School! and heat! and August!

What can I say other than here it is! School started Thursday, it's going to be in the 90s the next several days, and that's August for you. 

I was thinking that in a couple of years August won't be like this for us anymore, because the kids will be out of school. (It'll still be hot, but school starting won't affect us.) But that's not true, because the whole city shakes, rattles, and rolls when school goes back into session. First the little kids go back, then middle and high schools, then the students move into the CU dorms, and finally CU starts and everything goes crazy. You've got teenage drivers ALL over town, the buses increase their routes, there are lines in stores and restaurants, there's no place to park. A good time to go somewhere there aren't schools, like maybe back to Yellowstone.

Right now, as I'm writing, it's almost 5 pm and 90 degrees. Not too terrible, but tomorrow it's supposed to be 95, so that will be worse. The main problem is that it's been hot for a few days now, so the house stops cooling off at night. Plus, it's only going to get down to 65 tonight, so that's not cool enough to do the trick. We're so spoiled, I know. It's been such an easy summer. We're not having a Tropical Storm, like southern California. Ridgecrest is flooding! Death Valley is flooding! And they just had an earthquake near Ojai! We're not having any of that. And we're not under an Excessive Heat Warning, like Rocket Boy in St. Louis. They're going to be in the 100's until next Saturday, plus of course high humidity. Right now in St. Louis it's 96 with 60% humidity. In Boulder it's 90 with 29% humidity. Even 29% is kind of high for us when it's not raining, but imagine 60% with no rain in sight.

So we're fine, really. But it is hot. I can tell it's hot because my legs are swelling. I've had almost no trouble with that this summer, until now. Also, I'm not hungry. And neither are the kids, really. The fridge is full of leftovers from dinners this week that I don't want to eat. We ate out at Great Scott's last night and I brought half of my sandwich home, but I don't want to eat it today. My food consumption today consisted of two muffins and a bowl of cereal. The twins weren't much better.

On the plus side, it is excellent laundry weather. No need to use the dryer, though it does take a long time to hang all the shorts and pajamas and underpants and socks on the line (shirts can go on hangers, on the hooks on the patio). But it's very satisfying to think that I'm drying the clothes without using fossil fuels.

I don't have a lot else to say. The twins were a little bamboozled by the first two days -- and Teen B brought home homework in three classes! -- but it wasn't a big deal and they're going back tomorrow, no arguments. The bus is free to everyone right now and will continue to be free to kids and teens indefinitely, so that's great, and also school lunches are free this year. A nice little savings.

I bought myself a new hummingbird feeder today, since the old one (on the left in the photo) is kind of broken and hard to clean. The new one (on the right) is much simpler. The lady at the bird store cautioned me to change the water EVERY DAY when it's this hot, but then amended that to every other day -- at least. I definitely should do it more than once a week. The hummers are stoking up, getting ready for their long journey in the fall. They'll be leaving in a few weeks -- I looked at my blog for last year and on September 11th I wrote that the hummers had stopped coming. So, maybe three more weeks? Oh, I'll miss them so much!

If I think of anything else to write, I'll come back and add it tomorrow. For now, good night.