It's too darn hot..........

Melbourne is having a 100 year heat wave this week and we don't have air conditioning.  Normally, we don't need it because dry heat usually means lovely cool nights with a breeze that flows straight from Antarctica.  Not this week.  It's 108 degrees right now, 5pm on Wednesday, (that's 42.5 Celsius) and it's supposed to be hotter tomorrow.  We shut the house up at around 7am this morning and the coolness still lingers on the southern side (don't forget, it's all backwards here) but only while you are standing.  Once you sit, it's just hot.

The commuter trains have huge problems in this weather because the steel tracks expand with the heat.  That leaves lots of hot people on the train platforms getting hotter. Greg took the tram this morning so he wouldn't be stuck in traffic in an overheated car.  We'll see how the tram goes.

 I have been putting my computer on the marble fireplace mantle so that it will cool down between uses.  I have not left the house today.  All the shades and curtains are drawn and I am sitting in a dark room drinking my 8th glass of ice tea, (I make my own, with mint, the way Maria L showed me a long time ago), in front of the fan, which seems to be blowing hot air at this point.  The floor is even hot, (no concrete slabs here - most houses are built up off the ground - at least the old ones are).  You'd think that people would have built basements in this kind of climate, (cool basements with concrete or stone foundations - it's not like there is so much groundwater).  But, no, they have omitted that from their architectural repertoire.  They also have more deadly insects here than anywhere else in the world but look at you funny when you suggest a thing like a screened in porch.

To top it all off, I'm 6 months pregnant, (give or take a few days) so my body, the oven, is not coping as well as it could.  I'm going to make my husband take me to 24 hour kmart tonight, or even to a 3 hour movie so that my skin can at least cool down.  Of course, the kid is kickin' like crazy - she must love this weather!

I keep making ice.

I suppose I should be happy because for the rest of the year it's cool and our house can be drafty and cold - cold, as in, we have no heat either.  I just can't seem to win!