Tuesday, July 28, 2009

In Which I Spend An Entire Day Doing Almost Exactly Nothing

I do believe I spent more time at the mall today than I ever have before in my entire life. Especially without buying anything.

Now, the mall is not air conditioned. However, all of the major department stores within it are, and they constantly pump their cool air out into the mall and that, combined with them turning down the lights, made it pretty comfortable, though I hate to think of the energy bills those stores are running up. I don't normally really care for the mall, and Connor hates it-- too many noises, too many bright colors, too many people-- but hey, it was better than sitting in front of a box fan for eight hours.

The weather is helping somebody out though, I'm happy to say. It's 9:30 at night and I can hear the ice-cream man outside again; this is perhaps his eighteenth round of the day. He keeps having to go back and pick up more ice cream. Every time I see him drive by he's got a bigger and bigger grin on his face, and he's trailed by a long line of very sticky children. I think the Pied Piper pulled off his coupe by waiting for a day like this one and then playing his pipes exactly like an ice cream truck. Makes perfect sense to me-- I'm just not sure how he prevented the adults from following too. I've never seen so many guys in business suits buying ice cream before in my entire life.

While we're going to stick it out tonight, tomorrow and Thursday we will most likely be in a hotel room, as it's supposed to get to somewhere between 98 and 101 degrees on those days. So if I don't update tomorrow, you know why. I can't be in this room during the day-- I checked the temperature in my office this morning around eleven, and the south-facing window, total lack of air circulation, halogen lights and multiple electronic devices had driven it up to 115 degrees in here. My brain does not work at those temperatures. Basically I just sit there cursing and sweating on the keyboard, which is not very productive. I figure this is why people don't bring lap tops into saunas. Other than the whole steam ruining the electronics thing, I mean.

It's a much cooler 70 degrees in the living room. Call me paranoid, but I've taken the precaution of moving all of Connor's oxygen tanks into there underneath our fan. Not having experimented with his O2 tanks, I have no idea what temperature they have to get to before they explode. We will not be finding out. I definitely won't be storing them in the office.

Well, I will be retiring to the living room now, where I will eat my fourth tangerine popsicle in the last two hours (those Real Fruit ones are tasty!) and then sack out on the futon.

~Jess

5 comments:

leah said...

Ugh- that kind of heat with no air conditioning is brutal! We don't have a/c where we live, but we don't often have heat above 90 degrees, either. Perhaps the hotel will have a nice swimming pool. Or at least a big bathtub that can be used like a swimming pool, lol!

Julia O'C said...

You're making me feel very grateful for the gray, rainy day we're having here.

115-degrees? Indoors? That's not...I have no words. Not that I won't miss your blog, but I really hope you find some fabulous hotel and wait out the heat there.

Colleen said...

If your oxygen tanks are more than 6 feet away from fire your good! Still, it's probably good to take a precaution in the heat. (:
I hope you stay cool.

Renate said...

Yeah - the heat. It got up to 101 deg. here in beautiful Maple Valley yesterday. I hate to think of what it will be today. Renting a hotel room sounds awfully tempting!

Wherever HE Leads We'll Go said...

115 degrees! That is insane! I am not a fan of hot weather AT ALL. I am already wishing for fall because I am all done with summer. Hope you enjoy your time at the hotel. Hanging out in the air conditioning sounds pretty good!

 
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