Bitch 'n' Moan

It is HOT.  Seattle is in the midst of a heat wave.  Today it is supposed to hit 101 degrees, which will make it the hottest day ever.  Last night the low was 70 degrees, which, believe it or not, was the hottest night ever.  That's right, there had never previously been a single night since they started recording these things that it did not fall below 70 degrees.  By the end of the week, we may well have broken the record of five consecutive days of 90+ degree heat.  (Yes, Seattle has never had six days in a row of 90+ heat.)  To top it all off, it is unusually humid.  Not as bad as NYC in August, to be sure, but it's bad.

Since Seattle's usual July average temperature is 75 or so, very few houses have air conditioning.  This includes our house.  Yesterday when I came home from work, it was 88 degrees in the house.  It was also 88 degrees outside (evening temp, down from 97).  Yesterday at work the air conditioning was not working well, and downstairs there is never any air conditioning at all.  The woman whose office contains the computer servers measured her office temp at 98 degrees.  The servers actually sent her a warning message saying they were too hot and she'd better damned well do something about it.

I am off today, and I spent the morning running errands, then  spent the better part of the afternoon shopping for no reason other than that stores are cool.  Last night I slept on the recliner in the basement.  I have never been great with the heat, but being pregnant and hot is just about as bad as it gets, really.  Oh yeah: I've had a headache for the last week, too, probably from the heat.

All I have to say is that, when I moved here, people told me it did not get hot in the summer, and that it did not snow in the winter.  Seattlites are really big fat liars.

One of the errands I had to run this morning was a visit to the lab to have a Glucola three-hour test.  I had to have blood drawn four times, once when  I arrived, then once every hour for three hours.  My veins are notoriously hard to find: every time I have blood drawn, the person doing it comments on it.  Techs frequently have trouble, but oddly enough, doctors never miss (I don't know why this should seem odd, since they're doctors, but I guess I imagine they do not draw blood as often as techs and so might be less practiced).  My favorite was the guy at Student Health when I was in grad school who asked, "Would you mind if I missed?"  Um, yeah, dude.  I'd mind.  He called in a nurse, who called in a doctor, who asked, "Did you bring your veins today?"  He didn't miss, though.

Anyway, for four blood samples this morning, I got stuck seven times.  I thought she was going for the full eight, but on the last one she finally managed to hit the vein on the first try.  Both arms have multiple marks.  I feel like a junkie.

Anyway, I am going to go hide n the basement now.  If I can stand to move (because I still sweat in the basement, even though it is much cooler down there), I will continue knitting the Stella Pixie Hat which I began during my three-hour wait in the lab this morning.  If I can't move, I will sleep.  Ugh.