This might shock some of you, but I really don’t like the heat. What’s that? You’re saying you already figured that out due to the 2,000 posts I’ve written about the topic and I should just STFU and not write about it anymore? Fine, I will. Right after this.
My husband recently decided that his new summer coping mechanism is to just stay positive about the heat and not talk about it. I myself have made no such decision. Therefore, this fun, little contretemps has led to the following exchanges:
Me: Hey, look at the forecast in the newspaper! Austin’s hotter than the entire country of Mexico!
Husband: BITCHING ABOUT THE HEAT IS NOT PRODUCTIVE.
Me: I’ve been Googling real estate in Boise, Idaho because their average summer high is 85 degrees. Want to see the houses I picked out? This one has a party deck!
Husband: YOU NEED TO STOP THIS RIGHT NOW.
Me: Oh, no—-the squirrel in the front yard looks like he’s sweating! Should I call 911 before his nuts combust?
Husband: WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?
Me: (sadly) I think my sweaters are mocking me.
Husband: (redacted)
Of course, the good news is that my 7-year-old son Jack had his tonsils out last week, so we’ve all had plenty of time to enjoy each other during his recovery time while trapped inside the house like hot rats. (Interesting side note: The annoying Kona Ice truck that’s circled our block like a frozen menace all summer long has suddenly gone AWOL during our tonsil recovery time. Stupid shaved-ice sadists.)
Last week, I was so desperate to escape the house that I willingly took 9-year-old Sam to see “The Smurfs” at the theater. If you haven’t yet seen this masterpiece, let’s just say that after 109 minutes of Smurf jokes, you’ll walk out feeling like you’re covered in a gallon of blue shit. I half-expected to see Amnesty International waiting in the lobby for me with a Mylar blanket and a psychotherapist. Yeah, go Smurf yourself, filmmakers.
I’ve also been keeping busy by putting together our school’s Summer Slideshow, which means I’ve had to look at pictures of my neighbors’ kids in Hawaii, Colorado and Europe while my kids watch their 10th hour of iCarly and play with empty butter containers. But I guess that’s okay because whose kids are going to impress their teachers by quoting the Boniva and Activia commercials they’ve memorized this summer? That’s right, mine.
The biggest challenge in doing the slide show has always been finding music that’s safe for elementary school kids. (“No songs by Prince” is the best rule of thumb.) Last year I really sweated over this, only to hear my boys singing along to “Crazy Train” in a restaurant a few weeks later. “How do you know this song?” I asked them.
“Oh, the P.E. teacher plays it for us all the time!” they answered. “All of the kids love Ozzy and Ke$ha!”
Personally, I’d be fine with a slide show that had 10 solid minutes of “Copacabana” and maybe a bit of “Weekend in New England” to bring it on home, but I obviously have quite a bit more musical taste than most 2nd graders.
School finally starts on Monday and I’m very, very excited that we’ll all once again be out of the house and contributing members of society. (Well, the kids will be. I gots nowhere to go.) But it looks like it’s maybe? hopefully? time to bid Summer 2011 “adieu” and happily move on to Fall. Or, as I announced last night:
Me: As soon as the temperature dips below 95, I’m getting naked and running down the street like a redneck escaping a meth kitchen explosion.
Husband: BITCHING ABOUT THE HEAT IS NOT PRODUCTIVE.
I think someone might be a little overheated, don’t you?
Now, when you say squirrel nuts….?
I feel for you. I threatened to divorce my wife when she suggested it might be fun to see the Smurf movie.
I think that bitching about the heat IS productive. It lets off steam. 😉
And I refused to go to the Smurfs movie. Absolutely refused. A Smurf stole twenty-bucks from me once and I’ve been bitter ever since.
On Monday, after the kids are all at school, lets meet for cold drinks of an alcoholic nature. Who cares that it will only be 10am.
And my husband sounds a lot like yours.
10am !!!!!!! But it’s 5:00 somewhere !!!!!!!
Wendy I have missed you. I think my kids might have thought I had lost my mind, laughing out loud like I just was. My kids have done nothing but watch Drake and Josh and verminators. I feel your pain.
While I drove my eight-year old granddaughter to my house from the airport in July, I heard her singing some song that contained the words: Brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack.
Now you know her mother, so you could ask her about that…
“I half-expected to see Amnesty International waiting in the lobby for me with a Mylar blanket and a psychotherapist.”
Just….love.
Some of the things here are SO wrong. Like, for e.g., school starting Monday. ‘Scuze me! Monday is just the 21st! how come you get to start living again 10 days before I do?!??
Also, people who expect this so-called “fall” should shutup about their namby-pamby so called “summer”, coz I know I’ll be sweating it until the end of November.
Also I’m still upset because of the high bloody holidays (refer to my complaining at a post from approx. a year ago).
When it’s hot, I quote Good Morning Vietnam monologues by Robin Williams. Which brought me to the natural conclusion you should put that film’s fine music in your slideshow. See, your belly aching helped with my stream of consciousness; it’s a win-win for all!
What’s the matter with your schools? Ours have already started.
Getting Naked and Running Down the Street sounds link a song Jonathan Winters might have sung.
I’m gonna go find out what Smurfs are. I thought it was something you did when you didn’t have a Kleenex or a handkerchief.
Wendi, your hatred of summer is one of my favorite things about you. I feel angry, at times filled with rage about the extreme heat here in Austin. It’s just ridiculous and cruel.
Thanks for hating the heat. There simply is not enough bitching about it as far as I am concerned.
Back to school celebration drinking in my neighborhood starts Tuesday at 8 sharp….in the shade of course.
it’s probably easier for men to say things like “stop bitching about the heat” because when all you do is sit on the sofa and stare at the tv while drinking beer. because that’s about as much as they want to or can do. i’m just sayin……
Posts like this make me feel so much better about me be cranky about the llloooonnnngggg summer days. I feel sad that my oldest is starting Kindergarten,but the other part of me is like, “As much as I love watching you do your 114th dance routine before noon, I think you are ready for school, no?”
Note to self: I will be sure to bring my own Mylar blanket to the inevitable trip to the Smurfs movie and have my therapist on speed dial.
Also, it was so great seeing you at BlogHer! You are one sexy lady in your specs! I really need a new pair, and those looked awesome on you!
Hey, I used to be able to play “Weekend in New England” on the piano. I had the entire Barry Manilow songbook, in fact. So I’m with you on the soundtrack.
So. It gets pretty hot, huh?
“My Hump” by the Blackeyed Peas is probably not a good song for a kid slideshow.
Kids really go to Hawaii and Europe during summer break? No fair.
Moving to Idaho, if only for the summer, sounds awesome.
The Kona ice melted. So much for economic recovery.
My sister-in-law took my daughter to see the Smurf movie. I owe her alcohol until one of us is dead.
We just keep hovering in the 90s, which is totally better than the crap you’re going through, but still totally unacceptable, particularly when paired with humidity that requires me to swim to the mailbox.
Needless to say, I’ve taken to staying inside the house during daytime hours. Yeah, there might be rumors in my ‘hood about me being a vampire, but aren’t vampires sexy now? So really they’re just saying I’m sexy, I’m pretty sure.
You’ll be pleased to know that my boys can sing along with yours to the Boniva and Activa commercials. They can probably act out every episode of iCarly. And (sobbing begins) The Suite Life on Deck.
I also hate heat, which is a problem in a country where it’s summer 9 months of the year (South Africa). Recently moved to the coast though, so big yayyy to (hopefully) cooling mountain breezes and crunchy, sandy ice cream on the beach.
I really enjoy your blog 🙂
Obviously your husband is suffering from heat stroke. Poor thing.
Me: As soon as the temperature dips below 95, I’m getting naked and running down the street like a redneck escaping a meth kitchen explosion.
Oh my god, Wendi: the visual that flashed into my mind with this one..I can’t thank you enough for.
While you’re dying of heat, I’m over here in this town of 10,000 dying of boredom.
This killed me…THANK YOU!
And, I will say that San Diego weather agrees with you: you were so very wonderful.
Just wonderful. Like I wanted to link arms with you and walk around. Like that.
BWAHAHAHAHA!!!! Come to Montana!!! It’s 52 right now and the high today is mid 70’s 🙂
At least your kids will have healthy bones and digestive tracts, plus they’ll know who Sally Field and Jamie Lee Curtis are.
Your school is fancy with the Summer Slideshow. Our school is having an ice cream social today, but I’m guessing it will be Manilow-free. And that’s a shame.
I actually went as far as signing up to get emails from a Portland, OR realtor. According to my husband, that was a waste of my time. To which I said, “Whatever, butt head.” The heat stroke has done wonders for my witty comebacks…
I love the way you juxtaposed your love with your hate. I think if you play some Manilow really really loudly, the sun will run fast and far taking the humidity with it. I know I would. Buck-nekkid.
Bitching is quite productive, thank you very much.
ps. my youngun kid loves beastie boys, AC/DC and darwin-help-me, just discovered Eminem. it’s in his pre-soccer warm up playlist. he’s 11.
“As soon as the temperature dips below 95, I’m getting naked and running down the street like a redneck escaping a meth kitchen explosion.”
HA!!! X-D you’re so funny! lol!
so would this be a bad time to mention the “feel of fall” in the air up here in MT? 85 during the day…upper 40’s at night. Come on up!
I get twitter updates on my local weather hourly. Since I signed up in March they say it is 53 deg, partly cloudy, winds northwesterly. I wonder if they are just retweeting. But it does seem the same everyday.
Bitching about the weather is a national sport in UK. Make yourself a cuppa tea and bitch away. Ta ta.
I will gladly pay the HOA “disturbance” fine just to watch your neighbors’ reactions to you running nekkid down your street!
Oh my dear, just knowing that you were so desperate that you went to see “The Smurfs” tears my heart in two. I send you love and cool breezes.
Marinka is right. New York has the longest summer vacations in the nation. We don’t go back for another three weeks.
I live in Connecticut – so we bitch about the weather year-round. When it’s winter we bitch about the snow and we say “Why do we live here?” and then when its hot and humid we say we can’t stand that either…..It’s definitely not productive.
The other day, I put frozen salmon in the backyard to thaw for dinner. In about 3 hours it was half-way cooked. Cooked, I tell you. I can cook fish on my patio furniture with only the sun for heat.
OOOOOH do I feel for you. Not just on the heat thing, either. Zach had an assignment in 3rd grade to find a rap song to bring in to class for a poetry assignment. After a ridiculous amount of time spent googling “Rap songs without bad words in them” we had 3 songs. From the entire rap music industry. Three. All by Will Smith, natch.
Once the kids are in school, let’s meet in front of the air condition vent somewhere and bitch about the heat together.
Sorry, the heat in Texas is the Democrat’s fault. We told Bush to “burn in hell” and well, Texas is the next best thing.
Just don’t get naked with any Smurfs. They’re very fresh especially Brainy.
It’s currently 109 degrees in Palm Springs, CA, and our full-time neighbor was just telling us this morning what a cool summer it’s been here. “It’s usually in the 110’s or 120’s by now!”
OK. But were you laughing your head off when we had 45 inches of snow on the ground last winter??? HMMM. Just living in CT, and I think it’s 78 degrees out right now. HEH, HEH.
I think quoting Boniva commercials counts as science education, don’t you? Plus they connect with Sally Field, who is really the embodiment of enlightenment–she has played a nun on TV, so that’s like religious education too. I’d say you’re batting 1000. WAY better than those damn traveling families with their huge carbon footprints. Put snippets from “Inconvenient Truth” inthe school slide show, about the environmental cost of air travel and car travel. Just for educational purposes. And your husband? Clearly a stroke–otherwise why does he keep repeating himself?
I simply do not understand people trying to be positive about things – my husband also being one of them. THEY ARE SO ANNOYING AND REALLY BRING OUT THE NEGATIVE IN ME.
That being said, I can’t wait for the running naked post.
Will you paint yourself blue and go as Texas Smurfette?
i would take bitching about the heat over the cold any day. your texan weather is about to have serious revenge over the rest of us poor idiots living in sub-artic locales.
also, next year you should totally summer in maine!
Oh, Wendi. My poor offspring has just moved from northern California (average summer day has been averaging 72F) to Austin. I thought about burning his sweaters to keep warm here, rather than have him pack them and trot them uselessly out to Texas….
I think you just smashed a record (for heat) for great lines in one post.
[…] It’s Been A Cruel, Cruel Summer […]
Hey, at least they aren’t singing anything by Bieber. Poor kids getting exposed to Ke$ha, though, there’s something horribly wrong with that PE teacher. TO COURT!