For nearly a year now, I've played nurse and caregiver in a series of household plagues. Night after night of kids waking up screaming because they have a sore throat or can't breathe past the goo in their noses or their lungs. A wife who is non-functional. Each bout of pestilence has passed me by leaving me unscathed, except for lack of sleep. Now I'm sick too. Sick with a damned cold, just nasty enough to keep a person awake at night. And it's flippin' hot around here. Not Phoenix, Arizona, homeless people dropping like flies hot, but still damned hot. When you live in a place like eastern Arizona or Texas or some other killing hot place, you develop coping strategies, like running from one air-conditioned box to another. Life happens in the mornings and the evenings when temperatures drop from triple digits if you're lucky. But when it's 104 degrees in San Jose, it's sort of a shock. All my plans for polishing scratches out of the minivan or rubbing the sap spots off the sedan or replacing the galvanized water main in the garage all get put on hold. Little people get frustrated because they can't go out and play baseball or ride their bikes. Thank goodness for technology. Thank goodness for air conditioning. I used to sniff in my coastal Orange County ignorance at all the air conditioners on all the boxy houses in the Central Valley. Silly back-country hicks, sucking up all that energy just so they can stay cool. Coming from a town regularly caressed by cool on-shore breezes, I had no idea. Then my parents needed to leave California. My dad remembered California in the late 50s and early 60s. He didn’t like how armies of plastic-faced, status-conscious, uberconsumers had claimed the land for themselves. First we checked out Glendale, Arizona… in July. My parents live near Tacoma now. So I’m sick, I’m hot, and I’m working extra hard to keep myself productive while indoors. Maybe I’ll go build that Tamiya tracked-vehicle kit for my son. Pakeha