Mid-summer heat is crushing

This is a crumpled cat.

These are the dog days of summer when you have to ask yourself: Is this really where you want to live? Or maybe you should get a summer cottage on an island in the middle of Lake Superior.

Today, I received an e-mailed weather alert. It said something about 110 degrees. I didn't want to know more, so decided I would hide out most of the day. Even so, my small, window air conditioners are having a tough time keeping up.

I swam in Audubon Park pool Sunday afternoon, but couldn't even dry off in the sun five minutes, the heat was so intense. I'm fair complected with little tolerance for heat. The line at Hansen's Sno-Bliz rounded the block. I haven't eaten a snowball since college, but that day was surely the day to do it.

I drove down to the Quarter later in the afternoon to make a special purchase at an art gallery, thinking I might stroll around and enjoy a cocktail at Napoleon House. But by the time I found my gift and walked around two blocks, I was finished! There was plenty of on-street parking available, going to show most sensible people were sitting in front of their TVs watching the summer Olympics. Let those other, fit folks exude the energy. I'm just going home to wilt.

I swore when I moved back here, I wouldn't complain about the summers. But when you live in NOLA, around this time, you start visualizing the waters in the Gulf heating up. I read that the temperature of the water just needs to rise a half point for a hurricane to form. But it takes a lot of heat for a big body of water like that to rise just one degree. I think we're going to do it, despite almost daily torrential rains.

So, it is a good time to catch up on reading or cleaning out drawers and file cabinets. Or, like Mojo, take one long, relaxing nap. Whatever you do, don't go outside! Not without an umbrella, at least, rain or shine. And not till after sundown.