Wait, I didn't know the degrees went up that high.

Ok, I did. But I like to keep myself in denial about the whole "Northeast America is like a boiling swamp in the summer time" thing.

Seriously, a boiling swamp.

The second floor of this house is intolerable. No one goes up there.

It was too hot today to even think about walking to the pool because the second you step out the door, sweat starts rolling down your face in trails so thick it looks like you're in the shower.

That's not classy at all.

Speaking of classy, I told T some horror stories about life in Stroudsburg after the ghetto moved in. Actually, it wasn't all that classy before that anyway...but I didn't mention that.

When she got home from work and picking up J this afternoon we high-tailed it to the pool in the air conditioned Mercedes.

Earlier in the afternoon some poor saps had to deliver lumber here for the upcoming renovation. Two young (not hot, one had spiky purple-ish hair) Latino men had to unload the van in the driveway and carry armful after armful of bundled lumber down to the basement.

I offered them water but they barely spoke English, so I think they were just confused by my hand gestures and drinking motions. I got two glasses of water anyway and they each politely drank half, exactly half.

When they finished I insisted that they go back in and finish they're water. I was sweating just from having the door propped open for them to work. And I don't know if you know this, but full Latinos sweat gallons more than us half-breeds. And us half breeds sweat gallons more than you white people. So if you're white, go ahead and be grossed out, but this is real life and it's a serious dehydration risk.

I had to water those boys.

Anyway, we got to the pool at three and just stayed there. My face was starting to shrivel from the sun reflecting off the water, but even that was preferable to being out in the heat.

T looked bored, but she seemed to be having the same inner battle that I was. Get out and instantly sweat off every last drop of moisture in my body or stay in the pool?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..............

When it was time to meet R's bus she just ran up the street, got her, came back and jumped into the pool. We weren't messing around.

And we had some good conversations.

We talk mostly of the kids or kids in general, but today there was that little bit about the ghetto that is my hometown. So proud.

And then T met another mother and they chatted for a bit while I was swimming and afterward T told me, "When you find nice people in this neighborhood you have to hold on to them." The hoighty-toighty cliques in this community turn her off. She's much to down to earth to play keeping up with Joneses too hard core.

I think in order to live here, you have to at least participate a little and I think T does in the venues that she really cares about. She wants to have a nice yard for her kids to play in, however, she had several large, showy garden patches removed from the front yard when she moved in so that 1) there would be more grass to play in and 2) she wouldn't have to keep them up.

And if you walk through this neighborhood and see the rose buses and the lilac bushes and the strips and pathways of large, expensive trees and flowers you know that that sort of thing is just not done.

I can never get over the relief that I feel when I realize that this family is not like that.

I could have gotten myself into quite an awkward situation living with a Great Neck family, but I think God found me a really good one.

When we did finally have to get out of the pool we ran home and showered and changed for dinner at T's mother's.

I had (and still have) water stuck in my left ear. When I talk it echoes in my head and when others talk it sounds like I'm under water. All evening long I was going, "I'm sorry?" "What?" "What's that?" or nodding and smiling weirdly when I didn't really care that I couldn't hear. Like when the kids tell me things like "Next the ducky song is on."

I got J to eat enough to take his medicine before he started gagging, his new dramatic way of telling us he's done. I have never seen a child hate food so much. And he does. He hates it. He won't even eat junk food willingly. The other day I made healthy cookies masked in oodles of chocolate and I had to plead with him to eat it.

T worked on the baby who, since it was well past his bedtime by the time we got to the house, wanted nothing to do with any of us.

R got a tummy ache and cried the whole night. She had two glasses of tea and used the bathroom a couple of times.

So the adults had to do all of the eating and I did. T's mom makes the best guacamole I think I've ever had, which is saying something, because I know a lot of Mexicans.

We all faded quickly after dinner. Those of us that had been baking in the sun were all drowsy from it and E had a long day at work and began nodding off on the couch while still eating cookies. It was time to go.

Now I'm off to sleep on my left side so that hopefully the cup of water that is being stored in my ear will drain tonight so I can fill it back up with pool water tomorrow.

It's gonna be a scorcher!