Has Fall Really Arrived?

Hold the phone, stop the presses: Sunday it was 83 degrees here in Fort Worth. That's 2o degrees cooler than it was just Aug. 30; 30 degrees cooler than many days this summer. The windows are open and the A/C is off. This had better not be some kind of cruel joke! After months of being trapped inside and swimming in a warm pool, we were ready to get out! Our first stop was the zoo. The last time it was cool enough to walk around the zoo was when my mom was in town right before Easter, and even then we were sweaty. On Sunday we started backward this time, so we actually got to see the Texas Wild exhibit for only the second time. We saw wolves, an armadillo and touched a starfish. We were there for three hours... three glorious, unsweaty hours. Then we headed to our favorite picnic spot: The Fort Worth Botanic Gardens. After lunch we walked around a bit before heading home for some outside play. The only unfortunate part of this weather is the wind and absence of rain, neither of which are helping the Texas wildfires.

Hot Enough For You?

I never really read forwarded chain emails, but this one from my pal Bridget caught my attention and made me laugh so much I had to pass it along. The record heat wave here in Texas is hard to ignore, and this little fictional exchange below is so close to my journey with Texas it's scary!

Just Moved to Texas

The truth can be funny

June 1st:
Just moved to Texas !
Now this is a state that knows how to live!!
Beautiful sunny days and warm balmy evenings.
What a place!
It is beautiful.
I've finally found my home.
I love it here.

June 14th:
Really heating up.
Got to 100 degrees today. Not a problem.
Live in an air-conditioned home, drive an air- conditioned car.
What a pleasure to see the sun everyday like this.
I'm turning into a sun worshipper.

June 30th:
Had the backyard landscaped with western plants today.
Lots of cactus and rocks.
What a breeze to maintain.
No more mowing the lawn for me.
Another scorcher today, but I love it here.

July 10th:
The temperature hasn't been below 100 all week.
How do people get used to this kind of heat?
At least it's kind of windy though. But getting used to the heat is taking longer than I expected.

July 15th:
Fell asleep by the community pool.
Got 3rd degree burns over 60% of my body.
Missed 3 days of work.
What a dumb thing to do.
I learned my lesson though.
Got to respect the ol' sun in a climate like this.

July 20th:
I missed my cat, Lomita , sneaking into the car when I left this morning.
By the time I got to the hot car at noon, Lomita had died and swollen up to the size of a shopping bag, then popped like a water balloon.
The car now smells like Kibbles and Shits.
I learned my lesson though.
No more pets in this heat.
Good ol' Mr. Sun strikes again..

July 25th:
The wind sucks.
It feels like a giant freaking blow dryer!!
And it's hot as hell.
The home air-conditioner is on the fritz and the AC repairman charged $200 just to drive by and tell me he needed to order parts.

July 30th:
Been sleeping outside on the patio for 3 nights now.
$225,000 house and I can't even go inside.
Lomita is the lucky one.
Why did I ever come here?

August 1st:
It's 105 degrees.
Finally got the air-conditioner fixed today.
It cost $500 and gets the temperature down to 85.
I hate this stupid state.

August 3rd:
If another wise guy cracks, 'Hot enough for you today?'
I'm going to strangle him...Damn heat.
By the time I get to work, the radiator is boiling over, my clothes are soaking wet, and I smell like baked cat!!

August 5th:
Tried to run some errands after work. Wore shorts,
When I sat on the seats in the car, I thought my butt was on fire.
My skin melted to the seat.
I lost 2 layers of flesh and all the hair on the back of my legs and butt.
Now my car smells like burnt hair, fried butt and baked cat.

Aug 6th:
The weather report might as well be a damn recording.
Hot and sunny...Hot and sunny...Hot and sunny...
And the weatherman says it might really warm up next week.
Doesn't it ever rain in this damn state?
Water rationing has been on the last six weeks.
My $1,700 worth of cactus might just dry up and blow over.
Even the cactus can't live in this damn heat.

August 8th:
Welcome to HELL!
Temperature got to 110 today. Cactus are dead.
Forgot to crack the window and blew the damn windshield out of the car.
The installer came to fix it and guess what he asked me???
"Hot enough for you today?"

August 10th
My sister had to spend $1,500 to bail me out of jail.
Freaking Texas ...
What kind of a sick demented idiot would want to live here??
Will write later to let you know how the trial goes...

Author Unknown ~

Still Hot, Hot, Hot

Unfortunately, the heat is keeping us away from the Mavs victory parade today. In fact, for the last several days the temperature here in DFW has risen above 100. When we moved here, we told people we'd be able to handle the heat given that Richmond frequently hits the 100 degree mark and is also saddled with sticky, oppressive humidity. But let me tell you, hot is hot! The angle of the sun here plus the fact that there isn't a ton of shade makes it pretty unbearable. And whereas Richmond would start to cool down around 5 p.m. (last summer my pal Megan and I ran 3 miles once a week around 6 p.m. and didn't die), it's sweltering well past 7 p.m. here. Hot is hot!

For the last few weekends we've spent time with Aunt Nancy and Uncle Dan in Plano. We really enjoy hanging out with them. For the last two weekends, their granddaughter Sheridan has been in town from Florida. Nigel adores her; she was so sweet to him. They swam together, shared popsicles and played silly games. I think he's going to be really bummed this weekend when we go visit and Sheridan's returned home to Florida.

We've also been coping with the heat by doing lots of indoor things, including a weekly storytime at the Amon Carter museum in addition to our our old standby library storytime. I have been telling everyone I know who'll listen about storytime at the Amon Carter. Each week the kids listen to three different stories in front of three different paintings and then do a craft and have snack. And it's all FREE! The stories, paintings and craft tie into a theme. Last week's theme was the jungle; yesterday they talked friends. Nigel thought the book Children Make Terrible Pets from this week's storytime was hilarious! Each kid made two necklaces of heart halves — one to keep and one to give to a friend. Cute, isn't it? He's planning on giving his pal James one of the necklaces.

We're Alive!

Texas weather has thrown us for a loop! We knew we'd be facing some severe storms, but we never could have imagined what this spring has blown our way. Tuesday's storms were the scariest by far, though! There were a series of four or five storms — each with hail, tornadoes, rain — that pelted us over a five-hour period.

My oldest brother George (he was in town for a few days; more on that in a later post) and I went downtown to Sundance Square to look around when we heard the tornado sirens. It was my first time hearing them outside of the weekly test period. It was freaky, especially since in 2000 a tornado wiped out a part of town about three miles from where we were. But the freakiest part was that nobody else seemed phased; they kept going about their business.

I called Tim, and he said the storms were 45 miles from downtown. George and I cut our trip short anyway and headed back to the car. On the way home, Tim called to tell us the storm was now 10 miles from downtown. The five-minute drive back to our house seemed to take forever; to my left I could see some spooky clouds forming. We also saw a news chopper pass overhead; we later saw the tape of a tornado he shot. By the time we got inside, the sirens were sounding again. There was wind and rain followed by a lull. The pattern repeated for a few hours while we were watching the news. I got really spooked when the weather guy speficially mentioned our street. When the hail came, we decided to wake up Nigel so he could see it since it melted before we could get outside after another storm the previous afternoon. Up until this point, Nigel was sound asleep. (If you click on the video below you'll be able to hear just how loud the hail was.) Many areas of D/FW got softball-sized hail, but as you can tell from the picture to the right, ours was smaller. The sirens went off again, and we made the decision to get into the hall. I was so proud of how brave Nigel was. I guess all of our drills paid off! Turns out that final siren was sounded by mistake, so we just put Nigel back to bed.

We're very grateful for the way things ended, and we hope it'll be a long time until we have to hide in the hallway again.