Hot and Bothered

Now that it has finally stopped raning, our street has once again come alive with various construction and earth-moving equipment and general commotion.  We are getting some new neighbors down the street (who are young, says our neighbor across the street), and they have had huge trucks parked on the side street by our house for at least a week now.  The "gucks" (Jacob-speak for "trucks"), are fascinating to him, and I actually don't mind the noise that much.

The next-door neighbors are also putting up a new fence.  They had told us a few weeks ago that they were getting a fence, and it wasn't because they didn't like us!  They wanted a fenced-in area for their new dog, as well as some wind break. 

However, part of the fence is about 6 feet away from our family room window, and I'm pretty sure we will have no view at all out of that window anymore.  I guess they have a right to do what they want to on their own property but... dang.  Not cool.

Needless to say, it has been noisy around here, and yesterday the temps reached the mid-90s.  When I broke down mid-afternoon to turn on the air (you guessed it), it didn't work.  It was too late in the day to call a repairman and not pay an emergency fee, so I decided we could wait until tomorrow.  By 4pm, it was 86 degrees in our house.  We were MELTING.  By 10:30 when we went to bed, it was a balmy 82.  All of the open windows and ceiling fans just couldn't compete with the west windows and lack of breeze.  Wait, is this July???

Today, we had the farmers working in the field behind the house as well as the neighborhood association mowing the common areas and open lots with a tractor and blade.  Lovely, lovely timing.  Oh, and the fencing guys were working thisclose to my family room windows.  Like, I could count the freckles on their backs, they were so close.  Plus, they were drinking from our water spigot.  I hated to be a b---- and begrudge them water on a hot day, but hello?  Bring your own water jug.  Jacob, of course, loved the action. 

So because of the dust and lack of privacy, I kept some of the downstairs windows closed until the repairman arrived around noon.  We were at 83 degrees when the repairman arrived.  He put in a new thermostat and thought that would take care of the problem.  When he said, "I need you to follow me outside," I knew there was more to the story.  It turns out, the mice had built a nest in the air conditioner and chewed through the wires.  I stayed far, far, far away from the air conditioner as he was explaining this, using a screwdriver to disassemble the mouse nest. 

(Should I even be blogging about this? )

After he uncovered two carcasses of electrocuted mice, I hightailed it back inside.  Some things, I just don't want to know. 

Finally, our air conditioning is back up and running.  The field work and construction work make for some good neighborhood entertainment, and the fence... I will have to get used to.