And The Living Is Easy

Summer has finally arrived in southwestern Ontario, and by that I mean, it's what we expect when we say "summer" around here. Up until now it's been cooler and wetter than usual, and I think we thought we might never get that real heat and humidity at all this year. But the past few days have been sticky and hot, and since I complained bitterly about the cold last winter, I'm happy enough to deal.

Today was 30°C (which is 86°F) with a humidex of 40°C ( which is over 100°F) I love that Canadians give you the humidex, as well as the temperature..."if you thought the actual temperature was wicked, wait until we tell you how hot it really feels!". Like, somehow it being 30° isn't quite incentive enough to forgo decent clothing or basic hygiene, now you can cheerfully disregard common decency altogether! What good is deodorant and modesty with temperatures like these?!? (The opposite is the "wind chill factor" that we get in the winter time, "no matter how cold you thought it was outside? Its even colder than that. Why don't you call in sick to work and crawl under the table with a bottle of gin until the spring comes along?")

Last night Thing 1 and I went running, late enough for the temperature to have dropped enough to make it bearable, or so I thought. We took off at about 8:30 in the evening, and by 8:35, I had had just about enough. It felt like I was running with a warm, wet blanket over my face. You could almost get a hold of the air, it was so thick. Thing 1, always her mother's daughter, was more than willing to take it easy and cut things short.

Toby approves of this weather very much. He's never happier than when the people hang out outside with him, and the air is heavy and his lifestyle is completely appropriate.

He's way too drained to even lift his head off the pillow, poor thing. Occasionally, he will hoik his leg to give his nether regions a seeing-to, but that usually exhausts him, and he has to have another nap for about 6 hours or so. In my next life, I want to come back as a cat.

I know it's summer when the bathroom door won't open, when the glass of iced tea you put down leaves a pond of condensation on the table, and the kids smell of sunscreen when I kiss them. When we have corn for dinner almost every night, when the cat sleeps on the bare concrete of the breezeway, when there are no socks to be matched in the laundry. It's summer when I forgo perfume for bugspray, and I have to drive home quickly from the grocery store so that things don't thaw, making the bed every morning means pulling up the comforter from the foot of the bed. When we have fans on in every room, when my dinner menu is decided by what does NOT need to go in the oven, and I watch almost no television or movies, because it's too nice to be inside.

May it last.