Life's a bitch and then you FRY...

“July 29, 2009 was one for the record books in Seattle, Washington as the Emerald City (known for its rainy climate) and surrounding areas struggled to deal with history making high temperatures. Seattle and Redmond reached 103, Olympia hit 104, Vancouver got 107, and Bellevue clocked in at a blistering 108 degrees.”...From Examiner.com

After spending the day in lovely air conditioning at work, I went home last night to a house that was 97 degrees. First thing hub said was “You’re taking me out to dinner in an air conditioned restaurant.” So I gave Buster a shower, left him wet, and put him in the bathroom with the fan on to keep him cool while we were gone. Hub wanted to stay away from anything salty (he tends to swell up in the heat), so a salad sounded good. By the time we got around to going, it was 8:30 p.m. We headed to Top Foods to the salad bar…too late, salad bar was closed. How about Stewart Anderson’s? Ooops, closed...permanently!! (Hmm, we didn't know that) How about Red Robin? Sorry, everyone had the same idea, even though it was late, there was not a seat to be had in the whole place and an hour wait. Applebee’s? Same thing…no room at the inn.

We ended up going to our local Chinese restaurant. We drank beer and ate salty food. So much for good intentions. But I really enjoyed that beer.

When we got home, our house was still 92 degrees inside. It was late, so I was really tired and wanted to go to bed, but it was obviously too hot to sleep inside. I told hub I was going to sleep out on the deck, but he insisted the bedroom would soon cool down enough to sleep (because it had the night before)...just wait a little while. So I fell asleep in a chair out on the deck. I woke up about an hour later, with a stiff neck, and told hub I really wanted to sleep out there, so let's set up a bed. He told me to wait just a little longer, he was SURE the bedroom would cool off enough, so again I fell uncomfortably asleep in the hard plastic chair. Next thing I knew, I woke up because both hub and B were walking (stomping) around on the deck, and now it was about 1:30 a.m. “It’s too fucking hot to sleep in that bedroom, I think we should sleep out on the deck!” hub proclaimed. Hmmm. Didn’t I say that a few hours ago?

So now came the great flurry of activity to:
*Find the air mattresses (in the attic, about 120 degrees still)
*Blow them up (fortunately we have an air compressor)
*Set them up with sheets and pillows etc on the deck

All this time, B is having a nervous breakdown. I can just imagine his thought process…Why are we up at 1:30 a.m.? Where is mom going...she's crawling up into the ceiling!? What is that weird noise (that the compressor makes)? Why is everyone running in and out of the house? WHY IS IT SO HOT?

Finally about 2 a.m., we all settled down. The outside air had cooled off quite a bit, but I still needed a fan blowing on me…outside! Knowing I had to get up early, I wanted to get right to sleep.

Hub (happy voice)…"Oh, isn’t this romantic? We can watch the sky... maybe we'll see a shooting star!"

Me (cranky voice)..."I’m not watching anything because MY eyes are CLOSED!"

So, today is supposed to only get to 100...Only?

Since when in PNW do we refer to 100 as "ONLY"!?!?

HOLY CRAP!

Sweet B sleeping on the deck this morning

Computer stuff

My internet at work has been crap lately. They did something technical last Thursday to improve something so of course it has totally screwed everything up. Ever since then my access has been awful. (“It’s not a bug, it’s a feature!”) I guess they had multiple issues right after the change, and they’ve been able to fix everyone’s problems except mine.

Sometimes I can only go about 3 clicks before it freezes up, and there is no rhyme or reason to what causes it to freeze. And once it does, I have to log out and log back in, and that takes forever. One of our IT folks has tried multiple things to fix it, but no luck so far. Apparently I’m even the topic of discussion at IT staff meetings.

So that’s been frustrating as hell. I do a lot of research on the internet, and the fact that it has been doing this for a week is maddening. I think I’m going to take my laptop to work tomorrow because it works really well there; I’ll just need to do permit work on my PC and other stuff on my laptop.

It actually got up to 100 degrees today. That's some kind of record for around here. It’s been SO hot in our house the last few nights, I didn’t even go inside until it was time to go to bed. We’ve had dinner on the deck both nights, something light each night (green salads and small steak last night, stuffed beefsteak tomatoes tonight…) It’s been kind of nice to not be inside watching TV as usual or on the computer...to be honest it’s even been too hot to use my heat-producing laptop outside. Instead I’ve spent some time reading a book I’ve been trying to finish what seems like forever… Atlas Shrugged. It’s quite a good book, but you really have to be in the right mood to read it for very long. I still have about 250 pages left, maybe I'll finish it before the heat wave ends!

I decided to make a quick post but this is all I’m doing computer wise tonight. Forgive me for not keeping up with everyone’s posts or commenting. If the weather cools down I hope to be back to normal soon.

B saw this bunny from the deck and barked to let me know it was there

He couldn't figure out what I was doing
while I was taking the picture with my blackberry

so I snapped one of him too. Look at this cute face!

Monday catch up

I’m getting used to my aligners. They’re not too uncomfortable anymore, and although it’s still a bit of production, I’ve gotten much better at taking them out. My teeth don’t hurt so much when I eat either. They’re still a bit sensitive so I still can’t eat crunchy things like chips…oh no, boo hoo. Like I need to be eating chips…Haha.

Boy, has it been HOT here lately. It was in the upper 80s this weekend, and it’s supposed to get up to 95 today and stay that way at least until Friday when it will get back to the 80s. Ah yes, what big wussies we are here in the Pacific Northwest. For those of you in Southern states, this would probably be considered a cooling trend. The difference is here we get this type of hot weather so seldom that almost nobody has air conditioning in their homes.

Yesterday our house got so hot that we decided to take an afternoon road trip just so we could ride in the air conditioned car. We ended up going south toward Tacoma to do a few little errands. Along the way, we stopped at a drive in called Pick Quick. This is an iconic little place that’s been in business since 1949. I think the whole building is about 400 square feet, if that big, but they have a beautiful outdoor seating area with big shade trees, flower pots, and a dozen picnic tables. Food wise, they have wonderful hamburgers and milk shakes. I don’t know what came over me...maybe I had it in my mind that if I was going to the trouble to take out the aligners, I was going to EAT something BIG. So I had a double bacon cheeseburger and a butterscotch malt. I gave B about half the cheeseburger but I drank the whole malt myself. It was delicious, but way too sweet. Talk about a sugar rush, followed by a severe stomach ache. I guess I just can’t eat that kind of stuff anymore without suffering some consequences. Today I still feel bloated, and until that feeling goes away I’m drinking water and just eating fruit and yogurt.

So, it’s another hot one today. Thank goodness I got to come to work this morning. *smile* Poor hub and especially POOR B…at home in our hot house. At least B can go swimming today… if Daddy will let him. The problem is B wants to swim, then roll in the sand, then come in the house. Anyway, I have no control over what goes on during the day at my house, so I’m just going to enjoy the air conditioning here at work.

Take care, everyone…I hope it’s not too hot where you are.