Too Hot.

I wish I was just talking about me. I would love to say, "I'm too hot!" but wouldn't care for all of the snickering in the background.

My hot experience would be the extremely warm weather we had last week...or was that the week before last? Time has been flying by because I took up a new...shall we say...interest. Hobby isn't the right word. I'm making money and will probably be making enough that it can't be considered a hobby. There are rules to how much you can make and be calling it a "hobby". I remember from when I used to do my business taxes...a business or two ago. And now that I'm totally off topic, let me redirect you...

Apparently, 108 degrees is just a little much for my poor red van. It was acting up a bit the days prior...of course those days were 106 and below. The day I was running around trying to get stuff for Susan's birthday...that was the hot day. I was trying desperately to leave the Dairy Queen parking lot. I had just ordered Susan's cake and we were all out of water and Jake was with us. He was so hot, he didn't even want to get back into the van to go home. He much preferred the cool grass (if you can call it that) in the shade although I'm pretty sure it was still blazing hot there too. Susan, Edmund, Jake and I piled back into the van and attempted to get home. I was having difficulties even getting out of the parking lot. That van kept making clunking noises and stalling on me. Didn't it know I had to get home?! I had stuff to do before the party the next day. I threw that baby into neutral, revved it like never before, threw it back into gear and...

...I made it into the street where it promptly died. "Holy Smokes it's too blazing hot for this thing not to work!" I really couldn't imagine having to push it back into the parking lot and sit there in the blasted heat while waiting for Mr. P to come bail me out. With no swearing (I swear!) and much prayer, I tried again. Thankfully it did actually attempt to run enough to get me moving down the street. I just kept praying that I wouldn't have to stop at a red light because I wasn't sure I could get it going again. I did make it home. Told Mr. P all about it. We decided it was just the heat. The next day was a bit cooler and it seemed to run okay...
...until the check engine light came on. I decided to just drive straight to the mechanic. Ended up getting off of the freeway because the thing wouldn't shift down. I'm no mechanic but I'm pretty sure someone of average intelligence could figure out that the vehicle should not sound like a jet engine if it is not in fact a jet. Decided it wasn't worth risking an accident or something. So there the van sat for several days and even over the weekend. Finally Mr. P called the mechanic to find out what was going on. They didn't know. Couldn't reproduce the problem. Sheesh. Apparently I need to order up another 108 degree day to get that to happen. Unfortunately we have been having some pleasantly cool weather.

I called a friend to take me to get the van. It just doesn't make sense to have that thing sitting down at the mechanic when I could be driving it right? I have fallen in love with Mr. P's new 4Runner though. It's the same year as the van but doesn't seem to have issues with the heat. I think it's way more stylin' too. I guess poor Mr. P would like to have it back though. He has been stuck driving "the beast" while the van has been gone. The beast is his little '87 Ford Pick Up. It has definitely seen better days.

All of that said so that you all know that I was suffering in the intense heat we had. I'm so grateful for central air and vehicles with air conditioning. How did our forefathers survive?

How forgetful are you?

I'm starting to wonder about the whole "memory going bad the older you get" thing. Perhaps it's because I seem to be forgetting things that I would normally remember. You know, little things like, say, forgetting to pick up your child...for instance. Not just once. Actually it was two different days and each day was a different child. Does that count in the same way?

Now in my defense, both children were perfectly safe so don't go calling CPS on me. Of course some of you don't even know my real name so I feel a bit safer.

It really is due to distraction. The problem is, I seem to be more distracted the older I get. For example, that weekend of the California Achievement Testing and the non-test assessments that I coordinated. It took some effort to pull that off. There were a few little glitches that I didn't anticipate. Over all, it turned out pretty well. Lucy's assessment was the first one of Saturday. After that, I ran her over to a friend's house so that she didn't have to sit around being bored for several hours. That was the last day of testing so once we were done, it felt like it was time to cel.e.brate. Oh yeh, oh yeh! So that being said, I was 3/4ths the way home before I realized that Lucy was not in the car with us. I felt really bad because I had told my friend I would be done at a certain time which of course was long past. I immediately called her on my cell. Don't worry Washingtonians, I was using my bluetooth and the new law had not gone into effect yet anyway. As I apologized profusely for forgetting my child and thus being really late, my friend just cracked up. I'm thankful she found it funny and wasn't mad that I was such a delinquent.

Then there was the day that Susan had something going on at the library. It was last month so I don't remember all the details. I just remember that I was well past the library before remember it was MY job to pick her up. Lucky for me, the library is a safe place, the librarians know us and Susan loves to read. If not for those things, I would have been in deep doo doo. I'm talking about picking her up about 2 hours later than originally planned. Oh yeh, I remember, it was a shopping and latte date with a friend that I hadn't seen in awhile. Who would have known we would be gone that long? Perhaps I shouldn't admit that. The shopping was at a thrift store so you know that takes longer, right? As long as Susan and the librarians were not unhappy, I'm okay right?

I'm hoping it's not like early Alzheimer's or something. If it is, I'll have to get my act together and go back to being an 85% raw foodist. Not sure I'm ready for that again. That lack of self discipline thing.

Anyone else dealing with memory issues?