Loud Music in the Heat

I hate this weather. Today the high was 92. Tomorrow the high is supposed to be 96! Tuesday it cools down to 95! YUCK.

This is the price we pay for living in Atlanta and having nice weather 9 months of the year. June, July, and August are the months we endure sticky heat.

I ran in Kroger tonight to pick up some things I hadn’t been able to find at Publix yesterday, and the ice cream section looked like a plague of locusts had ripped through there. I couldn’t find the Breyer’s low carb ice cream we like. I did find some bars, which will do for emergencies. It’s so much easier to stick to a low sugar diet when one can have a little ice cream after dinner.

We’re not due to get any significant rain for another week.

Bruce called Michael this morning to wish him Happy Birthday, and they chatted a few minutes. It was good to hear his voice – I was sitting right next to Michael on the sofa and we have a speakerphone.

We met my cousin Jan and her son for lunch today at the Colonnade. Jan lives in Albany but was up here for a cousins reunion which we couldn’t attend yesterday.

She gave Michael a cute birthday present, a set of books. They are all by Mary Pope Osborne, and two are the Magic Treehouse series. Michael needs to read more.

The Colonnade had a new appetizer on the menu, something called redneck sushi. It looked like sushi [I had to try it] but it was pulled pork, rice, and several other ingredients. It was spicy and flavorful, and warm, unlike real sushi, which makes me gag. The waiter said the chef had created it and filmed a segment about it for one of the TV cooking shows.

I took the children roller skating this afternoon. What a nightmare. I took two books and tried to read while the kids skated. Michael came over every 10 minutes. Alesia and her two friends were great, and didn’t bother me. The music they played in that place was godawful – I don’t even know how to characterize it. It was a lot of slamming bass and screeching noise. I could hear the thump thump in my sternum. Ugh. I didn’t recognize a single song. Next time I am taking earplugs.

The most horrifying sight was a young woman with a baby and two toddlers. She tried to get out on the floor and skate with the baby in her arms. Yikes. I was so irritated she had a 1 year old baby in that incredibly loud place. I wanted to call DFACS on her, I was so angry. That child is going to have a hearing loss before he gets to kindergarten.

I know I am REALLY OLD now because all I could think of in the skating rink was “Why can’t they turn this crap music DOWN?!!”

Our movie tonight was Fool’s Gold, with Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson. It was baaaaad. Matthew is always delightful to watch, when he looks clean. In most of his recent movies he spends a lot of time looking dirty and unshaven and stinky. Thanks a lot, Mr. Unsexy Symbol. I used to think he was gorgeous.

Mike said the funniest thing the other day, and I forgot to mention it. He said something about “bones and arrows.” We laughed so hard.

We have seen a lot more emotionally volatile Alesia in the last week or so. She got upset and cried about an innocent remark Mother made about her hair this morning. Took me some fast talking to get her calmed down. The other day she cried over some annoying thing Michael was doing. I don’t know if this is just hormones, or if the therapist is starting to break down some barriers around her heart. I am prepared for either scenario, but I pray it’s the latter. Her previous mode was simply to divert her attention from anything upsetting and go into her little world. Now we are asking her to really think about things which are painful, and the really feel whatever she feels.

I think she is finally starting to understand that the therapist and I together have a net underneath her, and she won’t fall. It’s an amazing and scary thing to watch.