The Hot and the Cool

The storms are missing. Every day this week, severe weather events have failed to arrive as predicted, confirming my bias against meteorology and its practitioners. Might as well shoot craps, I say. Meanwhile, we sweat, we swear. We swear especially at the Humidex number, repeated endlessly as if it were useful information. The misery measurement: all it does is torque the psychological impact of July.

After my class early this morning, I cycled home in the oppressive heat, the long ride I wrote about a couple months ago. Family logistics made this a necessity. My daughter needed the car, and my son needed a ride to canoe camp, so she dropped me off with the trusty clunker bike. I looked at the sky and figured, yah, storms, although it's hard to believe the boy who cries wolf. Dark clouds shadowed me the whole way, and I beat them. I sweated but didn't swear. The trails in Peterborough are brilliant, winding through wooded shade and along the river. It was hot, though. And long, did I say long? I was a red-faced mess at the end.

My son has spent the coolest week on and in the river, taking part in a camp program offered by The Canadian Canoe Museum, a coolio (and air-conditioned) Peterborough place to visit. He comes home every day with wet hair, the only chilly person in this overheated household.

Here's an underwater clip to cool you vicariously, dear reader. This was taken by my daughter at the Lakefield beach a couple weeks ago. Normally electronics and water don't mix--she has lost a phone, camera and i-Pod in various lakes--but this camera was purchased specifically for its ability to swim.

Check out fish-kid. How does he smile without getting a lungful of water?