day 13-when its hot.. get some ice-e

it's been hot.. i mean jungle hot. the kind of hot where, if you turn your ac on when you get home from work and the room cools off, the bed is still cooking. we just had some storms roll in to cool things off, and the temps tomorrow will only be in the mid 80's. such a good thing.

when its hot what do you think about? you think about cold things.

imagine you are 7.. you are at the ice skating rink and you have just gotten your blade skillz. you make a couple of loops of the ice. (ice grinding under your skates as you turn) after the third turn you pick up speed for the straight away. get ready for that turn.. but oh no. . .

little girl in the way. you can't turn fast enough as she wobbles out onto the ice... arms swinging trying to get her balance.

bump. she hits the ice and your veering to the right to avoid.. headed right for the wall. only one thing to do. slide.

slide right into the corner which is always filled with the ice shavings from 70 people making turns right at that corner. the blades of their skates spitting out little bits of ice to land in.

you are covered in the stuff. its like snow.

that always brings a chill to me. its a lot better than criss cross applesauce.

though even better is eating ice. and eating ice that is flavored with real fruit juice is even more chilling.. chills me to the bone. there is even banana flavor, which i am sure is terrible.

at a buck61 it can't be beat..

to beat the summer heat.

thanks fla-vor-ice.

all this heat has got me quite worried about the power bills this summer. during the day we run 4 ac's in the house. one for each bedroom and one for the kitchen. usually i just suck it up and eat the bill. this year i just don't know.

con-ed's feed to us comes from a mix of gas, oil and nuclear. with oil up it might be a hard summer.

back when i lived in greensboro, north carolina i had a theory about ac. it was handed down to me by my old boss at first carolina delicatessen. he said (basically) "you can spend the entire summer sitting in front of a fan and just be grumpy all summer, or you can work an extra shift, cut back on a few beers and jack that ac up. pull that winter blanket over you in july and just be comfortable."

i looked at dean and said "can i have an extra shift?"

and so i went, pulling that warm blanket over me, never letting the summer heat doldrums get me.

now i am salary. the cash is stretched and extra hours are just free hours for the company. you may like you job and are willing to do that. not me.

don't really like my job, and really i am not going to be working any extra.

"no sir, i would prefer not to work extra. can you find someone else? i have... um plans or something."

sure i could have used my 600 bucks to pay the power bill, but then we would not be here reading this would we.

so instead i am going to have to suck it up a little bit. maybe a little less eating out. a few more bulk trips to the grocery store. i am a damn good cook and i am going to work on the cooking and feeding myself a bit more. this will (i hope) alleviate the inevitable crazy power bills.

people might say i should be a bit greener and not use the ac.

to them i say. "have you ever lived on the top floor of a building where your ceiling is the roof and your walls are the outer brick wall?"

you think it was hot out there in the city. come try my place without the ac.

that's hot.

jungle hot... the kind of hot that melts the paint. the kind of hot that makes your lady pass out within seconds of hitting the couch.

hot.

wrapping up.

587.57 at the start
buck61 spent today
585.96 left to go

the kitty stands at 28cents

maximum spending tomorrow

a buck92

i can spend that much tomorrow

you can't stop me