Pretty in Pink - or Green

I don't do well in the heat. I say this with a cringe because in the past that statement has been greeted with anything from eye-rolling (that I wasn't supposed to see) to directly expressed disbelief. And these are the people who actually like me.

So I feel more than a little defensive about this weakness. People think it's all in my head so it probably is all in my head and really I'm just being difficult.

Which means that once a year or so I pretend that I don't get overheated ridiculously easily, that I'm not living in a you-gotta-be-kidding-me desert place, and that really by September it's quite cool outside. Honest.

That happened Monday. I was nagging at the Children, particularly one child, who were planning on spending the day draped over bits of furniture and furrowing their brows at various electronic devices. The combination of button pressing and brow furrowing was apparently going to raise their heart rate enough to constitute exercise. [NOTE: to be fair, Child 1 had done its button pressing - except for the sibling-related type which is constant - early in the morning and was now fretting about nothing to doooOOOOOooo] I chased them all outside with some orange cones and a soccer ball but after the fourth episode of "Child is doing _______ even though I never _______ and..." I had had it. Also I felt a little guilty since I had spent the whole morning crouched over a computer and pressing buttons. Granted mine was Work, but that was hardly the point. So I suggested a nice walk over to a lovely local park! What could be better? It was much cooler than it had been, the walk was only a mile or so, and the whole thing went by bike path.

Yes. Well, I had the good sense to realize, after a few rounds of soccer-ball passing, that I was getting a leetle warm. I just might have needed to realize it a tad earlier.

I've done this just often enough to be able to anticipate all the lovely symptoms of heat exhaustion. Ooooh, I thought as we started on the bridge, there are the muscle cramps! I think I'll feel nauseous next.... there we go! Nausea, now as we get to that traffic light the spots before my eyes should be just about making it impossible to see which means I might manage to stagger to that patch of shade before I actually get so dizzy I pass out.

The Children were quite interested by this demonstration of Heat Exhaustion - How to Recognize, and entertained themselves and me by narrating the bits I couldn't appreciate. "Ooooh, you're not really flushed now, you're all pale. Even your lips are pale - hey! Your ears are pale too!" Thanks guys.

We made it home, having stopped once more to sit in humiliation on a shady curb and then barely making it into the door to collapse on the couch. Child 2 brought me water, then gave me a nice commentary for the next hour. "You're gray now! Really gray. Okay, now you're more greeny - yah, definitely greenish. NOW you're all pink!"

Have I mentioned that I really, really don't like the heat?