Suzy Says

The unusual rain gave way to unnatural heat. It’s been way too hot for way too long. Looking at the weather forecast makes me want to cry. At first, they said it would go away on Monday, but now it looks like Thursday before we can get onto the back burner. I hate the front burner.

Living in my uninsulated, upside down rowboat shaped house doesn’t help. Even when it has cooled down outside, it’s still an oven in the house, especially upstairs in the sleeping loft. Even with the screen door (thanks, Rob!) and a fan on upstairs, I can barely sleep with a sheet on, and I hate that. It’s flying in the face of my pro-blanket policy.

The heat makes me cranky (or crankier), as you can tell. On Friday, my brother invited me over to the property for a barbecue. He said that Erica and Jessica were there, and my late-breaking birthday present, but I didn’t want to leave the three fans in my living room for the sunstroke savanna that is the property. He called me back to ask me again, and I felt like Cameron in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, where he says, “He’ll keep calling me…he’ll keep calling me…he’ll make me feel guilty…OK, I’ll go! I’ll go! I’ll go!” You can see Alan Ruck in all his comic splendor in this scene here.

I got in the car and blasted the tunes and the air conditioning, even though it’s a quarter of a mile drive (not including our very long driveways). I drove about 10 miles an hour the whole way to make the coolness last as long as possible. When I finally pulled up, Jessica came over to the car and she was actually mad at me for not coming sooner, so it’s a good thing I didn’t bail on the whole thing completely as originally planned. I don’t think she has ever been mad at me before.

We huddled in the shade of some rhododendrons and drank some cold Mike’s. My present turned out to be a fancy camera. Erica asked her professional photographer friends what they would recommend as a step up from the one I had, and they suggested this one. It’s $900 new, but Erica found one that had been previously enjoyed, but not too much, since it still had its original packaging and accessories. She had even taken a couple of pictures of Jessica to test it out. I was kind of overwhelmed. Just the ceramic knife (which I use all the time) would have been enough!

Lichen turned up, hot and scratchy after a long day of ripping out brambles in the bone-crushing heat. He sat in the shade, took off his boots, and applied tea tree oil to his scratches. He says it’s the best thing for scratches and bug bites. I thought about how different our days had been before we all met up. Lichen working in the sun; Jonathan driving to another town to help a friend fix his equipment (and later working on Erica’s car); Erica and Jessica’s long drive from the Valley; Megan working in the garden in the blazing sun; me at the courthouse with all those other sad women (it’s always women), working on our paperwork for divorce or custody or restraining orders, supporting each other the best we could.

My divorce is hopefully on track for October 2. The judge in the county seat wanted me to fill out an Income and Expense worksheet and submit copies of my pay stubs (which I don’t have) and tax returns, all of which felt like a huge invasion of privacy. It also seemed totally unnecessary, since we have already signed and notarized a document which states that we are not asking each other for alimony and further, that we never can, so it seems ridiculous to do this other paperwork.

The Family Law Facilitator said that the county seat judge is new and wants everyone to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s, but she was pretty confident that the local one wouldn’t, so hopefully that will work out. If not, I’ll just have to do the extra paperwork. Apparently John and I may well get the final decree from the judge before October 2, though the soonest we can plan our next weddings is October 3.

I’ll get right on that.