"What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance."
~Jane Austen
(Add 25+ lbs for being pregnant and it's a recipe for disaster)
My hair is something you'd see in a Jackson 5 music video from the 70's. My makeup hasn't even been thought of in days, knowing that the melted makeup look is not for summer and more for Halloween to scare small children. My deodorant is getting it's fair share of usage and applying and reapplying is not in my normal daily hygiene regime. My skin is tanned and "glowing" but in all actuality it's sweat. They say ladies don't sweat, we "glow". I assure you now...this is not entirely true. I can't help but sit and sweat and even small tasks that seemed not far out of reach are certainly using every bit of energy I have, and making me sweat in quanities I don't want to admit. Ask my husband, I'm not much of a "sweater". I work out fully at the gym and don't feel accomplished because I have't the ring around my neck like others do. I push myself further the next day and still nothing. NOW?!?! In this HEAT?!?!...ask me again! ask me again!
In the midst of the heat and humidity, I find myself in a constant daze; entangled in an ongoing day-dream of anything cold, frigid, arctic, chilling to it's core and wishing I could perhaps have a hint of the icy blessing to hold near and dear to my heart.
Being 8 months pregnant, caught in the middle of this heat wave, I find myself halfway alive; going through the daily motions and the other half of me is quickly on its way to having a stroke. So long as half of my body is still fully functioning in order to intake any icy cold beverage (even through a straw---beggers can't be choosers and this point). The need to ingest it, to assist in bringing my body temperature down to the normal 98.6 degrees would be gratefully appreciated. Anything in these digits is just ridiculous at this point and I've had enough.
I never was a Rocky Balboa fan. Never have I sat through a marathon on TBS or even sat through an entire movie and witnessed what all the fuss is about. However, I have seen tidbits of the many movies that have been made with Mr Sylvester Stalone and "Eye of the Tiger" and a meat locker come to mind. Never before I have actually thought much about it, maybe that it was disgusting and you couldn't pay me to enter into a place that slung their slabs of meat from hooks that suspend out of the ceiling. However, being suspended from the ceiling in an iced down meat locker doesn't sound half bad right about now. I can feel the cold cement on my feet as I approach the apparatus and the chill slowly tracing it's way down my spine as it leaves the vents and enters into the open space designed specifically for icing meat down. That's exactly what I am at this point. A pregnant slab of meat needing to be iced down to refrain from spoilage.
My favorite childhood beverage is the slushy cups that any local 7-Eleven had in an array of colors and flavors. The cups with the dome shaped lid so you could overflow and not have to worry about wasting any of the goodness. Blue Raspberry was always my ideal chose. Slurp and slurp until your tongue was numb and completely blue, making it impossible to convince dad that I did NOT spend my last dollar of allowance on a slushy from the gas station. In the movie Half-Baked gets stoned out of his gourd and images this cup large enough to swim in like a giant slushy pool, completely enveloped in the icy substance. Could you imagine this utopia? To dive into the blue liquid and then enjoy drinking your way out. Ahhhh...why not me?! Why haven't I been so lucky?
Omaha area pools are actually contacting ice companies and ordering blocks of ice to toss into the pool to cool down the water. When temps reach the triple digits and the heat index surpasses our wildest imagination, it makes sense that water temperatures were rise making it not so refreshing to enter into the water, thinking you are going to cool down, only to be swimming in your own sweat. Mmmmm...delightful thought huh?
I'd like to rent one of such said ice trucks, preferrably with windows. I never was much for small, dark, closed in spaces. I'd throw a party. Everyone can wear fur bikinis and boots, maybe even a hat. So long as the hat is cute and perhaps in a nice plaid that reminds me of something you'd bought out of a giftshop in Alaska while you were vacationing there last year with your deadbeat boyfriend that loved to hunt for wild moose. You didn't think it was such a good idea then but now?..You're wishing you wouldn't have been so rash and dumped him for taking you on a terrible vacation after all. Maybe he'll take you back and you can plan a trip to Northern Canada where the roads are iced over and you can only get to the fishing cabin by helicopter. Canadian Walleye being prepared over an open flamed fire in a cabin tucked back in the woods where the running water is pretty much non-existant due to the freezing of the pipes. Sticking my tongue on a frozen pipe (a scene straight out of a movie) isn't the smartest idea I have come up with, however, I'd do it! Don't tempt me.
(Doesn't that look lovely?)
While in Vegas this past February, my husband and I were approached by these lovely eskimo dressed bar wenches working at some new-age establishment that allowed you to rent winter gear and dress from head to toe in fur and Northface styled winter garments and sit on blocks of ice and enjoy alcoholic beverages. At the time?...it was absurd. 1) I'm pregnant and would not have been able to fully partake in the true experience of this joint which saddened me 2) the thought of PAYING to literally freeze my @$$ off just didn't seem like my cup of tea (nor my snifter of thoroughly aged brandy). However, I could kick myself in the sweaty rearend for allowing this opportunity to pass right by me. Doh! Perhaps I'd still be frozen from the episode and thankful of the bar wenches whom talked us to what seemed like such a crazy idea.
Situated in a village in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden there is an ice hotel. The worlds largest Ice Hotel. I.C.E. H.O.T.E.L!!! Are you grasping this concept? Sleep well in -5*C hotel made entirely of ice and snow. I'll let the pictures do the talking...
If someone were to ask me, "Where would you like to go on vacation at this very instant?"..I'd most definitely have to say someplace cold (which would be a first for me). Flying is completely out of the question this far along in the pregnancy but I suppose I could try to make my home a freezer that would allow everyone to be cool and comfortable by turning the thermostat WAY down and lounging around covered in blankets and snuggling close to capture body heat.
I'm certain it's hormones. I'm certain that when winter comes I'll be complaining of the cold (like I normally do). I'm usually always cold yet this heat wave has got me all sorts of twisted and living an out of body experience. A sweaty, over heated out of body experience no less. I could literally explode...
