Fazed by the haze

It was one of those dead, still, hazy days that make summer weekends absolutely unpleasant. No one was out after lunchtime ... probably hunkering down someplace with air con, or at the beach. Hard to believe I was complaining about Scotland in March a few weeks ago!

Last year it wasn't nearly so bad. We had a mild summer -- as I recall, we only used the air-con in our bedrooms about five or six times, and only to sleep. The rest of the summer we didn't need it, thank goodness.

This year, we are not so lucky. I installed the air conditioners in our room and our daughter's bedroom about a week ago, and we've used it every night for at least two or three hours.

But during the day, we don't use them ... they're only upstairs, and not on the first floor, and it's too expensive to keep them running all day. So today I escaped with the kids to the basement playroom where it was cool. That reduced the sticky factor a bit -- we have a dehumidifier running down there, and in weather like this I have to empty the 22-pint tank once per day.

In the evening, though, life returns to normal ... it cools down and there's more shade, so we can go to the backyard and the let the kids play around in the sprinkler. At night, a nice breeze comes up, and we open the windows to let the house air out.

But still, I can't wait until the humidity dies down. "It's not the heat, it's the humidity!" How true ...