Heatex

[jarissa]

Our back door is one of those glass sliding doors so popular in this area -- the sort we're never going to get again, because our dogs (and their thick heads) long ago warped it in its track. The rollers are broken (in one case, missing entirely) and it's difficult to open the ruddy thing. We will replace it, eventually, but it's going to be quite the production -- especially given that we're replacing more than twice the space of a door with one swinging door and some extremely sturdy windows.

Until we have the time and funds to afford this project, putting the girls outside to bark at clouds and get some exercise is a bit of an effort, and letting them back in again is an equal effort. I put them out today for Midafternoon Antsy Dog break, sat down at my computer, and checked the weather:

Heat Index, 107°F. Wind, 0.0 mph

Of course I immediately got back up to let them right back in. They have clean water, a huge shade tree mid-yard, a sturdy table to hide under, and a doghouse each, but that's still bake-dog's-brains levels of heat.

This is something like the fourth or fifth day in a row of high heat indices and no breeze to mention, and it's really getting to most of the folks I know. In fact, tireseas  may be the only person of my acquaintance who is unruffled: he hasn't got much capacity to be cranky anyway,and seems generally unaffected by any weather conditions short of "blizzard".

As I fought the door open to let the dogs in, I concentrated on a silent message for the Department of Oversight: You DO know that it's only mid-June, right?!

The only maybe-answer I got was a brief, low-level memory flashback to Gonzo's song in The Muppet Movie, particularly the lyrics, "Sun rises, night falls; Sometimes, the sky calls...." If I go with the theory that this wasn't random coincidence, then I still have to figure out if that was suppose to be a response, or Muzak to the effect of "all operators are busy, please try at a later time."