Tubs full of ice, frozen grapes and sleeping with a wet towel

...just a few of the ideas y'all passed on to help me cool down. Inventive and interesting bunch of suggestions, some of which made me laugh hard enough to cause an internal rise in temperature and red face.

Hmmmm, you need to work on your responses or I need to work on mine.

About 1:30 this morning as we headed home from a folklore program and the temperature was still in the high 70s, I wondered whether sneaking a midnight dip in our neighbor's pool would get us into trouble.

We had thought Los Creadores was air conditioned. Big mistake! So we spent three hours sweltering in a large room packed with people and only puny ceiling fans that barely stirred the air. I used a little paper fan almost continuously. And since I'd worn my multi-ruffled, below-the-knees, totally synthetic skirt [read: HOT] I pulled my chair fully under the table and sort of hiked my skirt up well above the knees (don't worry, they had the all the lights turned down except for those on the stage).  

When we headed home it was still rather warm, prompting those fantasies about the neighbor's pool. Since most Argentines are pretty security conscious and have not only alarms but flood lights and such to scare off potential robbers, I decided following through on the fantasy was probably not a good idea.

Thankfully we had a break in the weather. Hallelujah!!! About 8 o'clock this morning the wind picked up and it looked like we were going to get a cooling storm. That silly storm blew over just like all the others have for the past month but the wind did push the temperature down to the 80s.

This afternoon we had asado with friends and it felt so nice under the trees in their yard with the cool breeze; the first time in a month we could sit in the shade and not sweat buckets.

Back at the ponderosa, however, our block and stucco house which has been soaking up all the intense heat for weeks is not about to cool down on such short notice. After returning home I hauled my stuff out to the patio and, liberally coated in bug spray, worked out there until it got too dark. Now it's back in front of the two fans in the living room.

Hopefully the weather forecasters are right and it will stay in the 80s for the coming week.

I'm sure come July when I'm shivering in my Cuddleduds and multiple layers of clothing that I will long for these long hot days of summer.

I'll also be trying to score an air conditioner while the prices are lower.