It's Too Darn Hot

I have heard a rather nasty rumor that it is supposed to get up to 102 degrees today. I'm not sure I understand that statement. I walked out of my house last night at 10pm on a quest to buy a frozen pizza (quest unsuccessful), and it was still 92. The sun had been down for a good hour and a half, and, as my co-worker at the box office so adequately said, "it felt like the outside was breathing on you. It's disgusting." I agree. I usually adjust to heat pretty well, but this is a bit much. It makes me laugh that the heat makes the front page of the Washington Post and various national news shows, and people that live in Arizona are complaining that they live in triple digit heat constantly throughout the summer and it never makes the news, thereby reducing all of us that live on the Eastern seaboard to pansies. I beg to differ. My response to these asinine comments is twofold: One, temperatures in Arizona drop to somewhere in the pleasant mid-70s if not lower once the sun drops. Two, you don't know jack about triple digit heat plus 85+ percent humidity. Here's a home experiment to try: take a woolen blanket, soak it in water that's been heated in your coffee pot, wrap it around you, then go outside in midday when the sun is at its peak and all the mercury in the thermometers is bursting at the seams, proceed to walk around trying to breathe, and then talk to me about a heat wave. The powers that be (I guess this is the weather service?) have issued warnings to people that essentially say, "It's really hot outside. Don't be stupid. Drink water and and try not to pass out." I am happy to oblige.

On the Menu

Dinner last night:
Vanilla La Yogurt - hurriedly gulped down between emptying trash cans, cleaning porta filters, wiping espresso grounds from top of espresso machine (how they're STILL managing to congregate on top, I have no idea), and looking at large, pink, viscous mass in mop bucket, shrugging my shoulders and walking away

Can of Coke - obtained as one of my free drinks at the Fringe Baldachino Gypsy Bar Tent. Still had to get my wrist stamped with red spider web to gain entry, but maybe it could just look like a rad tattoo.

Salad - should have been Caesar, but although we normally have every salad dressing known to man in our fridge, the Caesar had disappeared, and I was stuck with Italian. I added extra croutons to make up for my disappointment.

Tasty De-Lite - purchased at Aldi in Greenwood. It was $0.99 for a box of about 15 which makes me assume that someone dredged a land fill in order to come up with the contents explaining why the list of ingredients is filled with numerous unpronounceables. I didn't care, instead choosing to focus on the chocolate and cream filled aspect. It was delicious.

Glass of Orange Juice - thinking, for some unknown reason, this would go well with aforementioned Tasty De-Lite. It didn't.

Half glass of milk - in order to correct previous mistake

All in all, pretty darn healthy, I think. I do what I can.

As if I Needed Verification

Further proof of my blanket generalization in previous post:

Me: "Hi, it's me again, do you have the 58-3S battery in stock?"
Wal-Mart: "No, dat's da one we don' have."
"If I ordered it, how long would it take to come in?"
"Oh we don't orda batteries. Dey just come when dey come."
"Well when are they getting in then?"
"I don't know, dey come in on the inventory truck. It comes on a differnt day e'ery week."
"What day is it coming in this week?"
"I don't know, I just came in off vacation."
"Okay, well thank you."
"Uh-huh."

Another conversation, this time with the good ole Wal-Mart employees of the south.

Wal-mart: "This is Sportin' Goods."
Me: "Hi, I'm calling about a car battery? I need to know what type of battery would go into my truck."
"I'm sorry ma'am, cud you say that agin?"
"I'm calling about a car battery? I need to know what type would go in a 98 Ford Ranger."
"Whuddya mean, what tipe a battery?"
"There. Are. Different. Types. Of. Batteries. For. Different. Models. Of. Cars. I need to know which type goes into a 98 Ford Ranger."
"Well, alrite. Hole on jest a minit."

Really?

Not Even With Jumper Cables

My truck's battery died on Saturday. Died beyond any kind of natural or supernatural resuscitation. Not even if there were such a thing as Zombie Batteries that came crawling out of car engines foaming corrosive acid at the mouth and looking to eat other batteries for breakfast is it coming back. Ever. Which means, of course, that I have to replace it, and what would normally be a simple task if one lived in a smallish town has turned into a little mini-fiasco here in the city. One, practically every friend I have that owns a car decided to spend this weekend out of the city or working on a Sunday. Two, while I do try to have some grace regarding people in general, this experience has only served to prove that Wal-Mart employees are morons. First of all, when I called to find out how much their car batteries cost, they told me the automotive department was closed. "There's no one else that could tell me how much they are?" "No one that I know of." Oh really? Apparently Wally World has ceased to perform routine price checks. It's clearly too much to ask that someone walk back there and look at a sticker on a rack. My apologies.

Second, I found a friend with a vehicle and the willingness to take me by a Wal-Mart on the way to an event, only to find about 5 types of actual batteries for sale on a rack that should have housed about 30.
"Excuse me, I need a new battery, but you don't seem to have very many in stock."
"You noticed that huh? Well if we have your kind then it doesn't matter does it?"
"You don't."
"Oh."

When asked if they would call the Capital Plaza Wal-Mart to check their inventory, the man told me that they didn't do that there, that I'd have to go up to Customer Service. So that's not a phone sitting by your register? Silly me, I saw the 1-9 keypad by the banana shaped ear piece and got confused. He was, however, so generous as to tell me that I could just drive right on over to Sears and not only would they probably have the battery I needed, but they would install it right there for no extra cost. In my battery quest, I have lost count of how many times someone has uttered this to me. Well that's fantastic guys. I'm not sure what you don't understand about the fact that my battery is DEAD, but it's good to know that if I could Star Trek teleport my incapacitated truck to your location, that you would be happy to change out my battery free of charge. Next time, I'll try to make sure it spits out its last breath in your parking lot. As for tomorrow, I'm just praying for progress.

"Hot Town, Summer in the City"

It's July in DC, which, almost any year, equates with oppressive heat. I've chosen to walk the 16 blocks to and from my current gig at the Capital Fringe Festival box office, and while the sun packed all of its rays away behind thick layers of gray clouds for the first two days, and said clouds decided to dump eighty tons of water on us at once on Tuesday evening thereby leaving the temperature in the 70s for the following morning, I opened my front door today on a heat that forced me to adjust my breathing. At the onset, it felt like the air wasn't even moving, and walking on sidewalks meant being blasted every so often with exhaust fumes impossibly hotter than the air I was wading through. Walking anywhere in the summer takes about fifteen minutes of acclimation before one can even begin to feel the slight breeze playing hide and seek in the tree leaves. I saw a bum in brown sweats and white socks sprawled out on his blanket, a chunk of wiry black hair sticking straight up from his head making him look like a giant, sweating Buckwheat.

The city leaves its mark on me in the summer. It either draws sweat out of me slowly like a sponge or quickly brings tiny rivulets sliding down my temples and the back of my neck. It paints the bottoms of my feet black, punishing me for daring to wear flip flops on its hard sidewalks. I wash these momentos off in the shower, watching a kaleidescope of cityscapes and streets swirl down the drain at my feet. As I stand there, I realize the sun, like a soft, masked bandit, has stolen my energy; the theft unapparent until dusk falls, and I realize something's missing. I enjoy this kind of tired. My bones sink into the mattress, and I sleep deep, hard, and oblivious. It's been a day of knowing. And tomorrow it begins again.

Hipps Family, here we come!

I'm off to the eleventieth annual Hipps Family reunion! Let the weird bonding of blood ties begin. Click above for previous descriptions of familial lunacy.

The Way We Were

I have been sprinting down memory lane here in my hometown. Something about being in my adolescent bedroom with sporadic memorabilia peeking out from the bookshelves and constantly driving past my high school on my way to pretty much anywhere sparked a flourish of re-discovering some things I had forgotten. I spent one night reading through my high school yearbooks. According to these living epitaphs in brightly colored ink, I'm supposed to be on Broadway by now, and one classmate signed that he was going to call me so I could dance at his bachelor's party. Clearly, that isn't the road I took, although I may still retain some skillz. (wink wink, smiley face)

I came across some old journals as well. I like to think I've always been pretty mature about certain things. I never wrote stupid things like "I love (insert crush here)" on my notebooks. I was ashamed to discover that while I may not have written it on my notebooks, similar phrases are all up in my angsty writings from ages 13 - 15. "My feelings for Derek are stronger than ever. I'm convinced he's the one for me." Two entries later - "I hate guys!!! They're so stupid!!! I finally got up the nerve to ask Derek to take Nicole and me to Dairy Queen and he said he didn't feel like it. Well guess what? I don't feel like liking your stupid self anymore!!!" Like I said, epitome of maturity. The good days read something like this- "What's up self?!? Today was Wednesday which means it was soooo cool!!! Derek took me to Donalds where they go hunting and it was really cool! We did this thing at church and it was cool!! I'm really tired now so I have to go, but tomorrow is going to be really cool!!!! I can't wait!!!" Apparently I also had quite the dependency on voluminous punctuation.

To recap -
Bad Day = Crush not taking me for ice cream. >: (
Good Day = Things being really cool!!! : )
Ahhh. The simple life.

I wrapped up my memory lane excursion by going to the Hickory Point Exxon to buy a hot dog special (one hot dog all the way - mustard, chili, onions - a pack of chips and 16 oz drink for a whopping $1.81. 1980 called. They want their prices back.) I drove to my church parking lot to eat it, reminiscing about the time I ran my '89 Chevrolet Caprice over a bush and into a light pole there while swatting at a spider. (I had thought it was a bee! I preferred totaling my ride to swelling up like a fat kid.) Good times. I think the bush there is still growing crooked. As a campground attendant in Nashville once said, "Cute, but rough on things aren't ya?" Well, I do like to leave my mark.

I Saved the Goat!

One of several hilarious conversations while hanging out with my friends from college. 

Justin - "Hey Jenn, so what happened to your leg? I didn't hear the story but I saw you keep looking at it."
Joseph - "She was herding goats in Serbia and stepped on a land mine."
Justin - "Sweet!"

Later embellished to:

"You were herding goats in Serbia while on a moped. One of the goats fell down a cliff, and when you went to save it, your whip tangled up in the wheels thereby flipping the vehicle, but saving the goat in the process. The moped fell on you, but you saved the goat!"

Done. I'll take "The Real Story Behind What Happened to Jenn's Leg" for $600, Alex.