Life: Idiotropic

If you've ever seen an old fashioned brick oven, then you know what we're living in. These brick houses, while beautiful, absorb heat and hold it, so even if it did, perchance, cool down (which it is not!), these bricks would still hold the heat for days. I think that we're all, quite literally, slow roasting in our own house.

These weeks with Arianna and Luci at school were supposed to be liberating and fun for Tiara and I. We are trying to get out and see things, but hte heat is everywhere and unescapable, so it's been really difficult to find something to do. Everything we want to do and see is outdoors - and 37C isn't quite the weather for exploring. The house isn't much better, so we're all getting restless and cranky. Tonight Luci fell asleep under the kitchen table while we were eating dinner. Elise is only happy falling asleep if her little sticky forehead is toucning my sticky forehead and she has an arm and/or let flopped over on me. Half the time she falls asleep, the unsticking-myself-from-her process wakes her up! Arianna is the only one that seems unscathed by the heat. She doesn't like it, but her bubbly personality won't be stopped. Tonight she went on and on about the magic show that she's performing tomorrow for her friends at school, "and there will be popcorn and lots of candy and you, mom, will bring the decorations." Her magic trick? Freezing. Yep, her friend, Nate, taught her how to freeze and she's convinced that "freezing" is a way-cool magic trick that will wow not only her friends, but their parents as well.




In the evenings... if it's cool enough, the girls play outside on the slide. Tante Tinny lets the girls use her bench cushions to speed down the slide faster. Freia and Beret (Tante Tinny's grand-nieces) come over and play with the girls too. Freia is 9 and the younger of the two and loves playing with all my little ones. Elise climbs up the ladder herself carrying the small cushion, but prefers to slide down "the big one" which they can all fit on. So, they pair up and slide together. It's very sweet and yields a lot of laughs.



The wheat is being harvested. Every day the fields change. Large tubs of wheat kernels block traffic regularly and other harvesters fill the fields. Bob the Builder is popular here, but I think they need to create a new show - Fritz the Farmer, who has every piece of John Deere farm equipment made. Some of them are quite scary. Really, I'd hate to run into one in the night with those long spiny arms up in the air. Some of the tractor-type vehicles here look like the monster from the Black Lagoon or some Alien lifeform. With eyes and a cartoon mouth, they'd be ready to teach our kids all sorts of life lessons on PBS or Nick Jr.