Heat wave

I was reading an article this morning in our local newspaper that quoted a National Weather Service forecaster as calling the heat wave gripping the central part of the country “unrelenting.” Temperatures on the prairie soared to 98 today.

A good friend of mine lives in Oklahoma, which is particularly bearing the brunt of the heat. In the same article it reported in Oklahoma City another day of 100-degree heat was expected last Sunday, making it the 27^th day the city reached 100 or above. (I’m behind on my newspaper reading). And the triple-digit temps could last through September. My friend, Sandra Dark, is the co-author of a book coming out that month on weatherproofing your landscape.

Sometimes I wish there was a way to weatherproof my internal landscape, to better manage my inner mercury. Oh, I’ve mellowed considerably as I’ve aged. It’s been nearly 30 years since I lobbed a blob of Thanksgiving pie dough at the ceiling of the apartment my husband and I lived in our first year of marriage. I’m fairly certain something was preying on my mind in addition to my leaden crust.

Over the years, I’ve tried and failed to adapt my mother’s adage of “only worry about things you can do something about.” I’m a worrier, and worrying can make me cranky. Aside: I imagine my husband, mother, sons, and friends reading that last sentence and laughing hysterically. Perhaps cranky is too mild a word. Conversely, I have mellowed somewhat in my old age. I still worry excessively, but I think I do a better job of handling it.

Then a week comes along where an egg would fry on the sidewalk, two fairly new appliances fail, family challenges arise, work is ‘interesting,’ and the post-surgery boot feels welded to my foot. But I see an amazing physical therapist, work always works itself out, ditto on the family stuff, it wasn’t the AC that broke down, and the heat, well…

The weather is the one thing I never worry about because it is totally out of my control. When shivery 50 mph winds whip across this piece of prairie in late winter, I’m going to remind myself to be grateful it’s not nearly 100 degrees outside. And when life lobs lemons at me, I’m not going to make lemonade; I’m just going to lob them back.

Just not at the ceiling.