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heat wave pt 2
Jun. 28th, 2021 12:41 pmYesterday afternoon we spent almost two hours at Target, having determined it was the nearest air-conditioned place we could think of where we could entertain L for a significant amount of time. It worked out very nicely -- he looked at things and ran around and played with toys and even met another little person his age whose parents had made the same calculation we had.
At bedtime, we made the calculation that the best thing we could do was not move the AC unit from the living room and instead pull out the hide-a-bed all sleep there. "All," in this case, including my increasingly senile cat, who spent the first half of yesterday so pancaked under the bed that halfway through the day, when we determined he still hadn't eaten anything or come downstairs since morning, I went up and lured him out with water, then hauled him downstairs and blocked off the stairway back up. It's only a shower curtain (partly intended to keep the AC unit from trying to cool down the stairs and the landing on the top floor), but after brief investigation Theo seems either unaware that he could move it with a single paw or just willing to accept that, yes, in fact, the downstairs is cooler than the upstairs.
All those pet-health sites that tell you cats are smart and have a knack for finding the coolest place available in times of high heat? Yeah, they don't mean senile old cats who never had much instinct for survival to begin with. My cat's idea of "instinct for survival" is "cry to the nearest human until they solve his problem."
Anyway. Convincing a not-quite-two-year-old to go to sleep in a room with other people in it meant that it had to be bedtime for everyone at 9 p.m. last night, so in spite of a not insignificant amount of giggling and kicking and turning and poking (and grabbing my finger and sticking it up his nose, which is a new one and which I wish he had not discovered was possible), and crying for unknown reasons at multiple times in the middle of the night from a senile cat, I actually slept a semi-reasonable amount, all told, before L woke us up at about 7 a.m. This would make me feel optimistic about the possibility of sleep on the camping trip this weekend if I wasn't currently debating whether or not the camping trip should be cancelled on account of stupid amounts of heat and a vague concern that some moron is going to shoot off fireworks and burn down all of North Seattle while we're not even here to protect our house.
We're not bad off, though. The living room is steady at about 78F, and my office (where I am now, while L naps on the hide-a-bed under The Boy's supervision) is probably about 80. The upstairs is about 86. Outside is apparently 94.
I've been making fridge tea because the thought of even turning on the electric kettle is too horrifying to contemplate. It's working surprisingly well. Started with the cheap shit, but tonight I might make a carafe of something better, since tomorrow The Boy has to go back to work (he cancelled all of his meetings today and said he'd be on a bit, but only occasionally). This afternoon I think we're going to go to the Target again, unless we can think of another place we can take L that would be close, air-conditioned, and entertaining enough for a two-year-old to be worthwhile. I've been thinking vaguely of the nearest mall, and wishing the one actually nearest to us wasn't closed. It would probably be crowded, though, which the Target at least is not, and the Target also has covered parking, which I don't believe the nearest mall has.
We also went on a very short walk this morning after breakfast, staying on the shady side of the nearest street. I hope we'll be able to do that again tomorrow, because I doubt we'll be able to go anywhere else. By the afternoon when we usually go on our big excursion for the day, despite being cooler than it's supposed to get today I expect it will still be too hot to go to the lake, the playground, or the zoo, and those are my three good options for entertaining L when it's just me and we can't use the car.
At bedtime, we made the calculation that the best thing we could do was not move the AC unit from the living room and instead pull out the hide-a-bed all sleep there. "All," in this case, including my increasingly senile cat, who spent the first half of yesterday so pancaked under the bed that halfway through the day, when we determined he still hadn't eaten anything or come downstairs since morning, I went up and lured him out with water, then hauled him downstairs and blocked off the stairway back up. It's only a shower curtain (partly intended to keep the AC unit from trying to cool down the stairs and the landing on the top floor), but after brief investigation Theo seems either unaware that he could move it with a single paw or just willing to accept that, yes, in fact, the downstairs is cooler than the upstairs.
All those pet-health sites that tell you cats are smart and have a knack for finding the coolest place available in times of high heat? Yeah, they don't mean senile old cats who never had much instinct for survival to begin with. My cat's idea of "instinct for survival" is "cry to the nearest human until they solve his problem."
Anyway. Convincing a not-quite-two-year-old to go to sleep in a room with other people in it meant that it had to be bedtime for everyone at 9 p.m. last night, so in spite of a not insignificant amount of giggling and kicking and turning and poking (and grabbing my finger and sticking it up his nose, which is a new one and which I wish he had not discovered was possible), and crying for unknown reasons at multiple times in the middle of the night from a senile cat, I actually slept a semi-reasonable amount, all told, before L woke us up at about 7 a.m. This would make me feel optimistic about the possibility of sleep on the camping trip this weekend if I wasn't currently debating whether or not the camping trip should be cancelled on account of stupid amounts of heat and a vague concern that some moron is going to shoot off fireworks and burn down all of North Seattle while we're not even here to protect our house.
We're not bad off, though. The living room is steady at about 78F, and my office (where I am now, while L naps on the hide-a-bed under The Boy's supervision) is probably about 80. The upstairs is about 86. Outside is apparently 94.
I've been making fridge tea because the thought of even turning on the electric kettle is too horrifying to contemplate. It's working surprisingly well. Started with the cheap shit, but tonight I might make a carafe of something better, since tomorrow The Boy has to go back to work (he cancelled all of his meetings today and said he'd be on a bit, but only occasionally). This afternoon I think we're going to go to the Target again, unless we can think of another place we can take L that would be close, air-conditioned, and entertaining enough for a two-year-old to be worthwhile. I've been thinking vaguely of the nearest mall, and wishing the one actually nearest to us wasn't closed. It would probably be crowded, though, which the Target at least is not, and the Target also has covered parking, which I don't believe the nearest mall has.
We also went on a very short walk this morning after breakfast, staying on the shady side of the nearest street. I hope we'll be able to do that again tomorrow, because I doubt we'll be able to go anywhere else. By the afternoon when we usually go on our big excursion for the day, despite being cooler than it's supposed to get today I expect it will still be too hot to go to the lake, the playground, or the zoo, and those are my three good options for entertaining L when it's just me and we can't use the car.
