I hate the heat. HATE HATE HATE HATE it. I can’t stand being hot and sweaty and helpless to do anything about it. At least if it’s cold you can keep adding layers. When it’s hot, you can’t take enough off. You can get naked, but then all you’ll be is naked, in jail, and oddly proud. Because who gets naked at a golf course?! THIS GUY.
Avoiding heat is a good part of the reason why I live in Seattle. I grew up in Brooklyn, NY (I have plans for a perfume line called “Steamy Subway” — comes in both “Fragrant Urine” and “Homeless Pants” scents……. e-mail me if you want in), then lived for almost a decade in Iowa and Kansas (in terms of heat levels across the country, I call the Midwest “the Devil’s taint”), till I moved to glorious Seattle.
Oh, Seattle. Where it goes from “pretty cold” to “pretty warm” and rarely outside of that. We were meant to be, me and Seattle.
And then my mom and sister moved to North Carolina. Because I love them, I take the kids out to visit once a year. Right now, we are on Day 2 of our annual visit.
“But wait,” you say, concerned, “Isn’t there a horrible heat wave going on out there?” Oh yeah. There is. And after just one day of ri-fucking-diculous heat, I have come to better understand just one of the many horrible aspects of living in 104 degree heat:
Jean smell.
Let’s talk about jeans and 99-degree weather, for a moment. They do not mix. I don’t care who you are. What I realized yesterday is that, in addition to the obnoxious feeling of wet denim, the SMELL of hot weather jeans is something one should strive mightily to avoid. It smells exactly like a chlorinated swimming pool. Is that just chicks? Guys, you tell me — what do your hot weather jeans smell like? I am going with a chlorinated swimming pools full of balls.
I am predicting a lot of walking shorts (they are the full-figured mom’s summer friend) and air conditioning on this trip. Today we went to the Planetarium. Tomorrow we are going to hit a museum. Because what children need during the summer is to be locked up indoors with a cool artificial breeze. I am convinced this is the reason Chili’s still exists.
Pile of Babies 