Thursday, July 13, 2006

Heat Wave

It's beginning to look a lot like 1988 here in Twinstown. We are in the early stages of what promises to be the worst heat wave we'd had here in a long time. Forecasts for Saturday and Sunday promise daytime highs of 100 degrees or more, which has not happened here since 1995. It's been pretty hot already and we've been battling with a balky air conditioner all summer, but so far it's holding up.

The heat rarely lasts that long, but I've had to make some allowances. I have already cancelled Maria's t-ball practice for Saturday; I don't like the idea of making her and her buddies run the bases in a blast furnace. We've also spent more time in the basement, which remains cool and comfortable no matter what. I am writing this afternoon from the Arden Hills Library, where I have been coming on Thursdays for most of the summer. This branch of the Ramsey County library is not much bigger than my house, but it has a remarkable DVD collection and enough good books that I've been able to keep the family entertained all summer. I was able to show the kids short films from the Three Stooges, Charlie Chaplin, W.C. Fields and Buster Keaton in the last few days and have also introduced them to the Marx Brothers and Peter Sellers. We try not to let the kids watch too much television, but they have a strong allegiance to Cartoon Network and I find a lot of its programming to be strange. It seems to me that most of the fare on that network is either highly stylized anime or aggressively ugly sub-Ren and Stimpy comedy built on a barrage of non sequiturs. There's better stuff out there and I'd like my kids to see it. And this heat wave provides an opportunity.

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