"I'm Melting! I'm Melting! What A World! What A World!"

Christ it's hot! As far as I'm concerned, regardless of what the Schrub(our president) says, Global Warming is alive and well and doing a number on Michigan this summer. I cannot remember a year when it has been so hot for so long. When you wake up in the morning and the first thing that you smell is cooking beef and you haven't used the kitchen since the previous night, that's not a good thing. All the animals in the house are responding appropriately, lying spread eagle making themselves as cool as possible. Not the most attractive of poses for my animals, but hey it's really freaking hot.

Our house does not have air conditioning. We have two window units upstairs which were kindly left by the previous owners. They have been a godsend. Without them Em's parents would be hosting 4 refugees, a cat and a wiener shaped dog in their air conditioned home. We turn the window AC units on at night which allows everyone to sleep nicely. Lately we've been having movie nights upstairs as the downstairs is just too hot. Oh we have ceiling fans in almost every room in the house. But with this heat it just turns our home into a convection oven. Blowing all that hot air around and I'm sure cooking us slowly to death.

The aforementioned movie nights are fun. The only problem is that we have to fit all the members of our family on our queen size bed. This gets a little cozy with a never-stop-moving 2 year old and a fidgety 6 year old. I've been kicked in the gonads more than I would like, but at least I'm able to double over in pain in a nice cool room. This is worth it though, we have more room downstairs but for all intensive purposes the downstairs feels like it has a lava flow moving through it. It's a chance for family bonding. As long as I where my cup, all is well.

When all of us get completely stir-crazy we run for any bastion of air conditioned goodness that will have us. The usual places are McD's which is nice and cool and has sundaes and a play land. We've held up there for hours. The kids are occupied and Emily and I get a chance to talk and not to melt. The mall is of course a nice place to hang out when hot and we've also gone to the movies just to escape the heat. Any port in the storm I say. Man a storm would be great - a nice cool down before the muggy swamp heat makes its inevitable return.

We are looking into having central air put in our home. There may be some issue with the age of the house, the ducts not being located in the right place, they are the wrong color, God hates us, whatever. When we bought the house it was not even something we considered. It was just not hot enough long enough to spend the dough. This has changed significantly over the passing years and seems a good investment. Not to mention that anyone living in this area who has noticed the climate change won't even look at a house without central air. So it will help us in the long run when we want to sell the house. The sooner the better - it's been so hot I can't even remember winter. That's saying something as I have been known to complain about that from time to time.

So I hope you are all enjoying the heat. I'm writing this in front of a AC window unit. So I'm pleasant now. My cigarette however will likely no be as pleasant, as I have to go outside. It's kind of like smoking on the surface of Mercury so I'm quick about it. That I get to return to the oasis of coolness that is my upstairs makes it tolerable. That is until tomorrow, when my brood awakens and comes in to be comfortable and to kick me in the nuts. Such is the life I lead.