heat waves

I feel greasy and dry today. An oxymoron. The hot sun and humid wind has zapped all the moisture from my skin after sitting four nights in a row at the baseball field. No amount of scrubbing seems to remove the layers of SPF 55 sunscreen, so thickly applied to my pale, sensitive skin. The dust and dirt and grass feels imbedded into my feet and hands. It's a good dirty, a restful and happy dirty.

I'm also very hungry. Eating at the field is hard for a vegetarian. We have a grill, and the grill master is good about keeping me sated, but this weekend everyone was more interested in the games than the food and socializing. I've gone four nights without a proper dinner. Last night was a Sonic grilled cheese, overdone tator tots, and a sweet strawberry slush eaten on the fly in the first inning. I was hungry again by the ninth. I don't remember eating at all Sunday night. It's no way to live.

I need to do laundry. If you've never visited the deep South before, let me tell you about our summers. My early May birthday is the gate that opens to a wave of heat and humidity lasting until Halloween at least. At sun-up the temperature has already reached 80 some days, a scorching, melting 95 by noon. Even the shade offers little relief because the humidity can find you there too. Humidity is such a benign sounding word, like the warm air that helps you get over a cold or relaxes you in a sauna. It should be called butter-air or air-so-thick-you-need-a-knife. You're wet the minute you step out the door, if you can step, as the wetness engulfs you, sticking your clothes to every part of you, frizzing and flattening your hair, leaving a layer of dew on your skin that quickly mixes with the sweat the downright sweltering heat has immediately produced from you. It takes your breath away. There is no wearing something twice in the summer here, and after a long weekend of dressing nice but out in the sun, I'm nearly out of clothes.

I'm also a little bit annoyed, but amused. My office phone rings, I pick it up and am immediately ambushed by a gruff, rude male voice demanding my name, position, and physical address. I oblige with my first name and town, eventually my street, but I'm not giving anything else until I have more information from this abrupt man. In an accusatory voice, full of conspiracy theories, he complains about an unknown business calling him and says he will not give out his name or number until he knows who has been calling him. How in the world, I ask, am I supposed to find that out without a name or number for reference? Walk around the office saying "who's used the phone today to call a man?" I have a one-up on him, having caller i.d., but I don't let on just yet. I want to see how far he'll push it. Ten minutes later of going around and around this, me having determined this guy is a complete whack job (I'm going to come to his house and steal his things? Why would I call first?), I say "Mr. Smith (using his name from the i.d. for the first time), I have caller i.d. so I have your name and phone number here. I'll find out who's calling you. Until then I'd appreciate it if you'd let me get back to my work." And I hang up. Turns out, one of our clients was having a hard time with one of their customers, so they passed his name onto our IT manager. I don't know why-- his explanation was "they like the way I handle people." I suppose I get that, he's a down-to-earth kind of guy and this customer sounded like those are the only types with whom he could ever get along. The IT manager had been trying to reach him, leaving him messages. I knew nothing about it. Being the person that answers the phones, you'd think that would be pertinent information for him to pass along.

Greasy, dry, hungry, dirty, and annoyed is no way to be. At least under it all I'm still happy today.