Saturday, July 10, 2010

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen

The Texas summer is in full swing. I remember living in other parts of the country and complaining about it either raining too much or snowing too much. Never did I complain about it being too sunny. But here we are in Dallas and the weather just seems to be more oppressive than usual. It is too hot to do anything. It's even too hot to go to the pool, which seems crazy I know.

That's the thing about living in Texas that I hate most of all. When the kids are home for summer vacation and you should be able to play outside for hours on end, you simply can't - unless you lather sun block on them, give them gallons to drink, and tell them to come inside every hour or so to get a break from the 105 heat index. Add to this fact, that there is no where to go.  Oh sure you can go to a city park, where the playground slide could fry a dozen eggs in less than 30 seconds. Maybe you can go to the pool, but the above rules apply there too. Where are the shaded dirt trails, where does the concrete jungle end and nature begin? Where's the harmless creek with frogs and tadpoles? Those are about 300 miles away.

You may tell me that it hasn't been bad this week, we've had lots of rain to cool things off. Sure, you would be right, but when it does rain, it comes down in buckets and it's a thunderstorm with dangerous lighting, so they can't be outside for that either. That's why the summer in Dallas really can be described as the Dog Days, because there's just nothing to do, unless you pay $30 to see a movie or play in an indoor gym somewhere that doubles as a coin-eating arcade.

Everyday my kids tell me they're bored. Everyday I have to come up with something new to keep them going. We've played just about every game we have and watched just about every movie 3 times. Throw in my mom's funeral and you can see why this has been a particularly difficult summer on the children. I wish the weather would literally "chill out" for a while. But until that happens, we'll remain "Hapless in Dallas".

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