A few days back, we had lunch with one of Meredith’s friends and the friend’s mom. It was delightful. As expected, the girls decided to plan a play date. (I still hate that term.) Because Friend wanted to meet Scout, we planned the get together for yesterday afternoon at 12:30. (I’ve gone on and on about how bad I am at inviting the girls’ friends over, so I won’t do the broken record thing with you. You know me.)
Less than an hour into the play date, I noticed that I was sweating. So hot. Crazy hot. 84 degrees in the house. It didn’t help that I had been baking cakes and boiling chickens, but still. Shouldn’t an 18-month-old air conditioner be working better than this?!
I immediately did what anyone would do.
I stuck popsicles down my shirt and sent the kids downstairs to play. (It’s at least 15 degrees cooler downstairs.) ((By the way, do you see the look on my face? My kids know that look as the “We better turn this ship around and start puking random compliments at Mommy!” look.)) I’m sure seeing me with popsicles in my shirt made Friend downgrade my status from Okay to Junk. (Junk was her insult for Miley Cyrus, as in, “I think Miley Cyrus is junk.” I sort of like it, but toward things rather than people. “This fig dip is junk! Diet soda is junk!”)
Side story: At one point during the play date, I offered Friend some gluten-free cookies. She tried them, hated them, and then asked for one of my cucumbers.
Me: Really?
Friend: Yes.
Me: Okay. Do you need me to cut it or peel it or anything?
Friend: No, I’ll just take it.
Me: Do you need something to dip it in?
Friend: Ew. No.
I washed a cucumber, sliced off both ends, and handed it to her. She eats cucumbers like apples. She ate the entire thing. I’m 41 years old, and I’ve never seen anyone do this. Excellent. Anti-junk.
After Friend went home, I went downstairs and noticed that the air conditioner was all iced up. I called our trusty air conditioner guy and he told me to clean the filter and TURN THE AIR CONDITIONER OFF for two hours to let the ice melt. Jeff cleaned the filter and quickly took the girls to VBS—leaving me and the dog sitting in the heat. Scout, sensing how ruffled I was, quickly crawled under the table and took a nap. Me? I raged and cursed and stuck a few popsicles down my pants.
At ten o’clock in the evening, the air had cooled the house to 78 degrees, and this is nothing but good, because I had canceled all plans for today in order to sew a pair of popsicle underpants. Have I mentioned that I’m counting down the days until autumn? Only 72 more days! (My opinion: Summer is junk.) ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>
We are in the midst of a record-setting number of days in a row over 100. This is our equivalent of a blizzard. At least I can go to the pool! All the moms stand in a corner of the shallow end and chase the kids off from our corner and nurse giant frozen margaritas (which aren’t so much good as FROZEN).
There is a definite theme here with cukes and popsicles being that they are long and roundish but I can’t make a witty comment about it without coming off as sexual so I’ll just say, bravo! to the young Friend who eats cucumbers like that! I am impressed and have never seen such a thing, either. I delicately slice them and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
I dig her style. (And, of course, yours because I am 40 years old and have never seen anyone with popsicles down their shirt or pants.)
I’ve always loved summer. I love the heat. I soak it up like a rock. But we visited our old home last weekend and it was 108. It was too hot. Odd, because I never felt that way before, but yeah…108 is too hot.
Soak your underwear in water and then put them in the freezer. I dare you.
Your picture made my day, maybe even my week!!! I hope your AC isn’t junk for the rest of the summer. :)
It’s all the fault of your cotton-wickin’ anti-stink!
um, i need to get a F to C converter out…(canadian) but it’s NASTY hot here too–today is comparably cool at 27C–the humidity isn’t here, but it’s supposed to return on the weekend with a vengeance. I don’t fare well in heat. The AC has been on much more than usual recently…I feel for you. I would head down to the basement to cool down too–my sewing “room” is in the basement, as is a play area for the kids. If I were able to stay home with my kids, we’d be living there and at the splash pad at the local park!
(those look more like giant freezies than popsicles)
On another note, I am currently tempted to pull on my cardigan as I am shivering at my desk…
Maybe your a/c has been busy sticking popsicles down its own shirt and/or underpants….could explain the ice?
Totally agree: summer is junk. Ugh.
Regarding the cucumber….(sidebar: don’t think I’ve ever strung those three words together before) I first saw someone do this when I went to France as an exchange student in college. One of the girls who was traveling with our group bought a cucumber at a street vendor, and as we were walking down the streets of Paris (of all places!), she began eating the cucumber like it was a banana (minus the peel). The rest of us were completely horrified (I can only imagine what the Parisians thought!!), and we continued to daintily nibble our chocolate croissants while trying to put as much distance as possible between us and her. All this to say, I can understand your surprise at the situation.
I’m not going to admit to eating a cucumber like that, but I will say that I can understand the urge to eat a cucumber that way, in private where no one else can see, especially if the veggie knife is dirty and it is a small cucumber and the person eating it was starving to die because they were busy working all day and didn’t have time to cook. Under those limited circumstance then I can understand why a person might eat a cucumber with one hand and keep flipping through paperwork with the other. Not that I’ve ever done it. Nope.
St Louis is definitely a place that causes you to wonder how anyone lived there without a/c. My mother tells stories – she grew up there- and they make me want to run screaming. I do NOT like being hot…..at all.
I know that face…that was also my face last week as I was in the same boat with a frozen a/c. And I bitched and moaned until the next day when the air was finally cooler. My husband was trying to get to the bottom of why it all of a sudden it froze solid, and kept asking me if I turned it down. I kept saying, no, nope, not I…then I cracked and said, “I only turned it down one degree!” Evidentally that was one degree too many.
P.S. I wish I had thought to put popsicles down my shirt.
I have never understood how an A/C unit freezes up in the middle of the summer. I mean I guess I could just google it or use my silly engineer brain but that would be a lot of work. I prefer to sit and ponder on the mystery of it all, while wading through piles of paperwork on my desk.
Summer IS junk! And air conditioners that break in the summer are also junk. And any kid who thinks Miley Cyrus is junk and eats cucumbers like apples is okay by me.
Okay – I am glad that someone said “those look like giant freezies” because I read this on my phone, and I thought those were unwrapped “popsicles on a stick” and I could not stop wondering about how sticky that must be – and THEN you said you stuck them in your pants, and I really thought “wow, I know the heat affects your brain, but why doesn’t she just use ice cubes – because what a mess?! Maybe she’s out of ice cubes.”
Then I looked at the picture on the big screen and realized that those popsicles would not be melting all over your shirt.
I am pretty sure this says a lot more about the effect of heat on my brain than on yours, btw.
Also, please note how many weird google hits you get for the phrase “popsicle down my pants” and then share with the group. Thanks.
Hi Fluid Pudding! I haven’t been able to drop in for ages because I had a baby and she’s so DEMANDING all the time, with the crying and stuff. But I have to tell you, I heard about Victoria Beckham’s baby and I thought of you! Can you believe she stole your name??? It is such a beautiful name and look, you started a trend before Posh Spice! That is so cool. Glad to see you’re still doing exciting spinning and popsicle- bra-wearing stuff – look forward to reading more!
I don’t know if it’s OK to swear in your comments, but when I saw my feed reader earlier, I thought “I’d better check out FP’s shitsicles… what the hell could THAT be?” Missed the r in there… :)
I totally read that as “shitsicles”, too. :-)
My non-meat eating daughter eats cucumbers like that all the time, tomatoes too. I love it…I am lazy.
Summer is complete junk. I love autumn sweater weather.
Both my kids eat cucumbers that way, and I have occasionally joined them. It is particularly good with the little ones that I have seen called both persian and armenian, surprisingly refreshing.
I am so adding the use of “junk” this way to my lexicon.
Not to mention “anti-junk.”
Let’s get this party started.