Hot enough for ya? I know, it’s late July in eastern North Carolina and it’s supposed to be muggy, but gee whiz this is getting ridiculous. I stepped outside the other day at about 10 a.m. and stepped into a sauna. It’s just not supposed be 95 degrees with 90 percent humidity that early in the day.

Our air conditioner, or lifesaver as I’m coming to think of it, can’t keep up. At night we take it down as cold as we can get it because it steadily loses the battle to keep the house comfortable during the day. By nightfall, the temperature in the house is over 80 degrees and I worry about whether the ac can continue running full blast 24 hours a day.

Even our two cats spend most of their time inside with their tongues hanging out while lounging on the nearest pillow. It’s even rough on the grass. We’ve been having lawnmower troubles this week and were out of town on a business excursion (took 24 top middle school students on a Math, Science, & Technology adventure to Hampton Roads) last week. So two weeks without the grass being cut and it’s only growing over the septic tank. There are many spots in the yard that are golden brown where the grass has just given up trying to make it.

I keep seeing on the weather that there’s a better than good chance for thunderstorms – and I’ve even heard tell there have been some in the area – but over my house in St. John there has been no cooling relief. I didn’t think I’d hear myself say it, but I’d welcome a few thunderstorms, with hail, howling winds and dangerous lightning as long as the power stays on.

I hadn’t even thought of that until now. If we do get a storm, I guess it’s just about a guarantee that the lights are gonna get knocked out. They always do, even if only for a second or two. Darned if you do and darned if you don’t, I reckon.

Come Sunday, however, it’s going to get even worse for Kim and myself. We’re heading for Las Vegas, where the temps have been flirting with 120 degrees all summer. Yeah, I hear the heat over there in the desert doesn’t feel that bad because the humidity is real low, but somehow I can’t bring myself to believe that 110 degrees won’t make me want to spend my vacation in the hotel bathtub.

Too late now. We paid for this vacation months ago and can’t get our money back. If it were cool and nice around here we might consider taking the financial loss by staying, but it’s almost as miserable here as it will be there, so I reckon we might as well go on out there.

We’ve been looking forward to getting out and seeing the Grand Canyon and the desert. We haven’t been to that part of the country before. There’s a lot we want to see. I sure hope they have a cooling spell. I can see me passing out from heat exhaustion and falling into the Grand Canyon. Plop.

I know y’all don’t want to hear about this. You’d rather I was bashing Bush again so you’d either have somebody who shares your concerns about the country or have a person you could direct your ire towards since you’re under the delusion that you’re part of a suppressed minority that is faced with eradication at any moment.

The latter characterization I got while listening to Christian radio station the other day. I didn’t catch who the speakers were, but the gist of what they were saying is that their religious beliefs are under attack, their religious freedoms are about to be extinguished and that they might, at any moment, be hounded, rounded up and exterminated.

Golly, who knew? I’d always thought Christian persecution in the Western world pretty much died out about the time the Roman Empire became the Holy Roman Empire about 1,700 years ago.

I’ll try not to chase any Christians while I’m in Las Vegas baking in the noonday sun. Who knows, maybe I’ll even find a Good Samaritan with a bucket of ice water that doesn’t cost $50.