Hot, hot, hot!!!!!

How do I post a picture of hot, sizzling hot? I'm posting this from Illinois, in the USA. I know that folks in the Middle East (and I do have one reader there) would laugh at me complaining about the heat, but, as they always say in Arizona, it's a DRY heat.

On the other hand, this heat is hot and muggy, so the almost 100-degree temps feel more like 110 to 115. All I know is that when I went out this morning to bring in the newspaper, it was warm on the bottom because it had lain on the black asphalt driveway all night, which never did cool down.

I think I might go out at the peak of the heat today and see if I can actually fry an egg on that black driveway. !wish me luck (except that with those temps, I'll probably be frying, too!)

My elderly parents do have air conditioning, but do you think they'll use it? Only at night. Why at night? I'll never know! It has something to do with the fact that six years ago, when the air conditioner was installed, someone programmed it to start up at certain pre-determined temperatures. Well, between then and now, then aged parental units have lost the
instruction manual that tells how to change the settings. (In all fairness, it really IS complicated and hard to do.) so now I guess they need to get the 12-year-old tech-savvy neighbor boy in to figure it all out. These days, the younger they are, the more they know about how to deal with technology! Anyway, I keep telling Dad that those temperature settings from six years ago were done before global warming (or at least El Nino / La Nina) were influencing weather and climate. It's time to change 'em!

But today it's going to be so very hot! If Dad doesn't get the air con working when we really need it most, Mom & I are going to take off for the public library, where it's properly air conditioned and there's free Wi-fi.

In Chicago there are many folks with no air conditioning and right now there are many kids out of school for summer vacation. Yesterday all the public beaches were open, but nobody was allowed to swim. Why? Because there was fog and the lifeguards couldn't see the people out in the water. So, they said,"You can be at the beach, but you can't go into the water." That's like putting someone out in the desert and telling them, "Here's a bottle of water. You can hold it; you can touch your forehead with it, but you can't drink it." Bummer! The TV news showed pictures of people who had ventured into the water at those Chicago beaches being lead away in HANDCUFFS, if you can believe that! What's America coming to?

Well, the next blog post will have photos if I ever figure out how to do it from an iPad.

Oh, and I promise, I'll never, EVER complain about the heat in Penang again!

BECKY (from the road)