Chill-away Camp

I'm still nursing my wrist, and still doing a lot of non-blog writing, which is still seriously cutting into my blogging time. It's been cutting into my Twitter/Facebook time, too, so I figured I'd better leave an update so nobody thinks I died.

Our air conditioner is broken. Again. It's done this every summer since we moved into this house, which I think is a good argument in favor of replacing the ancient piece of spottiness. We took out a debt-consolidation loan large enough to cover a replacement, but Matt's still nervous about committing to throwing that much money at the house, even though that thing's so old that any new AC is bound to be way more efficient and lower our cooling bills, no matter whether or not it's rated high-efficiency, which I think is another good argument in favor of a replacement. And also that we'll need to replace it before we sell the house anyway, so we might as well get it done now and reap the benefits for a few years. I think you can see which side of the argument I'm coming down on. But we're both too cranky to discuss it calmly and come to a mutual decision because it's so motherlovin' HOT, you guys!

By the by, this week I learned that a broken AC, short shorts and a leather desk chair are unmixy things.

Anyway, maybe we can figure out the AC business during our long weekend camping at the lake. At least, I think we're going camping this weekend. Matt suggested perhaps putting it off until the weather cools down a bit, but I pointed out that we can be hot here, or we can be hot there, where there is a great big lake to jump in to cool us off. Besides, the whole reason we were scrambling to go this weekend in the first place is because we realized he starts back to school next week and by the time the weather cools off he'll probably be too buried in studying and paper-writing to go. So it's pretty much now or... not this year.

And, you guys. This is my ONLY shot at getting a vacation this year. And you know, if you've been paying attention AT ALL, how desperate I'm getting for a vacation. Even if it's just a hot and sweaty long weekend in a tent at the muddy-bottomed lake out by where I grew up. At least it will be a long weekend without internet access or cell phone reception or anywhere to plug in my laptop, all of which will force me to, y'know, chill the heck out. Which at this point is ALL I NEED.

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Matilda the turtle is doing well, for those who were wondering. She's the only one of us who doesn't mind the sweltering heat. She just buries herself in the back yard for the worst of it, and at night it's saving me from having to turn on the reptile heater in her indoor tank. I've got a pretty good handle on what she likes to eat, or rather, what she likes to be fed on the days when she hasn't managed to catch some bug the size of her head and remind me that she is perfectly self-sufficient, thank you very much, lady who is holding me prisoner. But for all that she still makes a beeline for freedom every time I let her roam the back yard, she otherwise seems to be enjoying all of the attention and pampering. I'm pretty confident that a bigger habitat will nix her escape attempts.