have it.

But a few weeks in Nantucket would be so nice right now.