so florida decided to skip spring and go right to hot-as-Hades summer weather. and i want to stab my face with a hot poker. but i don’t need a hot poker, because all i have to do is go grab a branch from outside and it will double as a fiery hot poker in a pinch. i would love to say we’re getting outside and doing all these lovely spring things the rest of the blogosphere is blabbing on about, but i can’t. because instead of being “snowed in”, we’re now what i affectionately call “the-sun-is-scorching-my-skin-and-burning-my-eyeballs in”. it’s the opposite of being snowed-in. and i hate every second of it.

let me give you a rundown of a typical trip to the grocery store….

i start out by getting in the least amount of clothing legally allowed, and really it’s not much because i am disgusted with my body right now and wouldn’t want to subject anyone else to the scary rolls under my armpits. well, the armpits need to be hidden anyway because they’re like faucets that have been left on. so i usually put on a light skirt and tee. i have to put the baby in even less, because i wear him and if he’s in anything more than his cloth diaper, he looks and feels like he’s running a high fever. that, and he’s sweating profusely all over the front of my shirt, making it look like my boobs are sweating when i take him out of said babywearing device.

once we’re clothed appropriately, i walk out the door with henry and ezra. i’m holding ezra, so i have to prepare myself and him for the inevitable blinding that will occur once we walk out onto the surface of the sun. i usually just squint like someone with a matured nervous system does, but ezra’s head flails around and he looks like stevie wonder while playing a particularly raucous piano solo. he almost falls out of my arms every time we walk out the door. then we reach the car. i open the back door and have to wait at least a minute to let the heat come out, or i think i would literally cook my children from the inside out. oh, and i’m already sweating like the giant sweathog that i am by this point. i never wear makeup, like, ever. because it’s sliding down my face by the time i put the key in the ignition. but i digress. okay, so i have to put ezra in his car seat, making sure not to let the metal parts touch his skin, or i would brand the poor kid with the orbit symbol. i get in the front seat, and have to wipe the sweat from my brow immediately. usually by now, i’m wanting to just go back inside, run for the a.c., and rip my clothes off as i run to the front door. but we have no toilet paper, food, clean clothes….so i guess i HAVE TO go. sigh. so i forge ahead like someone stranded in the desert with no other choice but to keep going. now, i’m hallucinating that in my rearview mirror, there’s a pool behind my car. i get out, run behind the car as i’m stripping naked, and the neighbor has to once again yell that “there’s no pool there, tricia. it’s just another hallucination.” they put aluminum foil on their windows for this very reason. like i said, my body SCARES PEOPLE.

once we’re in the car, i pump the a.c. like it’s my job. it actually cools down the car pretty quickly, but not before my sunglasses have completely fogged up, due to the drastic change in temperature from my freezing-ass house, to the outside world, or hell’s waiting room. i lean back in the seat, and feel my entire back becoming soaked from the sweat that was pooling on my spine and is now making it look like i shat up my back.
henry is begging for water.
ezra’s soft spot is caving in.
now we’re at the store.
the refuge of the store is great. until you realize that you’re in a grocery store during snowbird season. i have walked quickly to the cart round-up, only to wait behind 974985 sun-burnt people in Hawaiian shirts and Crocs. at this point, i want to spit fire, and i’m fairly confident that i could actually shoot fire from my eyeballs because i’ve been outside today and i know the heat had to go somewhere.

then i get what i came for, and prepare myself for the journey back home. and now, i’ve got groceries to load and unload. my husband usually finds us all naked in the deep freezer when we get home from a trip to the grocery store.