Hot Expectant Summer

We are melting. Ridiculously high temperatures this week. But we love our friends! We have been offered two portable air conditioning units so we can survive the week. What a gift! Just yesterday afternoon I asked Jesus for an air conditioner. Within a few hours, we got a call from our friends offering not one but two! See how well we are cared for?

My son was born in heat like this, in late August. You have never seen a more miserable pregnant woman than me that summer. Our doctor actually kept us both in the hospital an extra day when he was born just because it was so hot outside. I blessed him repeatedly for the kindness, for that extra day of cool air bliss.

I’m working hard to keep the newly planted bed moist. We have a nice little wire fence around the area to prevent trampling by clueless tongue-lolling doggies and Rick suggested we put a tarp over that when I found my “brilliant” sheet idea didn’t work. Perfect! Now the seeds have a fighting chance. I’m misting several times a day and waiting. It’s a little like that hot pregnant summer, waiting for Chris – the seeds are incubating in the ridiculous heat, too, and I wonder how they will fare. Chris was in trouble while I was pregnant with him. I had to stay still for nearly three months while he was growing, because my body kept trying to be done with being pregnant and go into labor. So they made me lay (lie? – English major in college, but that lay/lie thing still confuses me) in bed day after day after day. After day after day after day… Three stinking months. I was thoroughly sick of reading all the time but daytime TV was worse. And then toward the end, when I could get up and we all thought Chris would come early, he just nestled in to my overheated belly. Nearly ten pounds when he was born, full term. I think it was 102 degrees that day. He’s always hated hot weather. I can’t imagine why.

Next month he turns 21. Outrageous. I’m inclined to refuse to believe it’s been that long.

How is he now? Our house has become the House of Hacking, thanks to him. Chris was home sick all last week with a dry cough. Two days after he started coughing, our dog started in with the same dry cough. Chris says he could not have made the dog sick because she is a different species. To this I said, “Swine Flu, buddy.” He had no answer, but he coughed and then the dog coughed. I win.

And we’re trapped in the house today. I had planned to go to Powell’s or somewhere equally cool (in both senses of the word) today to hang out, but of all days, this is the day the county chose to repave our street. The big roller trucks are driving back and forth in front of our house right now. So we can’t get out. Even if we tried to walk, we’ve been warned the asphalt will stick to our shoes and ruin them until it’s had some time to ‘cure.’ But I can wait. At least I’m not pregnant. And there are a couple of air conditioning units out there waiting to come live at my house. Oh, yes. I can wait.

love,

cat