Lavender in a Christmas Cup

The heat wave is making its arrival. The leaves on the trees rustle and the Weeping Birch branches sway in the breeze, but it is a hot south wind blowing. There will be no relaxing on the back porch today, the heat is stifling and the mercury continues to climb. The cool lake winds do not blow, our natural air conditioner has been switched off.

Just reading the temperature forecast makes my mother overheated. We are tempted to cut the weather section from the pages of her morning news. She doesn't appear to find relief when in an air conditioned building, nor does she realize that her oxygen supply remains constant while ours is severely affected by the humidity and ozone levels. I grant her the fact that it's uncomfortable, I'll forgive her for being tired, but I don't understand why she doesn't want to sit near a fan.

We've turned on our one small air conditioner in the bedroom window upstairs and put a fan in the doorway to blow the cooler air out into the hallway where it will hopefully flow downstairs. So far it seems to be helping, at least a little bit, but the hot wind outside continues to blow. This is not a "dry" heat. The dew point is near 70° and climbing, but I don't see any hope of rain and the relief it might bring.