I had a few drinks and I think I woke up in hell...

No, really...

Today the weather man was predicting 106, but the temp officially reacged 107 degrees, and the thermometer in my back yard read 113.  We're not even going to talk about the heat index.  Tomorrow... they're predicting 110.  Please God help us all...

Now, I know what some of you are thinking... you live in Texas... what are you griping about.  Trust me, these temps are record breaking.   The usual case is a few days hitting a hundred in July... we've now had aproximately 30 days solid of it... and there's no summer storms.   There hasn't even been a heavy dew.  There are big burned patches by all the highways.  Even the cactus are suffering, many look like half inflated balloons, and no amount of watering seems to be helping. 

Yesterday, I washed a pair of jeans, put them on a hanger, and hung them from the eaves of my house.  They were dry in 15 minutes and I'll swear to it in court on a stack of bibles. 

I'm pulling every trick I know to keep cool and hydrated, but I think I may be losing the battle... 

Everyday, I pack a little cooler with frozen bottles of water and bottles of fruit juice.  Juice is better for you than those sports aides which are full of corn syrup.  And they taste better.  (Quite frankly, I can't choke Gatorade down.)  And if you buy the fruit juice in big bottles or in frozen concentrates, then refill bottles at home, it's much cheaper, and you're saving the landfills from all those hideous single serving bottles.

I also take frest fruit of somekind.  A banana is good... most fruit juices don't have the potasium that you need when you're that hot, and a banana can replenish you.  Sometimes, I take cherry tomatoes... I can eat them like grapes and they're a great potasium source too. 

I also take peppermints.  Those little startlight mints actually make you feel a bit cooler.  Of course, Altoids can give you a cold jolt!  Some people almost find it painful! 

I also pack a plastic bag with 3 or 4 wet bandanas in there... if you get too hot you wrap a wet bandana around your neck and you feel much better.  Lately, I've been putting a capful of rubbing alcohol in the bag with them... it helps.  I also keep hand sanitizer in the truck... it's rubbing alcohol too... NowI know... they say putting rubbing alcohol on your skin will dry it out.  Listen, I'm sweating faster than I can drink sometimes, my skin is consequently extremely oily.  If it was 70 degrees... I'd worry about drying my skin out.  It's bloody 106 already! 

Every day when I come home, I take a special cool bath... now, this is gonna sound strange, but I'll explain it... Three or four inches of cool water with two capfuls of mouthwash in it.

here's the thing... the blue mouthwashes, like Scope, (although I tend to buy the store brands that are identical but cheaper) contain Eucalyptol, Menthol, Methyl salicylate and Thymol, in addition to alcohol.  Eucalyptol and Menthol are both great for cooling down the skin, and these ingredients are all stong antiseptics.  What most of us smell like when we're skanky sweaty isn't our sweat, but the bacteria growing on our bodies and feeding on the sweat... now, I don't claim to smell like a rose, but I don't smell as bad as I used to.  No, you're not going to sanitize yourself, everything is diluted in all that water,  and it probably isn't advisable to sanitize yourself, but you will seriously keep it under control, and when you're sweating buckets, that's neccesary. 

Then I do a quick rinse, again cool water...  quite frankly when it's this hot outside, the water that comes out of the tap marked cold.... ain't cold... but again, hot showers actually promote bacteria growth, and quite frankly you're sweating when you go in and with a hot shower, you're sweating when you get out. 

And... a cool shower actually feels good.  I know, there's all sorts of jokes about cold showers, but it ain't any colder than jumping in a swimming pool. 

And now... that's more information than any of you needed to know about my grooming habits.  LOL