They say we're having a heat wave
Jul. 9th, 2008 10:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
urbandruidThey ain't kidding, either. Today it was 109. Tomorrow it's supposed to be 112. Right now, it's 95, with 25% humidity.
Mom was out smoking on the front porch around sunset, and called me outside to check it out. It was pink, until it dropped into the smog layer, when it looked like somebody stuck a piece of wax paper in front of it. Purple, smoggy wax paper.
I hate summer. I really do.
I'm spending most of my time vegging out watching TV, or reading in the living room, because it's really too gross to be in my room. I'm thinking about changing rooms and taking what's now the office. My room has an outside wall and shares another wall with the garage, and it gets a ton of sun in the afternoon. For a couple hours in the afternoon, 3-5 or so, I literlly can't be in there. The office has one outside wall, but it's out front which is practically never in direct sun. I was in there this afternoon rearranging some books, and the only time I was really hot was when I was dragging some boxes out of the closet.
'Course, I also whacked my knee on one of the boxes. I was also silly enough to try shoving a paper box full of books with my foot. Didn't work, and I pulled a muscle in my foot trying. I was hoping it was just a minor thing, and I'm still hoping it's gone in the morning, but with my luck... I took some Advil earlier and am wearing one of Mom's ankle brace thingys on it. Guess we'll see.
I'm still kind of bummed about the lack of summer job. I really wanted to make some steady money this summer, instead of the drips and drabs I ocassionally get from selling stuff on eBay. (And don't they suck now? Argh!) But the economy sucks, it's a bad time to try and find even a crummy part time job; people are laying off, not hiring. But I have the job fair at school to look forward to in September or so. Plus all the retail places looking for temporary help around the holidays. I mean, retail sucks, sure, but it's not like I can work fast food. Talk about an OSHA violation waiting to happen! Visually impaired people and fry grease do not mix.
In other news, the ants are starting to show up again- Mom killed a couple scouting parties in her room and bathroom tonight. We figure they built our house on top of a bunch of anthills, and we're slowly wiping the fuckers out. I was freaking out a bit earlier, but when I calmed down I realized we're actually doing pretty damn good here. Last year they started marching in in April, and there were LOTS of them. It's July, and this is the first sign we've seen all year.
Of course, I'm going to be checking all the corners and places they usually turn up for a while, and every little itch, every stray cat hair that tickles my arm, or whatever- I'm going to be paranoid about. Oh well. We'll replace the bait stations out back this weekend, dump a bunch of bug spray and ammonia down any hills we find, and go from there. I just hate the things.
We couldn't get the regular black ones that just eat crumbs off the kitchen counter, nooo. We have to get the bloody fire ants, which I'm allergic to. Also their bites hurt like hell. Someone told me that all ants bite, even the black ones, but I've always seen them as somehow more benign, because they never really bothered me. We used to find them crawling around Grandma's front porch, and we'd just kind of idly step on them, or ignore them. They'd crawl over my feet, and I'd brush them off. Whatever they were looking for, I wasn't it. The fire ants, on the other hand, seem to be thinking more along the lines of, "Mmm,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
urbandruid, yum!" Little bastards. I still practically have nightmares about last year, when I woke up with them in my bed and crawling all over me. I still have to check the bed every night before I get in it, just in case. They also ate holes in my clothes. I have this theory that there's something in my sweat that they like, but... yeah. Going to change the subject now.
I managed to survive Father's Day, although we went back to the library there, and we did get another little speech. It's getting less weird; I guess I'm getting used to us talking about things but not talking about them. (Please don't worry if that made no sense to you; it's my family and sometimes I don't understand them.)
We keep making vague plans to take the train to Reno to see my aunt and uncle's new place (new being a relative term, I think they moved almost a year ago or so) and I hope we'll pick some days and actually go. I'm starting to feel the need to get out of here for a while again. I just have this feeling that it's going to be a crazy semester, once it gets going, with not much of a break at the end. Just holidays, and that's... well. I'll cross those bridges when I have to.
Honestly, it may be almost a relief to have something to focus on like school. I'm going to have a lot of work this semester with Spanish II (which reminds me I should review my Spanish again a few times, so I don't forget everything...) I'm not looking forward to the workload, exactly, but having something I can do, things that need to get done- the whole "can't freak out, must conjugate verbs for tomorrow" thing.
And I have good teachers this semester. I really wanted to take Spanish II from the same prof who taught my beginning class, and I was able to do that. He's amusing and I passed his other class. Life is good. And to balance out the Spanish, I signed up for Oceanography. Sounded interesting, and my favorite professor of all time is teaching it. Being able to pick my teachers is really awesome, and takes a lot of that beginning of the semester stress out of things.
I start back on the 18th of August. Week before that, I have a checkup at the dentist. (Oh yay.) It should be interesting- school, I mean, not the dentist. Personally I hope the dentist is very boring. They're really nice there, but it'd be cool if I didn't have to see them again this year. :)
So I guess the short version of the story is that I'm hanging in there. Doing pretty good, all things considered. Just hot. And tired, although less tired since I started taking my vitamins again. Putting the bottle where I can actually see it helps... Anyway, overall I'm trying not to worry too much about what might happen later, or when things may happen. This is kind of hard for me, but, I'm discovering, pretty essential to my sanity.
I still have a bunch of stuff I want to get done around here before I start back to school (see upcoming to-do list, if you really care. :) We'll see how much of it I manage to get done. Trying not to stress so much about that either. I'm trying to be Zen, as Mom says.
Some days it works better than others. :)
Mom was out smoking on the front porch around sunset, and called me outside to check it out. It was pink, until it dropped into the smog layer, when it looked like somebody stuck a piece of wax paper in front of it. Purple, smoggy wax paper.
I hate summer. I really do.
I'm spending most of my time vegging out watching TV, or reading in the living room, because it's really too gross to be in my room. I'm thinking about changing rooms and taking what's now the office. My room has an outside wall and shares another wall with the garage, and it gets a ton of sun in the afternoon. For a couple hours in the afternoon, 3-5 or so, I literlly can't be in there. The office has one outside wall, but it's out front which is practically never in direct sun. I was in there this afternoon rearranging some books, and the only time I was really hot was when I was dragging some boxes out of the closet.
'Course, I also whacked my knee on one of the boxes. I was also silly enough to try shoving a paper box full of books with my foot. Didn't work, and I pulled a muscle in my foot trying. I was hoping it was just a minor thing, and I'm still hoping it's gone in the morning, but with my luck... I took some Advil earlier and am wearing one of Mom's ankle brace thingys on it. Guess we'll see.
I'm still kind of bummed about the lack of summer job. I really wanted to make some steady money this summer, instead of the drips and drabs I ocassionally get from selling stuff on eBay. (And don't they suck now? Argh!) But the economy sucks, it's a bad time to try and find even a crummy part time job; people are laying off, not hiring. But I have the job fair at school to look forward to in September or so. Plus all the retail places looking for temporary help around the holidays. I mean, retail sucks, sure, but it's not like I can work fast food. Talk about an OSHA violation waiting to happen! Visually impaired people and fry grease do not mix.
In other news, the ants are starting to show up again- Mom killed a couple scouting parties in her room and bathroom tonight. We figure they built our house on top of a bunch of anthills, and we're slowly wiping the fuckers out. I was freaking out a bit earlier, but when I calmed down I realized we're actually doing pretty damn good here. Last year they started marching in in April, and there were LOTS of them. It's July, and this is the first sign we've seen all year.
Of course, I'm going to be checking all the corners and places they usually turn up for a while, and every little itch, every stray cat hair that tickles my arm, or whatever- I'm going to be paranoid about. Oh well. We'll replace the bait stations out back this weekend, dump a bunch of bug spray and ammonia down any hills we find, and go from there. I just hate the things.
We couldn't get the regular black ones that just eat crumbs off the kitchen counter, nooo. We have to get the bloody fire ants, which I'm allergic to. Also their bites hurt like hell. Someone told me that all ants bite, even the black ones, but I've always seen them as somehow more benign, because they never really bothered me. We used to find them crawling around Grandma's front porch, and we'd just kind of idly step on them, or ignore them. They'd crawl over my feet, and I'd brush them off. Whatever they were looking for, I wasn't it. The fire ants, on the other hand, seem to be thinking more along the lines of, "Mmm,
urbandruid, yum!" Little bastards. I still practically have nightmares about last year, when I woke up with them in my bed and crawling all over me. I still have to check the bed every night before I get in it, just in case. They also ate holes in my clothes. I have this theory that there's something in my sweat that they like, but... yeah. Going to change the subject now.I managed to survive Father's Day, although we went back to the library there, and we did get another little speech. It's getting less weird; I guess I'm getting used to us talking about things but not talking about them. (Please don't worry if that made no sense to you; it's my family and sometimes I don't understand them.)
We keep making vague plans to take the train to Reno to see my aunt and uncle's new place (new being a relative term, I think they moved almost a year ago or so) and I hope we'll pick some days and actually go. I'm starting to feel the need to get out of here for a while again. I just have this feeling that it's going to be a crazy semester, once it gets going, with not much of a break at the end. Just holidays, and that's... well. I'll cross those bridges when I have to.
Honestly, it may be almost a relief to have something to focus on like school. I'm going to have a lot of work this semester with Spanish II (which reminds me I should review my Spanish again a few times, so I don't forget everything...) I'm not looking forward to the workload, exactly, but having something I can do, things that need to get done- the whole "can't freak out, must conjugate verbs for tomorrow" thing.
And I have good teachers this semester. I really wanted to take Spanish II from the same prof who taught my beginning class, and I was able to do that. He's amusing and I passed his other class. Life is good. And to balance out the Spanish, I signed up for Oceanography. Sounded interesting, and my favorite professor of all time is teaching it. Being able to pick my teachers is really awesome, and takes a lot of that beginning of the semester stress out of things.
I start back on the 18th of August. Week before that, I have a checkup at the dentist. (Oh yay.) It should be interesting- school, I mean, not the dentist. Personally I hope the dentist is very boring. They're really nice there, but it'd be cool if I didn't have to see them again this year. :)
So I guess the short version of the story is that I'm hanging in there. Doing pretty good, all things considered. Just hot. And tired, although less tired since I started taking my vitamins again. Putting the bottle where I can actually see it helps... Anyway, overall I'm trying not to worry too much about what might happen later, or when things may happen. This is kind of hard for me, but, I'm discovering, pretty essential to my sanity.
I still have a bunch of stuff I want to get done around here before I start back to school (see upcoming to-do list, if you really care. :) We'll see how much of it I manage to get done. Trying not to stress so much about that either. I'm trying to be Zen, as Mom says.
Some days it works better than others. :)
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no subject
Date: 2008-07-12 07:22 pm (UTC)Sounds like your next semester is going to be fun. Oceanography sounds so wonderful. Must be so nice to have so many interesting subjects. Do you get field trips with this one?
You know how I feel about summer. This area's been hot and disgusting, but certainly not at its worst and certainly nowhere near what you have (though the humidity is, as usual, bad). Am not certain yet if Bertha is signalling that we're in for a summer of east coast hurricanes or what. The unfortunate thing is that North and South Carolina need it. Around here there certainly hasn't been any lack of rain.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-22 07:31 am (UTC)I'm not sure on the field trips, but I'd think we'll have to do at least one. Not much of an ocean to study around here, you know? ;)
It's cooled down a bit here lately, only 99s and low 100s, still kinda sucky but not that bad considering.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-23 06:57 am (UTC)Yeah, I kinda thought it was odd to have an oceanography course in the desert there. However, it sounds like a lot of fun.
Only 99's and low 100's. That's sad.