It’s finally officially summer, and even before the season began, my opinion of it remained the same as it’s been, at least since I graduated from high school.

Summer is no fun anymore. It’s not just that there’s not an extended break from responsibility, but that each summer seems hotter and longer than the previous one.

Sure, I did enjoy that little hit of nostalgia the other evening when feline charge Tomkin stayed out in the garden long enough for the fireflies to come out. I did have to fight the urge to find a jar or just use my hands to trap one for a few moments. It was a mild summer day, which we don’t get much anymore, and it was one of two in a row when I didn’t feel lile my eyeballs were sweating. The day Tomkin’s parents came back, on the other hand, was hot and muggy, and still he insisted he stay out longer (I declined his entreaties and carried his fuzzy butt back inside where it was cool and he had tuna and fresh cold water on demand). He mostly forgave me, partly because I let him hold me down for an hour while he snoozed on my chest.

I love my home state, but have to admit that, even with the abundance of lakes, rivers and other bodies of water, Arkansas is just no match for the humidity and the heat of a blazing-hot sun, especially in those areas where an unobstructed view has meant the clearcutting of trees that could tamp down the heat a bit.

In my own low-income neighborhood (a mile as the crow flies from the Arkansas River, so I know from humidity), there aren’t many trees to be found where they need to be. The afternoon sun that hits my bedroom window quickly heats up the house, and my temper. (I have an awning to put up over that window, but it hasn’t been installed yet. Once upon a time, before my former landlord bought the house, there were awnings over the front two windows; he took them down after he bought them. I should have insisted before I bought the house from him that he do something to mediate the issue.)

Don’t mess with an overheated, overweight word nerd in an Arkansas summer. On the other hand, she’s too weak in such a state to heave a dictionary at you.

I tend to spend much of my summers now house/cat-sitting because, really, how better to fix a bad mood than to take care of goofy and sweet balls of floof?

Other suggestions:

🩱 Find a secluded swimming hole, preferably with lots of tree cover (make sure you have permission if it’s on private land) since most other bodies of water will have too many people crowding them (ewww … people). Even if, like me, you don’t swim and would rather sit under a tree reading (that was a favorite activity for me when I was a kid and we had several shady spots on our property), dipping your feet in cold water has a way of making you feel better. Sharing that with a few good friends will elevate the mood, especially as we head into the hotter parts of summer. July and August are just around the corner.

🫗 Drink lots of water. Sure, have other refreshment too, but make sure you drink water. I keep a bottle of ice water handy just about anywhere I go. I can handle room-temperature water if I’m already cool, but if I come in from the heat or have been working on something physically exhausting, only cold water will do. Dehydration is no fun, nor are heat exhaustion and heatstroke. I’ve had two of the three, and that was more than enough to convince me to drink water.

🌡️ Set your thermostat higher. I know, it’s hot. We’re all hot, and keeping air conditioners running practically nonstop is just asking for a power outage at the worst possible time. You’ll acclimate to the higher temperature (if I can, being someone who can easily overheat, you certainly can). Friend Sarah usually keeps her AC set at 76; most of the time it’s very comfortable, and fur-nephews Charlie and Ollie cope well. When I go somewhere where the AC is set at 72 or lower, I often find myself wishing I had my sweater. At home I don’t have central air; the AC in my bedroom is usually set at 76, and with fans it’s at least tolerable unless it’s been extraordinarily hot. There is no AC in the kitchen (and fans can only do so much), so I mostly avoid it during the summer except to get something out of the refrigerator.

🍨 Eat something cold. The Little Rock area is lucky to have Loblolly (my go-to is Arkansas Mud), but there are also places like Scoops, Shake’s Frozen Custard, the Purple Cow and others where you can find something cold and sweet to cool your taste buds (remember to pace yourself so you don’t get brain freeze) … and you can find regular food at some of these places (like Purple Cow and Dairy Queen … love the DQ chicken strips with gravy) so you can pretend that ice cream/shakes/etc. isn’t why you’re really there (though we know it is). You can always just pick up ice cream or other frozen desserts at the grocery store. I always keep frozen fruit on hand as well, for snacking or for a quick sorbet (that smoothie blender I have is perfect for this).

Salads and sandwiches are the way to go for a no-cook meal if you don’t have the money or inclination to order something. Summer is the only time it’s acceptable to me to have cold tacos. You may call it a wrap, but on Taco Tuesdays, it’s a cold taco, dammit.

🤬 Don’t unnecessarily get yourself worked up. Whether that means taking a break from family reunions, social media or whatever, don’t intentionally put yourself somewhere you know you’ll be pulled into a fracas. High tempers mean high temperatures (and vice versa; it’s so easy to be cranky when you’re too hot) … and possibly bruises and broken bones. For me, though, the bruises will happen regardless, and I never have a good story behind them (the joys of aging when you inherited your grandma’s tendency to bruise if a mosquito breathes on you).

There are many more ways to keep cool during an Arkansas summer, which sometimes can feel like the gateway to hell (usually around late July to mid August), but these are some that have worked for me.

😫😫😫😫😫

I  was torn this week, most notably between misinformation about the ballot issues (especially the abortion amendment) and the horrible shooting in Fordyce last Friday. Because I knew that my thoughts would quickly overheat, I chose to focus on a different sort of overheating today. That doesn’t mean that I’m not gravely concerned.

People should seek out facts rather than spout misinformed opinion on abortion; the “statistic” (scare quotes intentional) of 97 to 99 percent of abortions being for “convenience” is especially troubling, and not rooted in fact unless you dismiss everything except rape and incest (generally labeled as between 1 and 3 percent, which is likely under-reported) as “convenience.” I saw these statistics pulled out of asses multiple times online in the past couple of weeks, never with any documentation.

But that’s because too many people see issues like abortion and guns in binary black and white terms rather than the many-hued shades of gray these complex issues present in reality.

Sure, there are probably some people who genuinely have abortions for convenience, but they’re an infinitesimal portion of the whole. In reality, there are many reasons someone might seek an abortion, including lack of stability in finances or home life (domestic abuse, etc.), health conditions that make pregnancy life-threatening (birth control can fail, and OB-GYNs sometimes actively discourage women in childbearing years from sterilization procedures), fatal fetal abnormalities and many other complex issues that can’t be simply put in a box.

Abortion care in many cases preserves the ability to have a child later; not getting that care in a timely manner can not only leave a parent with a very sick child they can’t afford to take care of, but also the loss of fertility because the only way to save both child and mother was to perform a hysterectomy immediately after birth. The “life of the mother” exception (the only one that remains in some laws; laws providing exceptions for rape and incest often require that police reports be filed, which is a nonstarter in some cases) is written so vaguely (with “medical emergency” inadequately defined) that doctors are afraid to provide the needed care for fear of arrest, and it doesn’t take long to get past the ever-shortening cutoffs for legal abortion. The longer the pregnancy goes on, the more danger there is for a mother dealing with a cesarian-scar pregnancy, a fetus with no brain or other defect incompatible with life, or a hundred other complications that would essentially sacrifice two lives when one could be saved.

As far as guns go, we could use reasonable gun regulations, which are supported by the majority of people; however, a very small but vocal minority always shouts down any suggestion of such, lobbying instead for weaker protections for humans, and more for inanimate objects. Because of that, young mother Callie Weems, 23; Roy Sturgis, 50; Shirley Taylor, 62; and Ellen Shrum, 81, are dead, and though the gunman was taken alive, his reasons for going to Fordyce’s only grocery store that day fully loaded are still a mystery.

And you wonder why I chose to write about why I despise summer. Man, I need a frozen banana slice. And cuddles from floofy boys.