*passes out*

Dear sweet mother of the lord it's hot here. I had the day off Tuesday and couldn't even enjoy much fun outdoors because of the sweltering heat. When it's already 85 degrees by 7am, you know life outside is going to suck.

I still played some basketball yesterday around 9am, but only lasted about 30 minutes due to my life flashing before my eyes. That, and the heinous shooting I was doing. I blame the heat.

The other night Amy and I went over to a friend's pool where we subsequently floated around like dead bodies in the water for a hour or so. It was delightful. I went again last night.

In other news, I've been exercising regularly since moving into the city and I love it. I'm always amazed by how much better I feel when I get off my lazy butt on a regular bases. Every morning I either walk or bike for about 35-40 minutes. I'm actually getting up around 7am daily without too much pain.

It used to be nice and cool at that time of day, but now it's already gross outside.

Anyway, I'm feeling better and getting into shape. Plus, I'm getting to recognize more neighbors who also rise that early in the morning. It's also an easy way to be regularly appalled at the level of trash strewn around our neighborhood. There's a nice bike path along a nearby waterway near me as well, but I don't always feel safe walking down that by myself. The bike path is sad though because the stream looks like hell. It's just littered with every type of trash you can think of, and then the other day I finally found a sign (partially hidden by a tree branch) stating, "Stay Out, water is polluted." That makes me sad.

I also almost had an old person moment yesterday. I was working from home because Home Despot finally showed up to install our exterior doors. Once they had left, I heard some chattering out front. I peered out the front window to the find three small girls playing in my front yard with pieces of carpet. They were rooting around near the edge of my patio, so I went out to see what they were up to. And I was honestly tempted to yell, "Get off my lawn!"

"Hi gals, what are you up to?" I asked looking down at them from the front porch.

"We're trying to make a fort," said the oldest one (maybe 9 years old). "We're trying to make this carpet stretch from your porch to this guy's so we can sit underneath."

They were holding five or six pieces of torn up carpet they rescued from a neighbor's home where the carpet was being torn out. If only they had been around a month ago, I could've given them more purple carpet than they could have ever imagined.

Anyway, not one to ruin fort-building fun (I used to do that sort of thing, too), I offered some tips and even helped use some heavy objects on our porch to hold down the carpet while they tried to stretch it to the other porch. It wasn't long enough.

So they asked for tape. I brought them some packaging tape and just made them promise to give it back. Then I went back inside because it was about 400 degrees outside. A few minutes later I peeked out through the window again to see the gals making this excellent grid of packaging tape strips between the porches. Then they would put pieces of magazine on top of the tape pieces. I guess they gave up on the carpet.

Minutes later there was a knock on my door, and when I opened it I found the roll of packaging tape sitting on my doorknob.

They even cleaned up after themselves after they were done with the fort construction. They've redeemed my view of some of the kids in our neighborhood.