San Francisco's stupid weather

If you haven't ever been to the Bay Area, or at least stayed here very long, you might not be familiar with the inverse seasons. Summer is generally cold and foggy - particularly at our house, right on the coast, just south of the City. Winter tends to be mild, and a bit wet, but generally clear skies (it rarely rains harder than a bit of an enthusiastic drizzle). Lately, however, it's been topping 100 degrees in places - right up to 90 at the 'Groove, which is just freaking unheard of.

To escape the heat (there's no air conditioning at our house - but it also never gets above 70 here!) we engaged in a long standing Southern tradition. We packed our kid into the car and headed to Wal-Mart! Well, OK, Target. The nearest Wal-Mart is about 2 hours away. But it's the spirit of the thing that counts.

Now that Ella's walking, she's into everything dangerous. Sniff, sniff - what's that? Gas. Oh how cute. She's figured out how to turn on the oven. Isn't walking fun? So we picked up a whole passel of safety gear. And now it takes me an hour and a half to figure out how to turn on the stove to make the damn Macaroni and Cheese.

We also replaced all our towels and our kitchen garbage can - the first time since we've been married. The old garbage can was your basic blue rubbermaid - it had long ago lost any real shape, and was due for retirement in the mid '90's. And new towels. I'm not sure how often you're supposed to replace towels, but do yourselves a favor. Replace your old towels. I had forgotten that drying off isn't supposed to chafe your nether bits.