Caddy Day at the Pool

Summer is here, again, oh lord...

Funny, I wanted to use a Van Halen lyric to start this post, yet Journey popped into my head at the last moment. Anyhow... As much bitching as I've done over the past couple of months about how it's always cold and windy here in Las Vegas, especially on my days off, I think I can finally give it a rest. It is a sunny 94 degrees outside in America's Playground, and although we haven't done it yet, I think that tomorrow we'll be turning on the air conditioner for the first time in 2008.

Now before you people in cold weather places like Chicago and the upper midwest start freaking out about not using our A/C when it's 94 degrees out, I gotta run out the old cliche--it's a dry heat. Our old people don't start dying until it hits about 120 or so. And the Man Cave is on the north-east quadrant of our apartment building, so we get no direct sunlight except early in the mornings. And up until last week, we had lots of shade trees, too. (Yep, we're still down one tree, which remains lying on our front lawn, and has turned into the de facto jungle gym for all the rugrats in the neighborhood. That's always pleasant when I'm trying to sleep in the afternoons...) Because our apartment is the living-quarters equivalent of the Other Side of the Pillow, we're living quite comfortably with the windows open and the ceiling fan in the dining room circulating the air.

Even so, when I got home from work early this morning, I could tell the house was warmer than it should've been when I opened the front door (because we close and lock all the windows and doors before we go to work). So I had the place wide open while I did my late-night lurking around, in a moderately successful attempt to cool the place off. It seemed to work, and I slept like a baby for almost eight straight hours, waking up only for a brief second when I heard Falcon Rob come stumbling in from his night in the casino, talking on the phone to somebody. But I was passed out again just a minute later.

For whatever reason, I was still feeling a little groggy once I got up, so I've just kind of eased back into my day. I was thinking of going to the pool this afternoon, but I think I'm going to wait and go tomorrow instead. First of all, one beer wasn't enough to warrant a hangover, and I've got an ominous feeling that tonight I'll be drinking quite a bit more than I did last night. So I'll save the pool and sunshine for tomorrow, when I can bake the poisons out of my body. And I need some sun anyways--this swing shift gig eventually turns everybody into pale, pasty vampires. That's how you can tell the locals in Vegas--they're all bright white (and bright yellow) from lack of sunshine.

In fact, now that summer is here, I think I'm going to be spending a lot of time at the pool over the course of the next month or so. I may not have access to one by the time July rolls around.

Mikey