Is It Hot Enough For Ya?

I honestly hate when people ask me that, but I’ll get to that in a minute. First, I want to draw attention to my inaugural (doesn’t that make it sound all official and prestigious) Window of the Week, or Wednesday Window of the Week. It comes from a long time visitor here, ChefMom. If I remember correctly, this was taken in Florida and it has caused me to play Jimmy Buffett since putting it up on my cube’s walls. Seriously, look at that ode to a tropical/nautical/palm treed oasis and then try listening to The Carpenters, Bee Gees or even Barry Manilow. It just doesn’t work. In fact, it’s like putting chocolate syrup on your perfectly grilled t-bone. I can tell you though that the window idea is proving popular with my coworkers. They all stopped in to look at my window and smiled when I told them why a random picture is hanging in my office. They seem to think it’s a very good idea and are most likely smiling at me to mask their jealousy that they don’t have a window and that they didn’t think of it before I did. Of course, as soon as they walk out they all congregate near the fax machine and laugh. They may be mocking me, but they don’t have windows like I do. Those fools! They’ll be asking me for my windows soon. They’ll come begging. You’ll see.

Now, as for the heat statement. On the unofficial, non-workplace endorsed list of 2008 holidays (Hi Kat), Wednesday is ‘Is It Hot Enough For Ya Day.’ I guess it happens every July 23rd. The ironic part about it this year is that in my part of So Cal, it has been unusually cool. I guess cool isn’t the correct word, but I will say that I woke up in the middle of the night Monday and had to turn off the fans because I was so cold, but then I am on blood thinners and react to cooler weather the same way a medication-laden octogenarian does. We’ll just say a paper cut causes me to bleed like an artery was severed. There have also been clouds and a cool breeze. Basically, not quite the weather that would make me say ‘is it hot enough for ya?’ I have said, ‘wow, what nice weather we’re having,’ recently though. Gheesh, can I possibly get any more boring here? Don’t answer that.

After typing those last few sentences, I feel like I should be ending my weather related phrases with ‘sonny.’ I’ve always felt that talking about the weather was something you start doing when a) you have nothing else to talk about, b) you are retired or c) you have reached the age where you get grumpy if you are not eating dinner at the local diner by 4PM. Whenever we used to decide to go out to eat, we’d try to get there early to beat the crowd, thus leaving our friends to ridicule us for being old. So what if we prefer shuffleboard to volleyball. Though it is interesting to sit in a restaurant with two five year olds while everyone else around us is gumming their food or requesting that their pot roast be strained and mashed to the consistency of baby food. I’M KIDDING!! Hold back on the hate e-mail, I’m just kidding.

It does strike me as odd that summer, the hottest time of the year, is considered BBQ weather. That might hold true for the guests at the BBQ, but certainly does not for the person assigned the grilling duties. Think about it: it’s 100 degrees out and you are sweating over a 375+ degree fire in the grill. I’m not good at math, but doesn’t that create a combined ambient temperature of 475 degrees? Right? I used the word ambient to give my equation more validity; that’s not normally how I speak. And then comes winter when it’s freezing outside and you can warm yourself over the same hot grill, but everyone else is huddled warmly inside or didn’t even bother to come over because no moron invites people to a Hawaiian themed BBQ in the dead cold frozen abyss of winter. And trust me because I may or may not be speaking from experience, depending on what that would do to your opinion of me.

So in conclusion, to celebrate Wednesday’s holiday, I sincerely ask you ‘is it hot enough for ya…sonny Jim?’