Finally it's hot in Portland -- in the 80s every day this week, and I will not be one of those complaining, even in a house with no air-conditioners, a menopausal mom, a dried out flower garden, and a daughter and dog who wither in the sun. After this winter of snow, ice, shoveling, breath hanging in the air, slippery sidewalks, huge heating bills, and too many temperatures in the teens, all lasting far into April, I will enjoy every drop of sweat I endure.
Not my two charges though. Kanha, from the day she came home from Cambodia - a country where the average temperature year-round is around 90 degrees - would emerge from a half hour on the playground on a warm New England day with a head of hair so soaked it appeared she had been for a swim rather than a swing. The wet head look has diminished over the years, as the pediatrician predicted, but she still tosses and turns in the warmth of her bedroom even with the fan on high. It's hard to imagine how she would have managed if she hadn't left her original tropical home.
It turns out Theo has the same challenge. With a body of thick, beautifully brindled hair that doesn't shed, I can't see him enjoying life in western Tennessee where he was born. Last week, after watching him mope lethargically around our house for several days and discovering that the poor puppy, like all dogs apparently, can't sweat out his discomfort (must have missed that in 7th grade science...), I called every dog groomer within 20 miles until I found one who could cut his hair immediately. I took him in the next morning and by noon he had emerged a new man.
With all that hair gone, we could see his real body -- the spindly legs, the cylindrical torso, the big brown eyes unhidden by wisps of fur. He looked fresh and innocent, and not one little bit like the dog we had taken in -- except for his bushy, oh-so-confident, erect tail that the groomer had left to its own devices. He was a puppy with a bigger bounce in his step that day, relieved to be a few pounds lighter and a whole lot cooler.
As for me, I sweat on -- or I suppose, when I'm feeling feminine, I "glow." It's a small price to pay for days that might include an intense workout running up and down the stairs in the park around the corner, a barefoot walk through the surf on a magical Maine beach, a hike through a fairy house building zone up to a view of terns and gulls flying above a tiny estuary that extends to the ocean, and a dinner created from farmer's market delectables at my beautiful mosaic table on our lawn. So the flowers are drooping and I must dab my brow often. I'm warm, in many ways.
