Lion Days

There are dark, ominous clouds rolling in over the horizon. I know I shouldn't complain; I've seen the pictures from Atlanta. But there is little that I find more oppressive than heavy rain-laden clouds. I have never been one to enjoy 'weather.' Baroy loves rainy days, because he loves sleeping to the sound of rain on the roof. Me, I love nothing more than a blue sky and temps in the 80s. That's why I love Southern California. I didn't come here for the rain.

Em is a SoCal girl to the bottom of her heart; in fact, right now she's in her friend's pool, having the first swim of the season, even though it's maybe 65 degrees out. "They pool's all heated up," she whined when at first I told her I didn't think it was a good idea. "It may be cold outside, but it's warm in there." I trust the mom in question to pull them out when the clouds really start to cover us, so I gave in. Em's yearning for real summer, and so am I.

Just a few minutes ago, N looked out the back windows of the house (out front it's still sun and blue skies; out back it looks like an entirely different world) and exclaimed, "It's a lion day back here! Where it's sunny over there it's a lamb day, but here it's a lion day! That's weird!"

Me, I'm just going to wait these lions out--preferably under a warm comforter--and wait for the lambs to return.

Baroy's OK

It was, he reports, 80 degrees at 4 am, when he left for the race. The instructions given to the runners at their 6 am start time was that the course was at yellow alert (or something like that), and that they were to be aware that the danger of heat illness was high, meaning that nobody should be aiming for a PR (personal record) that day. Not that Baroy could have even considered going for a PR, he said, since within half a mile of the starting line, his shorts were so wet they became like a weight around his hips, slowing him down. (You should SEE the enormous abrasion on the inside of his thigh from the rubbing of those wet shorts as he ran. Well, OK, maybe YOU shouldn't see it. But you know what I mean. It's nasty and intense and painful. My poor running man.)

So, yeah. He finished. He won't let me say how long it took, except to note that he was at least 15 minutes off his usual pace, but considers just having finished to be a triumph, considering. I have to agree. An insane triumph, but a triumph nonetheless.

And now he's set his sights on the next half marathon, some LA thingy in December. With any luck, the temperatures will have settled back down into the 90s by then.

Because when it's this hot, there really is nothing else to talk about

It's 93 degrees. Not so bad, you say? It's 10:30 pm. Just kill me now.

Worse yet, Baroy is running a half marathon in the morning. The good news is that it's the Disneyland Half Marathon, which involves running through the park. Why is that good news? Because the folks in Walt's employ insist that the marathon be completed before the park opens, so that the park's guests aren't inconvenienced by sweaty, gaspy folks collapsing all over the place, and they don't have to worry about keeping people off the race course. (Frankly, I think it's also so that the marathoners have to pony up the same 3 trillion dollars as the rest of the world if they want to hit the rides after they finish running; don't want them to get 'free' admission with their $100-something race-entry fee, right?) The race thus starts at 6 am, which means Baroy should be done well before 8; the hope is that that means the temps won't actually hit 100 while he's running. (Crazy assed runners; NOTHING could get me to move at a speed above a very slow stroll when it's this hot.)

Kinda sad that tomorrow's the last day of summer vacation, since for a week now, the kids haven't been able to play outside at all, unless they're running through a sprinkler. And even then, it's only after a three-hour sunblock application process, and they come back inside within half an hour, since it hurts to breathe the air outside during the day right now, it's so hot.

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As an aside, say happy birthday to my stepdad, H, who turned 80 today. Happy bday H!

116

It's been hellishly hot, and I mean that as literally as is possible. So hot that, when I left Starbucks at 3:30 this afternoon, after putting in about an hour and a half of work while sipping a tall iced decaf Americano with two pumps of vanilla, the display panel in my car registered an outside temperature of 116 degrees. One-one-six. Eighteen degrees higher than a normal human body temperature. No wonder they talk about killer heat waves. How can anything LIVE in heat like this?

To be fair, the car had been sitting in a parking lot without a stitch of shade for miles around. Once I got it moving and air flowed over its sensors and we dipped into the shade of the occasional tree, the temperature dipped as well...all the way down to 106. Much better, right? I guess. At least that's a temperature that would only hospitalize an adult, rather than kill him immediately. (Why yes, I am a glass-is-half-full kinda gal.)

What I'm trying to say is, it's hot. It is summer in the City of Angels, of course, which means that to expect it NOT to be hot would be to display an intense amount of stupidity. T.S. Eliot was not an Angeleno, or he would have known that it is SEPTEMBER that's the cruelest month. Still, this hot is noteworthy. This hot is different from the normal September hot. This hot doesn't go away when the sun goes down.

I'm spoiled. We've lived here in the foothills for five and a half years now, and this is the first time I can think of that, for more than just one or two isolated days, sunset hasn't brought immediate and major temperature relief. I'm typing this out on my back deck at nearly midnight on Friday night, and it's still in the low 80s out here. And this is the coolest of the last four nights. It's crazy. (Crazier still is the fact that we don't have central air, but in our defense...Oh, never mind. It's a long and boring explanation, and really, if I haven't already run you off by talking about the freaking weather, the death knell of almost any conversation at any time, talking about how the architecture of my house and architecture of my bank account make central air well nigh impossible at this time would just be cruel and unusual.)

If you're waiting for a joke, a punchline, something to tie this all together, I'm about to disappoint you. This is all I have for you today. One hundred and sixteen degrees. One hundred and six in the shade. I ought to write a book.