According to the broadcast media, the Las Vegas heat is still at record levels** hence another article about…life in Las Vegas when the temperatures are just too high.

**Which is 95% media hype. Every summer, the temperatures are like this. This is normal and it’s time to start reporting the beloved warmer temps and/or other weather as a non-news event
–LLV Editor.

Had lunch with a friend last Wednesday. She’s a normal go-getter with tickets everywhere. The weather has been so hot for so long, she told me she had a whole week where she went….nowhere!
(Saves on the gas costs, but…)

My garden? So sad. One of my yellow Lantanas–the plant that thrives every summer–is without blooms. A big rose bush has withering leaves. AND I even had a medium-sized palm tree, usually heat tolerant, simply fall over.

Even a beloved entertainer can’t help talking about the heat. She sweats…in those gorgeous sparking outfits…and as a result hugs very delicately, if at all.

AND, though the politics on the TV have been newsy, so much at-home time because of the heat means too much TV.

So I read. Taking a tip from the TV, I read I Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance (non-political and drives residents from the Appalachians’s crazy with the inaccuracies.) I also read The Biography of Kamala Harris by Ashley Stephens (interesting though political). Current book: Miss May Does Not Exist: The Life and Work of Elaine May, Hollywood’s Hidden Genius by Carrie Courogen – (very interesting).

But though I am reading a lot, TV still has appeal and I just watched the opening ceremonies of the Paris Olympics–-spectacular in every respect (scenery, singers, dancers, acrobats, water shows, flames, and Celine Dion (tears of admiration from me.) Even though the heat will continue through the weekend, at least I’ll have the Olympics on TV.

Back to the heat:

Yesterday when I went outside to put mail in the mailbox I returned to the house and my door-handle was so hot I could hardly open the door.

I forgot to cover my steering wheel one day when at the casino and the wheel was so hot I had to dump a bunch of water I had with me on the wheel to cool it down before I could drive. The car was almost in tears.

My electric bill (I have solar) and my water bill have been so high I feel like my last name is Rockefeller.

My dogs are bored, too. I can tell.

AND I have one air conditioner that was not working and called the folks who installed it. They sent a man the next day and he said I needed a new coil (paid by the warranty) and new filters. I waited a week, no follow-up call. So I called them. Oh yes, they’d deal with my situation. It’s been another week and no call. I have a working air conditioner on a room with a TV so I’m OK. But this little old lady is mad….

My hummingbird feeders are now empty. The heat curdles the juice, so the birds stopped coming and I stopped mixing water and sugar for them. I’ll wait for cooler weather. Where are the hummingbirds now? I hope that they are O.K. I miss them.

The good news: My bird feeders have regularly been empty–-even in this heat. But no early morning bird calls. I miss that, too.

In the meantime, I’ve made semi-regular visits to a local casino but somehow the casino is not fun any more. So I join the stay-at-home crowd, save money and cross my fingers that sometime soon…either a tall handsome UPS man will fall in love with me and make mad passionate love for weeks or…there will be Fall.