Someone alert the global warming conspiracy theorists!  This year’s annual long-ass heat wave has officially begun, and it didn’t even take a few days to get really hot.  That picture above was taken this afternoon of my thermometer display by my front door.  The sensor is outside getting baked in the oven-hot air.  It actually topped out at 110 degrees shortly after I took it.  Now, I have a weather background, as believe it or not, meteorology is what I studied in college, and I know that temperature as we see it reported on TV is not taken in the same conditions we are used to seeing on our thermometers and those on bank clocks.  When the TV weatherman says it hit 100 degrees at the airport, Ninth National Bank might have 113 on it’s melting LCD display.  The TV is more accurate, though the bank clock is closer to what we feel…

Anyway, I looked up the official high temperature for St. Louis today, and it looks like it hit 107, so my little $14 piece of junk I bought at Wal~Mart wasn’t that far off.  There are places in the country where 107 isn’t anything to get all bent out of shape about…. St. Louis isn’t one of them.  The all time high for the Gateway city is 114 degrees back in July 1954, so we’re flirting with all-time record heat here…

What a horrible time of year to have a bushy tail.

I had mentioned before this was one of my avatars I drew during last year’s heat wave, which pretty much ran from mid-July right on through Labor Day, and gave us more 100 degree highs than we normally get in a decade.  The heat that summer pretty much fried my brain and put me at a creative standstill.  I think I did little BUT the avatars during the entire time.  And now it looks like it’ll be deja vu all over again, as the triple digit heat is predicted for at least the next 5-7 days, with tomorrow being as bad if not worse than today!

Well, at least I have something to occupy me during this week in hell…

Reading is Fundamental, as is cleaning out that hard to reach spot behind the bowl.

Last week, I was doing a search on Richard Mallery’s book “Nuts About Squirrels” , and checked out its listing on Amazon and noticed there were used copies of it available for a mere penny (well, and $3.99 shipping).  I was all over that, and yesterday my book arrived!  I’ve already knocked out almost half of the book today, and hope to have my report on it finished within a week.  After already polishing off Vandal’s “Dizzy Miss Lizzie” earlier this year, this will be my second full book I’ve read in six months, which may be a personal record for me since my school days ended 15 years ago.

OK, that’s about all my fried brain can do right now.  It’s still showing a toasty 109 outside, and it’s only about 25 degrees cooler indoors.  At least since it’s only rained once this entire month, the humidity is 19%, so it’s a dry heat….

The rodent fire danger is still very high.