Hot and Steamy Even in the Mountains

I'm sitting outside by the brook, dripping with sweat. It's only 81 degrees but it's airless and humid. The house, at least downstairs, remains cool, and that's where I'm headed after I post this. My thinking has been until now, I paid for paradise, I'm going to use it. Maybe it'll be better later. 

At 7 am it was still cool in my bedroom. I went downstairs for coffee and to walk Buck. Since Mark was driving the car to work (and picking up Marty later), I made a quick run to Pecks to buy dinner items. I'm making a cold bay scallop pesto over pasta with an optional topping of tomato-zucchini saute. I made the pesto last Fall and froze it so I'm way ahead of the game. Scallops aren't great here but they're inexpensive. I wouldn't use pesto on good scallops and you shouldn't either.


I ate a light breakfast while Mark went running. Then I went out to do two chores before it was too hot. I guess I should've done it at sunrise because it was already steamy. In what seemed like two hours, I fixed the composter ( won't last long--I need some heavy spikes that can be driven into the ground) and picked up the debris I'd cut yesterday. Time passes slowly when you're hot, if it passes at all. I'm reading a Paul Theroux novel that takes place in Africa. What am I complaining about? My "work" was followed by a cool shower.


Since I can't sit still for a minute, I vacuumed the kitchen rug, cleaned off the dining room table where one of my projects (photo sorting) has been sitting for months. We're having overnight guests tomorrow so I'm trying to straighten the downstairs at least. Steve and his son Nick are from our old haunting grounds in Rhode Island and are making their annual pilgrimage up to Bethel Woods to see Dave Matthews. I hope it's cooler tomorrow night because we only have one fan. Marty might be going on a fan mission tomorrow.


Sitting in front of that fan, I called AT&T to get my final bill, due today. I can no longer access the detailed bill since we no longer use their (atrocious) service. After finally getting a live person (who might as well have been dead), I just begged for him to mail me the final bill. He said okay but it would carry a $5 surcharge. I got really mad and demanded to speak to a supervisor, which he claimed he couldn't do. Then he put me on hold, a place he never came back from. I called back, spoke to another person who was much more helpful. He promised to mail me the final bill and didn't mention a word about a surcharge, which I of course won't pay. 

I'm going inside to cook. It'll make the kitchen warmer, but you know what they say about if you can't stand the heat.