Ceiling Fans in March

This is the time of the year I scoff at the following statement:

It's a dry heat.

And the following opinion:

Summer only lasts three months.

It was 90 deprees at one point last week. I turned on the AC (that's Phoenix speak for air conditioning, folks). When I lived in Seattle and it was 90 degrees it was June. People were indignant. Yet there was still a nice, salty breeze coming in from the Bay (that's Seattle speak for Elliott Bay, their immediate connection to the Puget Sound). I get misty-eyed just thinking of it.

My goal is to complain less about the heat this summer--so I'm going to do it in the spring. My summer transformation into a pile of aimless goo makes Jamie fear for my sanity and ability to deal with minor amounts of stress. In addition, it offends the memory of his late father who, apparently, used to say, "Don't complain." Short, sweet and to the point advice.

I was thinking of all these things on Saturday around 3pm while driving home from the grocery store with Stella, "It's getting to be the time of the year where I will only leave the house between nap time and sunset if I have to go to a major event scheduled by a nincompoop who has more heat tolerance than I do."

It is true that I rarely emerge from my home between the months of April and October after I've returned from a crack-of-dawn outing to the park or something. I won't be the lady with lots of cats, I'll be the weird lady who doesn't leave her house when it's house. Hey, I already am that lady. One September I put off buying batteries for my alarm clock until November as I didn't want to make a quick stop on the way home from work.

I was justifying all my intolerance with the following logic: "I was born in Wisconsin. I have Nordic ancestry. I have people in my lineage named Knute and Rikka. I was not made for this." I lamented this fact in an email to my Uncle Terry and he shared with me a most touching joke. It made me laugh out loud (my apologies to Uncle T for reprinting his most confidential text here sans permission):

"i know people "adapt" to the heat,but still...reminds me of the old joke about the black guy talking to god about his skin,hair,running ability,ect. which god patiently explains about skills in the jungle ,then the guy asks:"then what am i doing in cleveland?"

There's more where that came from. Trust me. Terry's full of them.