The Heat (redux)

This post is not for tourist or Chamber of Commerce consumption, but it is the truth.

It is hot as hell here, in fact I'm pretty sure hell is cooler, or at least less humid.  Termites are swarming, and the other half of the double that Big Man and I live in is infested, requiring TONS of noisy reconstruction, carpenters banging and sawing away starting very early in the morning.  Despite the weirdness of it, on our side there's only nasty bothersome flying/swarming termites this and no apparent -- or according to the pest control guy who has a vested interest in finding *something* -- no un-apparent active termites or damage either.  How strange and lucky for us.  But all the construction work on the other half of the house has our cat Smokey and dog Keely all in a dither.

It's so hot out that really, I can't breathe and I can't think.  You sweat just getting your paper or the mail.  Walking the dog?  Fuggedaboutit -- we wait til after dark.  I literally -- I'm not kidding -- sit in the living room with a bag of ice to supplement the air conditioning, because who can afford to lower the thermostat to where you'd really be comfortable? (Big Man and I visited the lovely Latter Library the other day to pile up summer reading, and we were both thrilled at the level of air conditioning there. it reminded me of my childhood summers, when my mother would throw me out of the house, and I would escape to the St. Bernard Parish Library, which was also heavily -- and heavenly! -- air conditioned.)

Both our cars have lost air conditioning (wouldn't you know it?), and the van -- which we hate with a passion -- is too expensive to fix, and while the Mazda *might* be fixable, we're too scared right now to check, since we don't presently have the funds that our wonderful and honest but cash-or-check only mechanic would require to fix.  So I rented a car for us to drive to our denominational General Assembly next week. Believe you me, it has air conditioning.

Other than all this complainin', things are fine.  No tropical storms in the Gulf, the River level is going down, they're closing the spillways, and we've just celebrated the triple festival of Creole tomatoes, seafood, and Cajun/zydeco music in the French Market, and so life is good (if hot).