cruel summer

It is apocalyptically hot in this part of the world. We haven’t had a daytime high below 100 for at least a week now. The only thing that’s saving us from the 110s, apparently, is the altitude – in Phoenix, which is a day’s drive away, more than a dozen people have died during this heat wave. Las Vegas has been brutal, too, from what I understand.
We have no air conditioning here at Casa Dodds, in our bungalow that sells for roughly half a mil. (Yoikes!) We do have the Colorado equivalent of air conditioning – two swamp coolers, devices that humidify as they suck the heat out of the air. In order to make the swamp coolers work as they should, I run up and down the stairs each day, filling the swamp coolers (one upstairs, one down) with water. Before it gets too hot, I use the coolers as fans, letting them blow without the water’s cooling effect. In this heat, though, I might as well try to cool the house with hair dryers.
The other side of the summer one-two punch here is the smog. My sister-in-law came for a visit, and as I drove back from the airport I should have been able to see the mountains and the Denver skyline, nestled snugly in front. I should have. But instead, I could just make out outlines through the air, which was brown and grainy and looked as if God had forgotten to sweep the sky this morning. Unfortunately, on these days we can’t go out – we have an 18-month-old, and one of my older children is borderline asthmatic, so I try to keep her out of the dirty air. Oh, but for a clearing in the smog so we can spend a sunscreen-slathered day in a nice, cold pool.

But there are those moments when, finally, I see what all the fuss is about. I love that view from the airport, at least on clear days. I love seeing babies with brightly colored fauxhawks being strolled through the park. I love being in the mountains after dark, when suddenly the air cools by thirty degrees and the stars feel so close. I love Garden of the Gods (even if it is in Colorado Springs, home of Focus on the Family and the Air Force Academy, where they “don’t” force you to choose Christianity as your religion).