It's a conspiracy!

As I've mentioned before and many of you may remember from last summer, I have no A/C in my humble abode. With all three fans blowing it was still 97 degrees in my apartment. My only course of action was to sit, scantily clad, in front of a window with the fan blowing and moving as little as possible. This is exactly what I did for two days this weekend. I reread the first two books in a series and then read the third, along with a fourth book by a different author. Round about 5:30 or so, the power went out. "It was bound to happen," I thought. Unconcerned, I headed over to Jack In the Box for dinner. I came back and finished the fourth book by the dying daylight and then by flashlight.

It was 8:00pm. Too hot move. Too hot to sleep. Not a breeze stirring anywhere. I lay quietly until nature's call made me head to the bathroom. While I was up, I decided to go the the kitchen and get a big bowl of ice. I was breaking up the ice when something tickled my foot. My hair has been sticking to me and tickling all week, so I absently kicked my foot thinking it to be a strand of hair. I glanced down, flashlight in hand, to see a giant (okay--about 2 inches) "water bug*" on my foot. I screamed. I kicked. I screamed some more. "You get away from me," I told it. I ran to the bathroom, grabbed the can of Black Flag, and ran back in time to catch him trying to disappear into the living room. I sprayed his little buggy ass into oblivion, but the heebies and subsequent jeebies were too much. Has anyone seen Constantine? You know that scene where Keanu and Rachel are downtown and the street lights are all off, then Keanu raises a torch and you see that they are surrounded by demons in the darkness? Yeah, that's what I kept imagining would happen when I turned off the flashlight, only of course with cockroaches, not demons.

I hurriedly threw a change of clothes, my toothbrush, hairbrush, and mascara into a bag, tossed on a pair of shorts, a tank top and my Keds, and ran to the car, calling Tami on the way to tell her I was on my way to Pasadena. Tami's house was not much cooler, but at least the lights worked and there were no creepy things to crawl on my feet. I didn't sleep much, but I slept more than I would have at home.

I was actually looking forward to work today. "Ah, air conditioning and lots of it," I thought. Um, no. That was not meant to be. There was a power outage over in these parts too and the A/C did not kick back on when the power did. It's 85 in my office. I'm beginning to think Alaska would be lovely.

*It should be noted that I do not normally have this type of house guest. The FJ couple downstairs moved out and recently there were handymen in there tearing up the carpet and plumbing, most likely causing the migration of the aforementioned critter.