This heat is frying what is left of my brain

Days like today I think back on this passage I read as a little girl.. back then I wasn’t carrying a extra person around with me ( no I am not pregnant I am talking weight wise) and it was hard for me to grasp what really being hot was..

“Laura and Mary were sweltering inside their underwaists and drawers, and petticoat waists and petticoats, and long-sleeved, high- necked dresses with tight waistbands around their middles. The backs of their necks were smothering under their braids.

"I wish I had a drink of well water," said Laura.

"I wish I had an icicle," said Mary.

Then Laura said, "I wish I was an Indian and didn't have to wear clothes."

"Laura!" said Ma. "And on Sunday!"

Laura thought, "Well, I do!"

The wood smell of the house was a hot smell. On all the brown streaks in the boards the juice was dripping down sticky and drying in hard yellow beads. The hot wind never stopped whizzing by and the cattle never stopped mourning, "Moo-oo, moo-oo “

I act like those cows now…

I’ve been mooing ALL day today.. then I catch myself and then wonder why I even bother.. I could have a petticoat on and long sleeves..

Wait I do have long sleeves  but that is by choice.. there is no way I want my fat arms flapping in the wind or when I gesture loudly over how my husband slept in an extra five mins and made me three mins late nag nag nag nag nag…

Usually I am in the car dressed in my town clothes that are long sleeved and the “good ones” meaning there is no holes in the armpits where the house ones are worn thin there.. that is when I see women dressed in their summer attire… that’s when I feel like Laura and think to myself ( and it IS most of the time on Sunday!) oh how I wish I dressed like … as sweat rolls down my back and starts the itch I cant contort to scratch while I am weaving on the road.   

 Then it makes me think how soft I am.. and I am not talking about the smooshy kind of soft.. the weak kind of soft.. I grew up without air conditioning, most of the time we had no running water, but we always made it.. I didn’t melt in the summer time.. yes it was hot.. yes I complained. But I made it.

I think it was the last summer I lived at home and I got the bright idea to try and lose 5 lbs.. so I took cayenne pepper.. put it in capsules and took about 15 a day.. somehow I thought it would burn up the fat..

I think that was the hottest summer..

Not only did I walk around with constant burning in my belly but I sweated like a pig all day.

Not a lb lost.

Kinda reminds me of any diet I try now.. constant whining and burning and not a lb lost..

Back to boiling in the summer.. houses back then were usually made to have air flow so that the heat of the day wouldn’t be as bad.. nowdays we have electric and no need of outside air.. we put up UV windows to keep our floors from fading.. we leave our blinds closed so the neighbors or passerbys won’t see into our living room.. the outside is shut off from our little soft lives.. no more do our kids go outside and play in the dirt.

The selection of video games in walmart is four times the size of the outside toys..

That world outside is for crunchy people..

  And it has dirt.

My husband if no one has figured it out yet is a germ-a-phobe  ( that is a wholenother post in it’s self) he shown Gabriel what hook worms are because well.. we have dirt outside…

Surprise!!

Yeah I was too..

Anyways Gabe wouldn’t or couldn’t I am not sure which now put on his shoes.. it was the end of a long day and I had no more patience for the little guy so I tell him to JUST GO OUT BAREFOOT!!

He lost it.. NO!!! MAMA NO!! there is DIRT outside!!

Whaa???

“And and  HOOK WORMS live in the DIRT!!”

I am sure I had the what in the world look on my face because he proceeded to tell me what hook worms look like and what they do..

“They have BIG teeth!” using his fingers he demonstrates big snarly teeth clamping down on his poor defenseless toes  “ I’ve seen them!!”

By now I have figured out that DH and in this case MMWFMH (make more work for me husband) has logged onto youtube to scare my four year old senseless..

The day just fell apart then.. I started laughing so hard at the sight of Gabriel pretending to be a hookworm and he took it of course like any over dramatic child would and started crying more..

“Mama is laughing at me”

You would too if you seen it.

With this I vow to drag my kids into the mud more.. or at least have a yard that I first remove all hook worms from.. that when we finally do move there will never be video games played unless it is raining or a blizzard.. and that I can be one day completely off the grid again.

Until then I am sitting in front of the fan for the rest of the summer.