The Cure For What Ails You...

or, rather, the cure for what ails Ethan...

On Tuesday, as the amoxicillin started to do its thing, Ethan and I were faced with a wall of heat that was the Bay Area summer of '10 heat wave. Someone on twitter (I wish I could remember who) said it was like Mother Nature was having a hot flash.

It's been high 70's, maybe a low 80 here and there, all summer long. Really amazing, cannot-believe-I'm-so-lucky-to-live-in-Eden type weather. Then, out of nowhere, 105 degrees for three days. Hot flash. And as we are Mother Nature's helpless little minions, we had to suffer along with her. Because, you know, we've got no A/C. I guess I have to agree that for the 5 days of the summer you really NEEEEEED it, it's hardly worth installing central A/C or huddling into one room with a window unit all day. The only thing to do is close all the windows and shades around the house early in the morning before the sun starts to beat down. Then, when you first come in from outside, you feel a momentary sense of "ahhhh, cool," which quickly turns into "well, slightly less horrible than outside, but without a lick of air flow," and that turns into a full-on claustrophobic fit of "zomg! The walls! They're closing in! The air, it's gone! And its really dark in here!"

So, not really that much fun.

Eventually, once I was sure the fever was gone (good times trying figure that out when you're so sweaty hot you want to go sit in an ice-bath until you are prune-y), we jumped into the car & headed to the coast. When you live in a valley in California, you can count on at least a 20 degree difference in the temperature once you get to the shore. Which kind of makes me wonder why we don't live at the shore.

Taking a kid to the beach while he'a all strep-throaty and such doesn't necessarily seem like a good idea. But his fever was gone, the doctor said he wasn't contagious and there are few other places we could go where he could be around other kids without running much risk of spreading any stray buggaboos. And, watching that car thermostat inch downward as we neared Santa Cruz? Priceless.

We only stayed for an hour or so because I didn't want Ethan to totally wear himself out. But in that hour we jumped waves, found treasures (read: filthy disgusting bird feathers and random dried out sea weed--he's really not so adept at treasure finding yet) and I managed to get a super sunburn on my face.

And really, we should have stayed much later in the cool sea breeze all frolicky and happy, because we came home to a 95 degree temperature outside, 90 degree temperature inside AND...wait for it...a power outtage. From 6pm to 11:30pm. That's a whole lotta hours of outtage. Relatively speaking, of course (this is where my inner critic chastizes me for being so 1st world that 5 hours of power outtage makes me twitchy, but whatever, it was HAWWWT.) We lit candles in the living room, lost about 4 pounds of water weight as we sweat like beasts and found our way around the house by the light of our iPhones--which? Had a bit of a Blair Witch vibe that I did. not. dig.

You can't get to a beach around here without walking down some sort of stair case....

kelp-y beach. Thankfully this year Ethan decided he thinks sea weed is fascinating instead of being utterly terrified by it, like he was last year.

This picture shows why exactly we need stairs to get to Nor Cal beaches; it's hard to repel down the cliff with all the beach gear...

yeah, he's so sick.

Pelicans! We spent some time watching them dive bomb the waters for their lunch. They do NOT fuck around, people.

We liked it so much that, even though Mother Nature's apparently getting her hormone replacement meds tomorrow and the forecast is heading back down into the 70's, we're heading back to the beach. Chances are we'll have to wear long pants and a hoodie, but whatever. The beach is the beach & it's all good.