Can I Just Go Back to Bed, Please?

Both boys are home today because it's Thursday. It's also another one of those Jesus-fuck-it's-hot days. Which means I can either (a) leave them to their own devices, which will surely result in them growing excessively bored around noon-ish and thereafter driving me to drink before 5pm, or (2) take them to the fucking pool.

(Sigh)

The fucking pool. I cast baleful glances in its general direction. Because it's so stupid hot, no one can do anything else outdoors, so they go to the pool. So the water is full of fat people and their stupid, fat, unruly children who alternately kick you in the face or swim up your ass. Unfortunately, it's too hot to not be in the water. And if we go, we have to get there 15 minutes before they open and stand there in line sweating like fucking idiots just to guarantee we can each have a deck chair because Mama is NOT lying on a towel on the concrete, thankyouverymuch and if Mama has a chair, you can bet your ass those badass kids will insist on sitting with her or bitch about their lack of chairs. Which means I will not have time to feed them lunch before we leave and they will demand food from the super-expensive concession stand until I tell them to shut up before I drown you.

It also means I did not have time to run before we get our pool on, which means I will have to do it after we get home, when I will be slightly roasted and a little light-headed from sun and heat exposure. Which means I'm about 72% more likely to pass out around mile 3 and get thrown off the treadmill into the wall directly behind it.

Wake me up when it's Labor Day weekend, 'kay?

House Arrest in Hell

It's Sunday. Our area is under a "severe heat advisory" which is the adult way to say "it's real fuckin' hot." We don't want to go to the pool because every fatty in town will be there and it's so hot, it's not enough to simply be next to the water, so we'd have to jump in the pond with all the other cattle. We don't want to go to the movies because it's not a good time to take a second mortgage out on the house.

So right now, the husband is at the gym, the toddler is "playing dishes" in the kitchen sink and I'm debating whether I should finish crocheting a hat I started yesterday or finish some sewing projects I started last week. I'm really not sure where the older kid is, and I'm not sure I want to know.

Really, I just want it to be...not as hot.

Sacrilege, coming from me, a confirmed summer-holic. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE summer. I yearn for summer. I cry every Labor Day because it's kind of the official "end" of summer. But holy shit, 115 degrees is for pork, not people. (I like my pork medium rare, thank you.) It's not even this hot in Florida. Heat and humidity is charming when you live within walking distance of a beach--not when you're landlocked.

I have to admit, though, it doesn't bother me much. I like spending Sunday lazing around doing very little (since it's not physically possible for me to "do nothing"). Reveling in the fact I have a comfortable sofa and central air conditioning. And if my kids insist on spending the day whining about how boooorrrred they are, I can smile, knowing they are finally spending their summer the same damn way I did.

All Tied Up

Last week, I cleaned out and organized one of our kitchen cabinets. In one of the multiple piles of crap I pulled out, I found a crochet hook. I have no idea where it came from, if it was left behind by the house's previous owners, or if we brought it with us in one of our boxes of crap.

At any rate, when I was at Joann a few days later, I passed by the racks of yarn and did a walk-through. So many colors and textures and thicknesses. I admit it, I'm a sucker for tactile diversity. And the yarn was on sale. So I picked up a ball of "Woolish" yarn in "yellowish" and decided to make myself a scarf.

I used to know (sort of) how to crochet. My grandmother taught me the very basics when I was, I don't know, 8 or 9 or 10 years old. Whether I realized this would only set me further back on the nerd scale, or if I grew frustrated by my lack of ability to create anything more than...a whip, I don't remember, but I gave it up. Despite all the sewing I've done in the last two years, I've stayed far, far away from yarn. Knitting just scares the crap out of me (okay, not knitting so much as having two pointy sticks in my hands and a ball of string--that couldn't possibly end well). And when I think of yarn, I think of wool, which makes me think of itching until I scratch myself to a bloody mess.

Did you know they make yarn now that's as soft as a kitten's burp? They do. I don't know how, but they do.

Anyway, the other night, I picked up my Woolish yarn and my hook and my phone and Googled "learn to crochet." I taught myself the chain, the single crochet AND the double crochet. And I got about 2/3 of the way through my scarf before I ran out of yarn.

And realized I was doing it entirely wrong.

<Sigh.>

I kind of wondered why my scarf was curling up like it was. And I thought it was kind of a pain in the ass to have to cut the yarn at the end of every row and start over from the bottom again. Apparently that's not how it's done at all. I guess I should probably not read tutorials on my phone's li'l itsy bitsy screen. At night. In poor lighting.

So today I took a ball of new, delicious yellow-and-white cotton yarn, my hook, and my netbook (which has a slightly larger screen) and found some very good instructional videos to help me correct my mistakes. Right now I'm working on a lovely...square. Perhaps I'll use it as my own personal washcloth.

I'm not sure what I'll do with my curly woolish yellowish 3-inch-wide scarf. Maybe I'll make it into a festive dog leash. Or use it to tie up the toddler.