“Now is the winter of our discontent” may be the famous opening line of a Shakespeare play, but “now is the summer of my discontent” is me grousing about triple digit heat and the fact I have to hibernate.
I am not a bear. I like bears, but I prefer to spend summers outside walking or reading or even riding in the car with the windows down and cool air blowing across my face. Living indoors with curtains drawn and air conditioning full blast makes me think of dystopian movies where the earth has finally become uninhabitable and going outside requires a helmet and space suit.
The summer even started bad. I had a full knee replacement and figured I’d be dancing around the house in about six weeks. Wrong. After twelve weeks I can walk, drive, and get a few laps in with the stationary bike, but my dancing days are in the future. What’s worse, I can’t even go out for a meal. Me rising from a regular armless chair is not a pretty sight, even now.
Then there were the events I missed: a family wedding in Idaho, the Romance Writers of America conference in Anaheim, the annual reunion of members of a service club I belonged to in Sonoma.
I digress. Let’s get back to the heat and the cave dwelling.
We live in Henderson, Nevada, on a hill. Our temperatures are at least three degrees cooler than the valley floor. Still, we’ve been in triple digits all during the month of July and it’s looking like the month of August will be no better. Over-the-top heat is probably the price we are paying for a very nice spring-like June.
What do we do cooped up in the house for months? We read, we watch our streaming channels, we surf the computer, we do in-house projects like cleaning the refrigerator and going through the closets for donates. We also write—I write, Mark reads what I write with a critical eye. The cat helps, too. He thinks it’s fun to run across the laptop keyboard when I’m using it.
It’s actually not a bad thing for a writer to be housebound. I have a release in September, another one in October, and a third probably in May. But it would be nice to drive down the hill to Las Vegas where there are some pretty spectacular exhibits sponsored by the big hotels, world class restaurants (I wonder if the chairs have arms), museums of all kinds, and tons of music events. There might even be a baseball team in a couple of years (sorry, Oakland).
But we’ll be tucked up in our house until maybe mid-September, reading about everyone else’s summer vacations. So make yours a good one and don’t forget to post it.
“…made glorious summer by this sun of York.” That’s the rest of the first line of Richard III. (I don’t like loose ends.)
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It may not be triple digits here in Alabama, but there is the humidity which makes it feel like triple digits. Curtains drawn and air going full blast. Even our pool is too warm to be refreshing. Thank goodness for lots of rain which is keeping the lawns green and plants alive. Enjoying the lazy Dog Days of Summer as best as we can. Fall will be here soon.